Prepare For Takeoff

"My brokenness is a better bridge for people than my pretend wholeness ever was." -Sheila Walsh


The bridge of brokenness. This is one of my favorites quotes. It is true isn't it? That pretend wholeness is a lie, and no relationship built on a lie can truly help anyone. In my experience, pretend wholeness only challenges others to pretend they are whole as well, driving wounds deeper into the dark closets where we keep our most painful secrets. 

We are living in an era of "real". Celebrities are ditching make up on social media. Mamas are openly sharing their laundry piles and their I've-had-enough-kids-get-in-the-car-it's-happy-meal-night moments. Authors are releasing books on healing marriages on the same day they've decided to get a divorce. Courageous kids are being honest about their struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts. People are telling it like it is. It's a great thing. 

But. 

I don't like real. 

Don't get me wrong, I'll tell you about how I lost it with my toddler. I'll take a make up free selfie. The safe real? I can do that. I think it's because I've figured out that people won't judge the safe real. In fact, they applaud it. I will show you the real that you will cheer for any day. 

It's the dangerous real that has landed me here. People have gone there too. That author I mentioned above? She calls herself a truth-teller and she's been brave enough to reach her battered and bruised hand out to lift up thousands of other hands. I haven't been. Better late than never. 

My current dangerous real is that I am holed up in my parents' home at age 32 with two babies. I am stressed and expect way too much of my 3-year-old and yell way too much in an effort to make him act like a grown up, when I can't act like a grown up myself. I have been separated from my husband for one month. I still don't know if it was the right or wrong decision, a battle I daily struggle with. I am a recovered rage-a-holic who expects to be in some type of therapy for the rest of my days to maintain a normal being because I. Am. Never. Going. Back. to that place where anger and violence ruled. My marriage is hanging by the thinnest of threads and I still want to see God take that thread and sew it into his tapestry of my life. You know, the kind where you see the ugly on the back but He, the creator and sustainer of my life, sees the whole beautiful picture. But. Some days I want to cut that thread in my anger and bitterness. I just got off Zoloft but would take it again in a heartbeat. I have a real addiction to sugar that I have a cute way of laughing off as "Haha. You know girls. We've gotta have chocolate."  I run to chocolate for peace and a seratonin boost. It's a dry well, my friends. This is only the beginning of my dangerous real. 

So welcome to my bridge of brokenness. I hope you can find a friend here, in me, as we struggle from one web of trials to the next, together. I hope you see how Jesus works in my life as I display it here, and I hope we all see his glory and our redemption. You aren't alone. Not here. Not ever. 

Here's my shaking hand.