I Will Grow Soft

The last month has felt insufferable and I’ve hurt in ways I didn’t think I could hurt anymore. And I’ve wanted to run away from this pain so many times in the past weeks, and yet, I keep being reminded to be still, to sit with it—to let it pour over me, to wait.

To be still in the hurt, so I can soften. To let this pain wash over me and wait in this season of deciduousness, so I can grow—so I can become.

I’ve realized as I’ve processed that I want to run because I’m afraid. I’m profoundly scared that no one will be able to love me in the ways I need or desire—that no one will be willing to go to the hard places with me, and that I won’t find someone who can stand with me even when it’s really hard.

So much of me wants to “protect” my heart in the midst of this pain, but I also have a deep longing for my heart to remain open and patulous to all the beautiful and harrowing moments of what could be.

If I close my heart because I’m afraid of being wounded, I’m also disallowing the possibility of experiencing a sepulchral joy, a gaping love, a cavernous knowing.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t terrified of what leaving my heart susceptible might mean. I wonder how much more loss my heart can take, how many more times I can give all of myself to have it returned-to-sender.

And yet, I think I’d rather give all of myself and love with all of my heart, even if it comes at the expense of being destroyed. Because, this is the heart God has given me, this is the person he made me to be, and being anything other than this feels like a betrayal of myself.

So, today I am bemoaning the loss of something really beautiful—I am grieving the loss of a love that asked me to expand in ways I didn’t know I could. I am lamenting a person who took a chance and stood in the hard places with me, but realized he wasn’t quite ready to be there yet (which is okay).

I am mourning what was, so I can make room for what is.

I will grow soft here.