Brave when life is more than overwhelming.

On Friday morning I drove home from the Emergency Room with my husband. I wanted to scream at the steering wheel, instead I just drove and cried quietly in the silence. My husband asked "what are you thinking?" And I just said "I thought things were getting better." 

Finding out my husband will need ongoing treatment for his back pain is just not what I wanted to hear. After a month of unemployment hospital bills are not what we need right now.

Until today I had been feeling like this roller coaster down had hit the bottom and we were heading up again. I thought things were going to get better. All over again, I feel at the end of my rope. Hanging on by a thread. 

Sometimes when I go through things in life I just brace. I try to wait it out. I try to keep a stiff upper lip and weather the storm. What I feel like God is calling me to do more and more is to weather the storms of life with an open to "let" the pain it do its work in my heart. 

I don't want to be stiff-necked. But I don't want to become passive either.I want to be actively engaged in choosing hope. Choosing to believe that this season of difficulty will birth something beautiful. 

During hard times I don't lie here passively, disengaged, waiting for this hard thing to be over with. I am present in the middle of this pain and I am chasing hope with everything I've got. Clinging to it with all my might. Fighting fear with every ounce of power within me. Reminding myself over and over and over and over that God is good. That He does not abandon me, that He will not fail me. I choose bravery by being open about the pain, not just letting it spill out on whoever is nearby but purposefully choosing to share my life and allowing others to help me. I plant my feet hard and fast into God, my rock. I keep my eye on the horizon, confident that He will work something beautiful out of this set of hard circumstances. 

I am doing this so imperfectly in my everyday life, but I'm learning.