Yes, my friend, that was hard

Photo by Josh Nuttall on Unsplash

I sat in a dark room on New Year's Eve holding my little girl in my arms thinking about the year that had just passed. A year that was the hardest of my adult life. A year that undid parts of me in many ways, an unraveling I didn’t anticipate. And as I sat in the silence, what came next was this- that was hard. 

Meaning- that year was hard. What I had just lived was as challenging as I’ve lived out in the reality of my existence. 

And as I sat I let that phrase roll around like a marble in a maze- bumping up against parts of me, and never stopping in one place. That was hard. Yes, that was what needed to be said in that holy darkness- a prayer. It was a prayer of truth telling, of stating the reality. Yes, God, that was hard. That year. Those circumstances. Those challenges. That uncertainty. Those unravellings. They were hard. 

This truth telling- it was a holy act of surrender. Letting go of what had been-without knowing what lay ahead. But a needed surrender, a deserved surrender. 

When my husband Dan and I ride our bikes long and far, often up big hills, and on miles our legs turn to jelly or our thigh muscles turn into boulders, we train ourselves to just keep pedaling. And then at some point, sometimes at the end of the ride or the top of a hill when we stop to catch our breath, we will turn to each other and tell the truth- that was hard. The acknowledgment of the challenge is a bid for community. It’s a truth-telling practice, it’s saying: together we did something hard, and yes it was just as challenging for me, as it was for you. But, we’re here now. 

And maybe that’s what that prayer was in that dark room- a bid for God to acknowledge back to me- that my child, WAS hard.

And maybe too, that truth-telling prayer is for you today too- me saying with you- Yes my friend, that year was hard. We felt the challenge in unique and sometimes heartbreaking ways. But we will tell the truth at the crest of this hill that turns 2020 to 2021, that was hard. 

I’m quite certain the challenges and pain and hardness doesn’t just disappear when the clock strikes midnight on the calendar that now says 2021, and if yesterday is any indeication of it, challenges still exist for us collectively to navigate. But this I'm coming to know- Acknowledging the truth of what we lived is a prayer for us as a community. It's an acknowledgment we’re not alone, and that if more steep hills are up ahead to climb we can collectively pedal together with the truth and pray in the dark of the challenge. 

Yes, my friend you were not alone in it. We felt it too. 

That was hard, but we will face tomorrow together.