If I could write you a letter,
I’d start by acknowledging the bitter cold truth that no matter the strength of the relationship built, the good intentions expressed or the pinky-promises exchanged, everyone has the capacity to let you down. Everyone! You can either be anchored in that reality or crippled by it.
May you choose to love fearlessly anyway.
I’d tell you that while you’ll spend the first third of your life searching tirelessly for the person you’re going to marry, you will likely spend the rest of it working TWICE as hard to stay married. Upon realizing this, you will likely want to right hook Cinderella to the throat for not telling you such a thing! And believe me, you wouldn’t be the first one…
I’d tell you no amount of makeup, self-tanner, or fake eyelashes can make you feel worthy enough after a broken heart. At best, they will only serve to make a greater mess once the tears flow. (Mark my words: they will FLOW!)
But when they do, remember even the strong break – but the STRONGER aren’t afraid to admit it. Choosing to be vulnerable in the midst of your brokenness always feels like weakness but it looks like strength; sword-wielding, courage-blazing, dragon-slaying STRENGTH!
So never apologize for the state of your heart.
In the event that one day happiness feels so far from you, when you truly forget what it once felt like to savor the warmth of the sun on your skin, converse effortlessly, belly laugh to the point of keeling over or wake up with anticipation; just know there will be people predestined to remind you happiness is awaiting you in the future, so long as you “just hang on a little longer…”
Which you will do rather reluctantly.
But someday you will be glad you listened.
Someday… But for now, you will sob so hard you’ll fear your heart might give out. But it won’t. And that will always surprise you – and on an especially dark day will even piss you off!
Again those said individuals will remind you, “God will never leave or forsake you” and again you will struggle to believe them. Because while you cry to the point of hyperventilation into the palms of your hands – tears streaming down your face – you will also believe wholeheartedly that God is looking down on you…and doesn’t care!
But one day you will come to know God does care …only to forget it once again…
Lather, rinse, repeat.
In those moments where God seems like “the Big-Bad-Bully” on the playground who deviously ties the already-untied-shoelaces-of-your-life together so He can laugh sinisterly as you fall to your face. When you feel beat up, worn down, and rage wells inside you – tell Him!
God can handle it. ALL of it!
He can handle the “…HOW DARE YOU’s???” and the “…WHERE ARE YOU’s???” The threats you make and the fists you shake! He hears your most private pleas for the pain to be taken, for the strength needed to endure even just one… more… day and all those nights you are faced with the (often insurmountable) task of simply falling asleep.
So pray honestly. Always!
One day we will all find ourselves at the same place in life; whilst while we are so genuinely happy for others, we are also so so SO debilitatingly sad for ourselves.
When that day comes, just remember your closet is your best friend; it’s always there and will never tell of the countless times it finds you crying in a heap amidst the darkness and the denim in the name of broken dreams and hopeless nights (…It also won’t divulge you secretly aren’t THAAAT happy for others!)
You see, if I could write you a letter for the moment you find yourself slipping farther and farther away, for the moment you look in the mirror and worry the person looking back at you is becoming less recognizable to the person you once were:
I’d tell you in time you WILL get through this. That although you may not feel like it, you WILL stand triumphant over your darkest days.
Because My Love, you are so much stronger than you know.
*** A letter of hope and understanding for the day my daughter goes through the kind of heartache I am faced with today. May the Lord comfort her – and all of you – every step of the way, in much of the same way He has always comforted me ***
Krista Ortiz 