No Really, I'm Fine

T sent me this first picture yesterday with one word, "Powerful."

So true!

How many times have each of us been in a drowning effort?

An all encompassing effort to not drown? Yet we are drowning anyways.

Falling down the steepest, most rocky mountain ever...

Thinking that we have nothing left to offer, nothing left to give, no more strength to carry on...

Yet, when someone asks us how we are our response is always, "I'm fine." "Better than ever."

We need to stop doing that.

We need to teach our children to not do that.

We need to teach AND actively show that it is okay to reach out and say, "I am not okay."

"I am hurting."
"I am sad."
"I am tired."

"I am scared."
"I am furious."

I love this quote below.

We are never stuck.

I often describe dark times as feeling like we are looking through a super narrow, dark hose.

We simply cannot see the rest of the world around us because we are so blinded by anything but the hard things right in front of us.

Yet, we are NOT stuck.

There is always movement.

And, with each other, we can find joy in our days once again.

Finally...

this.

So much this.

Not only don't tell someone else's story...

Stop recruiting others to share in that story.

Stop making the story bigger and more disgusting than what it actually is.

Stop pretending like you know everything that is going on, then sharing it with others.

If we feel like that is appropriate and more "holy" than what someone else might be doing, we have a rude awakening coming our way!