Sometimes you are weak. Pain — be it emotional, physical, or spiritual — can be debilitating. Suffering can take an enormous toll on us.

There can be weakness for a season.

However, that sort of weakness, the type that is due to injury or trauma, does not make you a weak person. It just makes you a human person who is suffering for a season.

I’ve never had chemo, but I imagine therapy can be somewhat like it. You feel like throwing up a lot. You hope it kills the trauma before it kills you. You hope you survive it and the trauma. You hope it brings healing so that what you are enduring is worth it in the end.

It gets worse before it gets better.

I was blessed with a “tribe” who helped me through my painful healing process, and I sent them this message today:

It gets better. People kept telling me that over 5 years ago, when the pain of my past finally came crashing down on me full force. During the worst part of my healing, all I could see and feel was pain — overwhelming pain — and it was only the grace of God that brought me through those darkest hours.

You, my tribe, you were that grace lived out. When I was angry at God, when I felt utterly abandoned by Him, you all (even our wonderful resident atheist Jew) stood in His place for me and kept me going. You loved and accepted me. You called me on my bullshit. You gave me hope. You were light in the darkness.

It gets better. You were right.

I’m boarding a plane in the morning — and where I’m headed and what I’m doing there would have been impossible for me not that long ago. Love didn’t just save me — it gave me strength and it gave me wings.

Thank you. The words are so inadequate.

I explain where I’m going on my other blog.