masking & unveiling

I was once as prideful as the early twenties could make me, believing that I had most of the answers, and that you....well, you should just get your crap together. Through the year-long journey that became point number three on my "hardest things" list below, God relieved me of that weighty backpack of arrogance. It wasn't pretty.

As life wrote my first sweeping tale of trial and heartache, I learned a powerful lesson: everyone has a story like this. The person who just cut you off in traffic, the irritatingly slow checker at the grocery store, the family member whose behavior you'll never understand. Each one has at some point been pulled along in a current of circumstances, some so swiftly that they still don't know how to put their feet down and gain perspective.

We are carved out by our hard things far more than our easy ones; any one item on the list below shaped me far beyond all my moments of joy put together. But it is easy to get wrapped up in our own tragedy, demanding rights to satisfy our pain, and forgetting that suffering lies behind everyone's eyes.

Thanks for your willingness to share some of your suffering with me. You reminded me again that my story is simply a part of yours, and yours of mine, as we all make our way in this world of hard things.