I Know Where The Sidewalk Ends.

Let’s talk about trauma, mamas.

Experiencing and recovering from trauma is like running along a moving sidewalk. Life feels fast-paced and, honestly, maybe even just frantic. You are exhausted trying to keep the pace but you’ve got your eyes locked on the end in sight. That place where the yellow and black striped metal meets the concrete and you know life will slow to a stroll. Things will be easy again. Life will be good.

But nobody ever tells you what life looks like on the other side of that sidewalk- whatever event you’re just trying to get through. No one tells you about the moment your legs, now adjusted with a moving sidewalk, will hit the solid concrete and jolt your whole body back into reality. Suddenly you’re just thrown back in, and all the world expects you to know how to pick up where you left off. Meanwhile you’re just trying to make sure your knees don’t buckle from the shock.

So what do you do when simple company feels overwhelming, conversations always lead back to the very things you pray at night to forget, and every trip out of the house sends you running home for your favorite blanket and a long nap?

You keep going. You surround yourself with the friends who know it may take you a little longer, that there may be more quiet moments than there used to be, that you’re giving it everything you’ve got, and how to pray when it doesn’t feel like enough. And you don’t let anything stop you from celebrating this victorious life in Jesus that Satan himself couldn’t steal from you.

(originally posted October 3, 2020)