The Refining Fire

This morning I woke up at 5:00, which is normal for the weekdays but certainly not for the weekends, and lay there, wide-eyed, staring up into the darkness. I contemplated getting up but...nah. And so, I began to think about how my phone has zero storage left. Yeah. It's a brand new phone--just got it before Christmas--and it's already at capacity due to far too many photos and videos. And so, I decided to go through it, starting way back in 2011, and delete.

And of course, that little process proved to be a walk down memory lane: a trip to Myrtle Beach and traveling to Arkansas for Caleb's graduation and Christmases and our cruise and performances and bringing home Sparti and Darian's graduation from Pisgah and Savana's graduation from Southern and Savana's stint in the hospital and sending Darian off to work in Door County and the list continues. As I lay there, completely engrossed in this meandering, I forgot about my original intent and, rather, fought the tears and the swelling lump in my throat as I noted how much Jace has grown and how we have so many amazing memories that we, as a family, have shared over the past few years. Birthdays and dinners around the table and parties and friends and, mostly, just regular days filled with blooming flowers and bursting colors on trees and tall glasses of lemonade and far too many selfies of my kids.

This morning when I got up, I was listening to Rob Bell and he talked about how our lives are a journey: we are not who we were yesterday and we are not who we will become. We are always experiencing and learning and growing. That's the point of living.

And that got me thinking about how much I've grown over just the past five years. So much has changed outwardly in my life. Two of my girls have flown the coop. I'm no longer a teacher in a classroom filled with teenagers. Those two transitions alone are enough to shake me up and leave me staggering at times.

But inwardly I've changed quite a lot as well. It has been a time of searching and learning and starting over. The past five years have left me shaken in ways I never imagined, and yet--I have come out on the other side with a peace I've never known and joy for where this journey has taken me. Emotional pain I've carried for years has been healed and I am able to embrace freedom for the first time in my life.

It's a good thing.

Looking back at pictures this morning was a beautiful reminder of how much I love this life I am blessed to live. Photos do an amazing job of capturing the good. And when they don't? Well, d-e-l-e-t-e...and they go away forever, leaving only the beautiful to remember. But sometimes, sometimes, those poignant moments are captured in ways that reveal far more than the outward scene.

I have a photo album of Ciara's short life. All of the pictures in that album reflect joy and sunshine and smiles and laughter. And I did that on purpose as I wanted to make the album a celebration. I wanted to remember--mostly--the good times. But there is one--one single photo--that says it all. It's a picture of when I saw Ciara right after she was born. I knew there was a problem as she was so small and had a deformed arm. As they pushed me from recovery to my room, they stopped by the neonatal intensive care and let me look at her for just a split second.  And then later, after I was settled, they wheeled me back. And it was at that moment, as I really looked at her, that someone snapped my picture. And the look on my face? Well, it reflected heartache and pain and agony.

Now, 23 years later, I treasure that picture. It is the one picture that stands out to me the most from all the pictures that were taken over her short life. Because that picture lets me know how far I've come, how much I've grown. It is a stark reminder of the frailty of life and the power of the human spirit.

Life is about growing and changing and learning. More often than not, that happens through painful experiences. The refining fire that shapes us into our better selves. Those experiences aren't fun, of course--pain is never fun. But when we look back at the trajectory of our lives, we are able to be grateful for the pain, for the growing.

We are able to see how far we've come despite it...or, maybe, because of it.