You Are Okay
Outside, I looked cool, calm, and collected.
Inside, I was experiencing a full-blown panic attack.
My husband and I sat on the same side of the table, facing the financial advisor and his assistant. We’d been married for fifteen years and had decided that now was a good time to get some professional direction in planning for our future.
Between that decision and the date of the appointment, my husband had lost his job. A loyal, hard worker, he had experienced many health challenges over the years and finally found himself no longer able to maintain the workload that had formed the foundation of our financial stability.
That meant it was now up to me.
As I sat there looking at the whiteboard where the financial advisor had carefully laid out a plan, all I saw was a big negative number. A negative number that I felt responsible for.
That moment was not the first time I’d been faced with hard circumstances, an insurmountable challenge, or a seemingly impossible situation.
Hard has an interesting way of finding me.
As a result, I’ve gotten good at pushing through things in my life. I logically think through what I can do to fix it, make it better, or rise above the storm.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t still feel the pressure.
The panic attack was controlled, tempered, and stuffed. I felt it threaten to rise up and make itself known in my face, in the tone of my voice, or in the words I used to communicate my thoughts.
And so I sat stoically in the financial advisor’s office.
Serious.
Together.
Focused.
As a result of my effort to keep it together, I didn’t have much to say. It was all so much to take in. The meeting concluded, and it was a long ride home.
The rest of the evening was normal. I was robotic, almost. Go home. Check. Fix dinner. Check. Read to kids, then pray with kids, then put kids to bed. Check. Quiet time for me. Check. Prepare to shut it down. Thank you, God, and check!
Movement.
Activity.
Routine.
I stayed in motion and kept to my routine so I wouldn’t have to think about the problem that had presented itself to me earlier that afternoon.
And then the next morning came.
I went out for my morning run and found myself with no energy to keep the hard thoughts from coming. More than the run, I simply needed room to breathe.
And pray.
Lots and lots of prayer.
Huffing and puffing, I walked vigorously up the hill that begins where my driveway meets the rural road. My prayer began in those heavy breaths as I asked God what in the world He was doing and how He expected me to handle the hard that He’d so casually tossed my way. My questions quickly digressed into a rant of anger.
Anger at God.
I was angry because my life was hard and I had problems that seemed too heavy to carry with no end in sight.
Why me?
I never actually started running. Instead, I walked and wrestled with God for an hour.
As I returned to the edge of my driveway and prepared to re-enter the real world and get back to home, back to kids, and back to work, my phone rang.
My friend Shuna was on the line.
“Hey, girl! How ya doing?”
That was all it took.
My anger melted into an emotional flood.
I tried to fight it, but the previous day’s strength and control had been squashed under the weight of the unknown.
The tears started, and they wouldn’t stop. Everything that had been bottled up forced its way to the surface. Like lava flowing from a volcano, I cried uncontrollably—water poured out of my eyes, a wail escaped my lips, and I doubled over, powerless to stand up straight.
I entered a full-blown ugly cry. You know, the “Oprah cry.”
Shuna waited, quietly offering a sensitive, “I’m so sorry!” “What’s wrong?” or “Oh, no!” as I struggled to explain my plight while attempting to get myself together.
Reluctantly, I told her what had happened and how I felt. I told her I didn’t think I could take one more step in this life that felt straight uphill. I huffed and puffed through staccato sentences, trying to explain my state of emotional and mental disarray.
She listened.
More important, she heard me.
And although she had no power to fix my problems, she did offer me something priceless, poignant, and precious.
“You are okay.”
“You are going to be okay.”
“It’s going to be okay.”
Shuna didn’t offer a trite answer or a quick fix. There was no three-step plan or deep theoretical spiritual conversation.
She simply offered me hope.
And somehow, even though her words didn’t magically erase my circumstances, they offered calm as a viable exchange for my crazy emotional rollercoaster ride.
Maybe you’re facing your own kind of hard. Maybe thinking about it overwhelms you mentally or even overpowers you emotionally at times. Maybe you’re a far cry from the you that you envisioned when you were a girl or the circumstances you dreamed would one day be your life. Maybe you didn’t have extraordinary expectations, but even with low expectations, you’re still deeply disappointed.
Your hard may not have anything to do with money. It may have to do with your marriage or your singleness. Your mental or physical health. You might be fighting addiction or paralyzing fear. Maybe you’re worn out from mothering your kids or struggling with infertility.
Your hard might simply be that you can’t figure out what comes next. Maybe you’ve arrived exactly where you aimed for and realized that where you worked so hard to get is not “the place” after all.
I want to offer you hope.
Where you are today is not where you have to be forever. You may not want to embrace where you are, but it is so incredibly important for you to embrace who you are. You get to choose. While you can’t control everything in your life, you can do at least one thing: every day you get to choose to honor you.
There will never be another person who will grace the face of this earth who is like you.
There are people whom only you can love, places that only you can go, and things that only you can do the way that you would do them.
You have the opportunity to choose every day to honor the loveliness that you uniquely bring to the world, even if the world doesn’t seem to be holding up its end of the bargain to bring the lovely to you.
You may not want to embrace where you are, but it is so incredibly important for you to embrace who you are.
You are a unique creation. There is no one like you. And that is exactly what makes you so indescribably precious—and totally okay.
My first order of business on our journey together is to remind you that while you cannot control all of your circumstances, every day you can choose beliefs, attitudes, and actions that honor the best of who you are and who you can become.
Your belief will affect the attitudes you embrace and the lens through which you view your life. Your attitudes will steer your actions—what you say and what you do. What you say and do determines how you move from who you are today to who you will be tomorrow.
You get to choose.
If you choose to believe that you are defined only by your disappointments and disasters, you will abdicate your role in this world, the role that only you can play.
But if you choose to embrace your journey—even the parts that disappoint you, challenge you, or make you double over from the emotional weight of it all—you can one day look back and see your hard as a part of your life and not the definition of your life.
Shuna’s offer of hope did not erase my hard; however, she did remind me that the way my life looks today is not the way it will look forever. She asked me to believe, and she reminded me that all I see is not all there is.
And I am asking you to believe.
Believe that your present is not all that is possible.
Believe that all you see is not all there is.
Today, my friend, this very moment, is just that, only a moment.
I want you to hold your head up and believe that where you find yourself right now—whether by mistake, choice, the impact of someone else’s actions, unmet expectations, or even boredom—does not define you.
Believe that your present is not all that is possible.
The mere fact that you are reading these words, breathing in and out, and therefore are alive indicates that you are worth the work of valuing who you are today and doing the work to discover who you can be tomorrow.
In 1987, my family and I sat captivated like thousands of other people watching the attempt to rescue Jessica McClure. The eighteen-month-old girl had fallen twenty-two feet into a well and gotten lodged in a shaft only eight inches in diameter. We stayed glued to the television late into the night, then began watching CNN again early the next morning as we hoped and prayed with so many others that her life would not end in that well. We willed the equipment to open up a parallel path to her location and prayed for the strength of the workers who had not had any sleep in their effort to deliver the little girl back to her family.
For fifty-eight hours, the news channel kept people everywhere informed. The reporters told everyone watching how hard it would be to get to the little girl whose young and carefree life had been interrupted by this tragedy.
For much of the time that Baby Jessica was stuck underground, she let those within earshot know that she was alive. She “moaned, wailed and for a while even sang nursery rhymes to pass the time.”1
As oxygen was pumped down the shaft to give her air, people kept calling to Baby Jessica, hoping for a response. Even though the situation was grim, her sweet little voice singing songs—along with her cries and moans—let everyone know that she was still there, alive, and worth the hard and diligent work of the rescue.
Years later, Jessica McClure has said she doesn’t even remember that experience apart from what people have shared with her. Except for a scar on her forehead and a missing baby toe, Baby Jessica is just fine. She has gone on to live the life everyone hoped she would live.
Her darkest moment was only a moment in time.
Even though that little girl was once hurt, bruised, scared, and alone, her life is not some sad extension of that one event.
Jessica is still alive, and she is okay.
That memorable experience marked her life but did not define her life.
I’ve learned that is true for me, and I want you to know that is true for you as well.
Your life, my friend, does not have to be a sad sum total of your hard or your heavy.
Your darkest moments are only moments in time.
I would love to offer a simple answer or a quick fix, but here’s the truth. Getting above ground can be hard work, and it can take some time.
Whether it’s because of the dull ache of disappointment or the deep pain of some disaster or deep regret, you might feel as though the energy necessary to excavate yourself from the deep is . . .
Just.
Too.
Much.
But here’s the bottom line, and I believe this with all of my heart:
You are worth the effort.
If you are breathing, you have life, and the life that has been given to you is a life that only you can live. You are the only person who can live your life with the unique combination of your gifts, talents, abilities, history, and design.
Don’t give up, girl. You are worth the work of the rescue.
Fight for your life.
Every day. Get up. Keep going.
You are okay.
Come on, say it with me: “I am okay.”
You may have to say this over and over again until you believe it, and if that’s what it takes, do it.
Saying “I am okay” won’t eliminate real problems or pressure, but it will allow you to offer yourself some hope. Your journey is a process, and it might take some time. Still, get up every day, look yourself in the mirror, and tell that girl inside you that she is okay.
You might have to get up with tears in your eyes, cries from your lips, or heaviness in your heart, but I want you to choose to believe your life is worth the effort.
Your darkest moments are only moments in time.
Don’t settle for staying stuck.
Decide to fight for your life.
And with God’s help, choose attitudes and actions that will remind you of this:
You are okay.
You’re still here. You’re still alive. So you’re still worth the work of the rescue.