I sat in two places yesterday where there was discomfort in remaining. Both discomforts were stretching personally. One was somewhere that I desperately didn’t want to be, the other is somewhere that I want to want to be. The first space was somewhere that represents great harm in my life, the second is somewhere that seems to represent the reality that even great harms can heal.

There are so many choices that have to be made on the journey that we are all traveling. At any given point of choosing, there is the opportunity to take a deep breath and lean into discomfort, or to run from it. Both are valid choices in varying situations. Either may be what is needed to continue making progress. No one but the person on the journey can determine what’s right when it comes down to it.

When you have a choice… beyond the trauma responses, beyond the shame… when you really are in a place of awareness, health, and growth where a choice is possible… The power is in the breath. That moment can change everything.

I’m not sure whether yesterday’s breathing was sufficient to each choice. Only time will tell. But rather than allowing the trauma responses to wreak havoc in the morning, or the fear of greater harm to cut off growth in the evening… I kept breathing. And one foot in front of the other, life has moved forward.

You don’t have to choose everything now. You don’t have to be ready to leap, or run, or even get moving.

Just breathe for now. Intentionally. Deliberately.

Hand on your heart.

Drop your tongue from the roof of your mouth.

Lower your shoulders.

Relax your eyebrows.

Slow, deep breath.

And just because it gave me hope to see this… here’s my youngest living into the reality that choosing differently can present new options to those who are coming behind me. I asked him after he helped serve communion last night if he had been nervous. He looked so very serious the whole time that I wondered if he was just powering through. “Nope,” he said. It wasn’t about him, or them, or anything beyond taking part in a means of grace of which he understands (as much as he can at 8 years old) the importance. By his age, I already questioned so much in church settings… he doesn’t. Choosing differently laid a new foundation for him.

I see you doing hard things.

It's okay to be proud of yourself.

I love you, friends.