I had a really rough week.

It seemed as if all of these different past moments of my life were trying to rush up at me and give me a jump scare. There was a day when I thought I was going to have a panic attack. Had I not known the clues my body has for one I probably would have. There was another day I burst into tears because I couldn’t articulate the things that were actually bothering me.

And Friday I’m just pretty positive all of those things just physically weighed me down and I spent all of the day in pain.

 

In all honesty I’m not super surprised. I’ve been systematically shedding heaviness from my soul and spirit and being these days and I can feel every moment when something tries to cling back on. Be it a word, or an old pattern or an insecurity. It’s like someone comes into my house and hangs up a picture of a clown and then I have to take it off the wall each time because I don’t want it on the wall because clowns are the worst.

Today, while I was sitting in church, during worship, I kept seeing this image of someone climbing out of a mudslide. Their body was caked in mud. Inches and inches thick. They started their journey to the next town and as they walked the sun beat down and crusted the layers. And even though they didn’t want to keep walking with all that weight they didn’t know how else they could prove that they had lived through a mudslide.

Isn’t that a little crazy? To keep walking with layers of harden mud to prove that you had survived?

Isn’t the walking proof you survived?

 

It got me thinking about how frequently we carry our old burdens and trials and struggles just to prove we defeated them.

How it can be scary to let them go because who are we if we can’t prove it.

And of course, I thought about David. When he knocked down Goliath with his stones.

Clearly for the rest of his life he hauled Goliath around to prove the point. He had a team of people who moved a dead giant to prove that he had knocked him down.

No, no he didn’t.

David walked in the proof that he had knocked Goliath down.

 

We don’t have to carry the dead giant around to prove we conquered it.

We are the proof.

I don’t have to carry the dead giant around to prove I conquered it.

I am the proof.

 

I’m not saying not to mark the moment.

There is power in marking a moment.

When people walk on trails and they choose a new direction- they mark it. That way if somehow they get lost they can go back to that moment and move from there again.

When we go through a moment in life that is life changing in someway and we’re able to move from it- we need to mark it. We need to remember what we’ve come from and where we’ve been.

We don’t need to carry the thing for the proof that we did it.

We’re the proof that we’ve moved through the thing.

 

I’ve worked really hard in my life to stand strong. To defeat giants and to walk in strength.

I’ve tried to meet moments for what they are. To not negate things I’m incapable of controlling and to listen to what my body is telling me.

But, I’ve definitely dragged some dead giants along with me.

And that ends today.

I don’t what you’re dragging along, if your jacket that’s easily removable is covered in mud, if people keep trying to decorate your house or if you’re in the middle of something.

I want to tell all of us from here on out to mark moments, stack stones, make directional arrows.

I’m not naïve to think I’m never going to meet another giant or mudslide.

But I do know I’m going to do my damndest to take off the muddy coat and leave the giant where they dropped.

 

We don’t need to drag giants anymore.

We’re the proof.

With love,

Meg