I Don’t Even Know, Man.

My stepdad died tragically when I was 12 years old. A motorcycle accident just down the road from our apartment complex took his life in an instant. That was my first real exposure to death and grief. 

Want to know what made it all worse? The night before he died, my stepdad pulled me, a 12-year-old, aside and divulged some deep struggles him and my mom were having in their relationship. 

As if the grieving process wasn’t complex enough. As if being a preteen wasn’t complex enough. As if living in a mixed family wasn’t complex enough. 

Now, my mom and I are good, and we found out later that this wasn’t the only inappropriate action taken by my step dad. 

But I loved him. I loved him a lot. He did a lot to fill the space that my dad had left behind. We spent so many weekends cooking meals together, watching movies, and laughing. 

When my stepdad had that conversation with me the night before he passed, I believe he loved me. I believe he made a really irrational decision out of fear and other dark feelings. 

This week, has been one of those weeks where I’ve spent a lot of time remembering how often people leave. In the line of people that create one of my many negative inner monologues, my stepdad was the first. A man that I loved, that I planned on being in my life forever was gone in a moment. 

I know my stepdad didn’t make the choice to leave me, but that event kickstarted a trauma narrative in my head that said, “Everyone will leave you.” 

I’m still untangling that into my adulthood. I believe I’ve come a really long way in this, but sometimes there are moments that remind me of that narrative and how hard I’ve worked to rewire it. 

Sometimes you will love someone in every last way you thought best. You’ll cry for them. Break for them. Rejoice with them. Celebrate them. Know them deeply. Know the things that make them angry and what makes them laugh the hardest. 

Sometimes you’ll love someone the best you possibly can, just to have them spit in your face. Or at least what feels like spit: really sharp, poisonous, spit right to the gut. 

Sometimes you cry long enough that you feel like there is no way there could possibly be any more tears left. Especially about this same thing.

Those are the moments when it is the most difficult to love well, let alone love my best. 

Loving others is something I really enjoy doing. But I’m in a space these days where I have absolutely zero idea how to love best. I can normally read people, read rooms, I know how to encourage, I love to listen. 

But I’ve never been so at a loss on how to love my best. Im working through some heavy, very real family stuff right now. Everyone is okay, and it feels less desperate than it did on Monday. There is just a lot of the tough work of healing ahead. 

Guys, we’re all broken. And to love is to be vulnerable. To be vulnerable is to open yourself to hurt. Choosing to love in many ways is choosing pain. That’s just real and honest. 

Man that sounds depressing. But hear me out.

I’ve never found something more worth hurting for than experiencing real love, receiving true love, and giving away genuine love. 

It takes courage, especially if you’ve been hurt before. But even in some of the hurt I’ve walked through this week, I can honestly say that I will choose to keep loving. I will choose to open myself to hurt. Especially to love and be loved. Even though I currently have very little clue what that looks like, I'm going to keep at it.

This post feels like the jumbled and tough to piece together way my prayer life has existed this week. Thank God, He’s able to track because I barely can. My encouragement to you this week is just this: please keep loving. Even when you don’t know how. Even when it’s really really hard. 

As the Apostle Paul says, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians‬ ‭6‬:‭9‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Sometimes it’s really painful, but persistent love changes the world, changes people, changes us. 

My prayer for you is that wherever you are in your journey of loving people, that today you would take a step toward loving your best even if you are exhausted. 

It’s worth it. I’m a little too tired to write this, but this is me not growing weary. Thank you for taking time to read my open heart. You are truly and deeply loved.