Five Minute Friday: Real

How do you talk about 'real' when what's real hurts and then you realize someone else's real is a whole lot more painful than what you're walking through? And no one really wants to hear what's 'real', especially ugly real, because who has time for someone else's pain when we're all bearing our own burdens, threatening to push us to the ground as it is.

And I want to be all hopeful and cheery and yes, God has a plan and His timing is perfect, and there's a reason we're still here and it's good...

But some days I just can't lift that fake smile. I can't hold tight to that plan, that hope. Some days real comes screaming through and knocks me to my knees and I can't see that light that promises tomorrow will be better. Real can be a bitter pill but you have no choice other than to swallow it down, choking.

I look for joy, counting blessings, and some days that helps. Other days the only joy I want is to see his face and touch his arm, lay my head on his chest and just breathe him in...and I can't because he's a million miles away, and I don't know when I'll get to kiss him again, drown in his smile, be lifted in his laugh.

Then real is Bug finishing homework at the kitchen table, chasing fruit snacks with a free Coke from Sheetz and he is so simply happy. Tucker bouncing through the backyard, lugging around a chunk of railroad tie like it's a steak bone stolen from the table and it's all his! Three birds visiting (conspiring) in the one cage while bird number four is learning fingers are for peeling pumpkin seeds and scritching cheeks and not for biting after all. Real is good books and good friends and cool sweet air after a thunderstorm....

Real is making it through. One day, one step, good or ugly...just making it through.

Conspirators...