Over the past year the image of the tree has become pretty significant to me. The Lord often speaks to me through pictures and images, and the image of a tree seems to continue to come up. I have often found myself drawn to paintings and designs that incorporate trees.

At the beginning of this present journey the tree was small, just a shoot. Tender and willowy with roots that barely breached the soil. It was easily bent and swayed by the wind that often swirled around it. While it was planted in the soil and rooted there, moments would go by that would tug at the very roots holding it in place. The tree often felt like an moment she would lose her hold and be carried off by the mighty rushing wind.

As time went on an amazing thing happened, the tree grew. The roots dug themselves down more deeply into the soil, the trunk thickened and became more firm, the branches began to reach towards the heavens. The winds still rushed and swirled around but the little tree was no longer swayed as easily. There were less and less moments where the tree felt like it would be plucked from the soil it clung to and carried off by the wind. There was a settling, a confidence that no longer would the slightest breeze threaten to overtake the tree.

As the tree stretched toward heaven joy began to spring forth. It started small at first, just little hints here and there, but as the sun shone down and the tree soaked in it's warmth, as the roots grabbed hold of the soil and felt their firm grasp, the tree couldn't help but be overcome. She knew that she was growing, changing, strengthening. She knew that she was firmly planted in a soil so rich she only had to soak in it's nutrients. Her job, her task was to soak in the sun, feel it's warmth, bask in its greatness and to open herself up to the richness in the soil holding her in place.

She still had much more growth to do, but now, being a bigger and stronger tree, she could dance with the wind instead of bow her head in shame and fear.

Grieving

I am grieving. There I said it. It's out in the open. Hidden no more.

But I'm not grieving in the traditional sense. I didn't lose a loved one to death. Instead I am experiencing the grief of changing friendships / relationships.

I never thought that one could grieve over something other than someone that you love dying and no longer being around. I never thought I would grieve the changing of relationship with friends who I care deeply for. In fact, it feels very humbling, and frankly embarrassing, to admit grieving over the changing of relationships.


I have always been strong. In crisis situations I have always been looked to for strength and support, to be the strong one, the one that nothing phases. Being the oldest child from a messy home, I am guessing I came by this naturally. I am also a pretty even person. I don't typically have really high highs or really low lows. People are always telling me how strong I am and how great I handle things. Because of that I have often pressured myself to remain strong in tough situations.

This has all changed this past year. As I have been working on my inner self, the Lord and I have taken a journey into the depths of my soul. What I have found there has been much pain and heartache, but also freedom and love that I have never known. I have experienced some pretty low lows and have seen sides to myself that make me want to hide my head in shame. I'm not the strong stoic person I, and many others, think that I am. I am a meek, timid, scared little girl looking for love and acceptance. I am a girl filled with many hurts, a girl desperately in need of a Savior, a friend.

I have been an absolute mess and more so, allowed myself to be that mess and allowed others to see it. Of course not everyone is privy to my mess and I am sure that the majority of people in my life have no idea the journey that this has been. But I have worked hard and fought to remain true and authentic with my closest circle of friends. And a fight it has been. I have battled the fear that friends would grow weary of walking with me in my messy, hurting, needing state and turn away. I am sad to admit there have been many days were I listened to that fear and hid my hurt, my pain, my mess so that I wouldn't seem so needy. But there were other days where I humbly asked for help, grace and love, knowing that if my burden became too much to bear and they couldn't take it and walked away, that Christ would still be by my side.

As I asked for help and opened myself up an incredible thing happened. I found love. I found grace. I found acceptance. I found women who stood by me, prayed with me, cried with me, loved me in spite of my mess. And I have clung to them and really come to realize how much they mean to me. Realize that I never would have made it through this journey without them. Realize how much I love them.


But time marched on.


Within the last 5 months one moved far way, one has gotten married (one who I had lived with and shared life with for over 8 years) and one is about to be married. All wonderful things. Things that deep within I rejoice over and thank the Lord for. Things I have prayed with them for and am so excited about. But what that means for me is a drastic change in all 3 of my closest relationships.

I didn't realize all these things compiled together in such a short amount of time would mean grief. I didn't realize how much those relationships meant to me until they shifted and changed. I didn't realize how much I relied on that love and support until it looked different.

I am still friends with these women and hope to always be, but I am grieving what was. I used to be the one they talked with about hard days, the one they called when they needed to cry, the one they called when something great happened and they couldn't wait to share it, and the one they wanted to hang out with on a Friday night.

Within my soul I know that I will get through this. I know that we will figure out this new kind of relationship, that time will march on, that our relationship will morph and shift like the changing of the seasons. But I also know that I need time to grieve.


Weird. Grieving relationships that still are. Grieving the loss of people who still live and move and are a part of my life, albeit in different ways. But I need to do it. I need to allow myself the space and freedom to mourn, to be sad, to miss what was.

It sucks. It's humbling. It's hard. But it's real. And that is what I have been fighting for this past 18 months - being honest with where I'm at and gentle with myself. Allowing myself to feel, to breathe, to be real. For too long I have stuffed feeling and emotion so that I could "be alright," and "be strong" only to become this broken, wrecked, lost individual.

So I humbly ask for grace as I walk through the tangled web of emotions that is grief. I know I won't do it perfectly. I know it will be hard on more than just me. But I also know I need to walk this path.