There’s this concept in the Christian faith, to burn the chaff from the wheat. To find the gold from the mound of straw.
This requires the fires.
The fires of trials and tribulations. Not the kind that had fed the inferno of my anxiety as a child as I dreaded the untimely second coming of Christ before I got to live my life. Rather the trials and tribulations of real life, where my truest of true beliefs were tested by experience. By heartbreak and loss.
There was heartbreak. Like hairline fractures in the bones. These happened many times.
The breaking happened June 2022. When my fiancé died, and many of my dreams with him. In my womb, our daughter was growing. The one dream that survived this tragedy, the one I was determined to make sure would survive it.
She did survive it. Born in September of that year. Perfect, angry, loving. Possessing a passion for life as one who knows the desire to live. A desire I’d long lost. Until I held her.
That postpartum dopamine rush. It wasn’t a rush so much as an epiphany. Mine happened days after the birth, when I was afforded enough sleep and calm after labor and visitors. This bald, tiny, 6 pounds and odd ounces sitting peacefully on my lap as she fed from my breast cracked my broken heart open in a new meridian. The initial break was losing her father. This second break was the realization that I’d once been her. Vulnerable, untainted, and absolutely perfect. Deserving of the very best, and at the total mercy of my darkest demons if I didn’t keep them in check.
I don’t think it’s at all fair to make our children our reason for being, but the miracle of their existence is a great reason for our reason for growing.
The said fires of trials and tribulations, yes they can be of a dark and destructive nature. I’ve learned, they can also be of a passionate nature to do right. It’s all fire, it burns the petty and unnecessary away and tightens the focus on what must be done.
I’ve come to love the fire. Not for the destructive, but for the constructive. For its refining nature. I welcome it these days.
Illegal Musings 