People Ask Me How I Got Through It

People ask me how I got through it.

They ask it in messages. They ask it in parking lots. They ask it in the church foyer when they think nobody else is listening.

For a long time I did not have an answer.

I had a shrug. I had something that sounded like an answer and was really just a way to change the subject.

Now I have one. That surprised me more than it surprised them.

The answer is smaller than people want

Here is what people are hoping for.

They want a moment. A verse that hit different. A night on the floor. A single decision they can copy.

I understand why. If there was a moment, then the moment can be found. If it can be found, it can be reached. And if it can be reached, then whatever they are standing in right now has an exit with a door on it.

I did not have a moment.

I had a lot of Tuesdays.

What actually happened

I got up. Most days.

I did the next thing in front of me, and it was almost never the important thing. It was a dish. A phone call I did not want to make. Fifteen minutes of something useful before the day got loud.

I prayed when I did not feel it. I prayed when I did.

I quit lying to myself about how bad it was, and that one took longer than everything else on this list put together.

I let a couple of people see me not handle it well.

Then a stretch of time went by that I cannot really account for, and one ordinary day I noticed I was not bracing anymore.

Why I could not say any of this before

You cannot describe a road while you are still on it.

While I was in it, every honest sentence I could have said was a complaint. Not because I am a complainer. Because that was the true report. The true report was that it hurt, that it was not over, and that I did not know how it ended.

That is not advice. That is a status update.

Advice needs distance. Distance is the one thing you cannot hurry, buy, or pray your way past on a schedule.

So when somebody asks me now and I actually have something to hand them, that is not me being wiser than I was. That is just me being further down the hallway than I was.

What I tell them

I tell them the truth, which is that it will take longer than they want and be more boring than they expect.

I tell them the goal is not to feel better by Friday. The goal is to still be standing in a year.

I tell them to pick one thing they do every single day that has nothing to do with the crisis. One. It can be small. It has to be daily.

I tell them God is not punishing them with silence. Sometimes the answer is just slow, and slow is not the same thing as no.

And I tell them I am not finished either, because I am not, and pretending otherwise would make the rest of it worthless.

The part I did not expect

Being useful again snuck up on me.

I spent a long stretch as the man things happened to. That is a role. You get used to it. People start handling you carefully, and then you start handling yourself carefully too, and after a while careful is just what you are.

Then somebody asked me a real question and I had a real answer, and for about ten seconds I was not a situation somebody was worried about. I was a man with something to give.

That did more for me than any encouragement anybody ever sent me.

If you are the one asking

I am not going to pretend I know your situation. I do not.

But I will tell you the thing nobody told me, which is that you are probably further along than you think, and you cannot see it because you are standing inside it.

You will not notice the day it turns. You will notice about four months after it already did.

Keep walking the hallway.

And when somebody asks you how you got through it, and you find out you have an answer, do not waste it.

That answer cost you something.

Somebody else needs it.