Growing up is endless. I wanted to say it isn’t easy, but there are good to come from the hardship. What doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger. And then, there is the resurrection of the dead following those who tried to take you down that makes the strongest comeback of all.
My husband and I have been enjoying spring break rest with our two youngest. One of the things we don’t regularly do, but permissively find ourselves doing when traveling is watching television shows right before calling it a night in hotel rooms.
There was this one episode on this show, “Bar Rescue”, where an owner was put on the spot to let go of one of his bartenders whom he had already let go three times prior. This was a bartender that was pointed out in even just one night, lost the owner profit.
The bartender was not profitable and still, that good heart in the eyes of the owner showed struggle to let him go for the fourth time. I relate to the struggle. Interestingly, the bartender being let go could be heard casting fault at all other bartenders still inside. I relate to the event.
Analogizing as always, I recently told my husband that I’ve arrived at the point in my life where I’m too tired to not admit that I didn’t have faults in my own actions throughout life. Over thirty years committed with five children to one sole man did that for me.
That fired bartender attitude that only slows down growth I saw in others actually crept in me, to my admittance. That accountability that you’ve been teaching everyone else around you kicks in. In striving for excellence, lack of perfection must be embraced. Retrospectively, I painfully arrived to the acknowledgment that those who are not profitable in continuing to build together what my husband and I have worked so hard to grow with our children will only continue to hurt or damage what we’ve worked toward.
The guilt in the bar owner’s eyes were clearly replaced by an exhilarating arrival of acceptance with a good moment of exhalation. A relatable observation worth noting.
While you ask or expect nothing in return from those whom you were willing to even carry, those who not only give you no profit in heart, mind, body, and spirit do just the opposite- they end up siphoning what you’ve got when allowed the opportunity.
Many lives are consumed by a lot of quitting and no pushing through when times get tough. Youth somehow eludes the reality that starting over is the best choice. Those that get old with the same concept become teachers of make-belief strength, as if leaving your post to find another post makes greatest sense.
There have been those who may be confused with the meaning of self-respect versus self-sacrifice. There are those who have stayed with whom they felt was what their behaviors matched up to- a life of back and forth drinking, promiscuity, and drugs, until non-progressive years lead them to knowing or expecting no better.
Birds of the same feather flock together all around. There are just some of us who dare fly away and hope to make better change.
I recall the time I left my husband for about two months, apartment rented and all. It was probably not even two years of starting our togetherness. I will not glorify this time of choice as I look back, I was just fire needing to be tamed.
I knew the easy escape was to leave what I had already started to build with my husband. I had put myself in a predicament I would need to get myself out. Out did not mean quit.
I turned only to one person I knew would tell me what I needed to hear, not the easy solution all others would have just told me. That, of course, would have been to leave my husband. I called my father, Papa.
Quitting is always an easy way out and many knew such option too well. Parenting was not (and is hardly ever) easy for two young, strong-headed, determined individuals who just needed space to find respect for one another again amidst newly-found challenges in the adult world.
I quietly to myself knew I was not all innocent in my predicament as my mouth ran (I’m getting better) like an ostrich with words that spewed out venom like a serpent.
My Papa was the only one I spoke with regarding my (what I knew) momentary separation from my husband. I was young. I needed to make a stand. I needed for my husband to see me in my own space. I wanted to work things out and I couldn’t in the same room. We needed that time out to each think about our actions. There would be no quitting in my mind, just a breather to work things through, but again, not out.
I acted quickly with the understanding I was to remain righteous during my stance. This was not a time to ruin all that I already had with a lash out or purely immature impulses. Angels were all around me to keep me steady.
Our newly born son would be watched by a loving couple next to me as I went to school, returning right back, on bus. Back and forth each day. I walked to get food and amenities only when needed with my son in his stroller. Though uncertain of how all would pull through, with my financial aide, I had just enough to pay rent, utilities, food and a dignified payment for our son to be cared for while I continued school. This was two months.
I had my oldest brother help me get my place. I let two of my cousins visit me maybe twice. Other than those who dropped things off at my door, I can’t recall needing help to move. I laughingly think back I had nothing to carry in! If at all my oldest brother or Papa to step into that apartment, the only other man was my husband who visited as we worked out our differences. Two months.
My place was a humble accommodation to sleep on a mattress given to me by someone getting rid of it on my floor. The same with my couch, television, and vacuum- all free. Angels all around. I had no car. I told myself I didn’t need one. Any small cooking items or utensils and sheets I found at a nearby second-hand store.
Adulting, as they call it now, can be hardly bearable, but I had faith on my side. My husband and I somehow found ourselves bent, not broken, as Pink many years later would lyrically recite.
Aside from school, my son and my husband were my only focus. I needed the time to work on my inside. I recall seeing a hangout close by I could have easily found a way to check out if starting over with another was an option in my mind. I didn’t thirst or hunger for such. Exteriorly, I wasn’t ugly. Thankfully, I wasn’t stupid either.
I surrounded myself with those who would say or know nothing while I worked on my thoughts and on me.
Papa gave me not one word of advice, calling me probably once following the time he saw me in that apartment. Something told me he already knew my decision was a temporary means. Two months. That was all I needed to get my mind right and aligned with my husband.
My actions are my own actions. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. Papa said nothing, but in the silence, I heard all I needed to stay on path.
Thankfully, even at such a young adult age, I had this sense in me that told me to go to those who would tell me what I needed to hear, not what they felt I wanted to hear.
Almost to my golden years, I smile and laugh with my husband to know that we have grown up and out of doubt that this relationship would ever make it through. So young and full of fire, I pushed, pulled, and at times, twisted, to a point of testing how much my husband would bare. We both did. At all times, I kept myself virtuous and loyal, knowing that I had only myself to face at the end of each day before the throne.
Following those for destruction or divide will lead you to that path of yelling out Crucify him! with the rest chanting the same.
I have seen and witnessed relationships being torn apart by those who simply aided the thought to leave, quit, or destroy.
I am grateful for having gone through my own testimony of seeing the fruits of one’s diligent labor in sowing good.
I realize those who tell you to quit, leave, and start over are those that only know just that- no finish. Even Legos would take longer to break down than the speed of one committed to destruction.
One who wants a way out will. Where there’s an in, there’s an out, as I say. If one foot is out the door, the other will follow with or without aide in whichever direction.
There are those who will talk you out of jumping while there are those who take out their camera or hope to be the first to get the message out when you decide to jump.
Papa called me one day and asked me only one question over the phone, “Anna, are you afraid of (my husband’s name)?”
My response? “Papa, he should be afraid of me.”
Papa gave me silence and that was it. I felt his calming spirit and trust through the phone line.
Ultimately, he knew I was going to do what I was doing to do. He raised me to make up my own mind. The rest, whether I was going to listen and follow the weak to run or stay and push through would be up to me.
One would think those first few years were the death of me. After over thirty years, I think, Hardly. As my husband and I continued to grow in numbers as a family, all blessings multiplied within our works. The bigger the blessings, the greater the challenges.
I now know, thankfully, I hadn’t lost my greatest investment, my husband. Had I mistaken him as the bartender, I could have lost the very man who continues to build with me.
When you start to truly understand those who are most crucially important to move forward, those who never aided you to run, quit, or destroy, the bartenders losing you profit start to come out with more clarity.
A time arrives where there are those whom you love who find comfort and acceptance of the bartenders. As time progresses, you quietly take note that you have become the target of attack as comfort eases in amongst others. Frankly put, the death of you is the ultimate desire.
You learned to keep steady from the start. Although, even in the steadiness, heavy rain and tumultuous winds will work endlessly to take you down.
Be careful what you wish for became my greatest advocacy. It would take many years later where I would learn that a death of you is what is absolutely necessary to revive you altogether.
In these next two Sundays, I reflect on resurrection. The term resurrect suggests the following:
restore (a dead person) to life.
“he was dead, but he was resurrected”
Or similarly,
revive the practice, use, or memory of (something); bring new vigor to.
“the deal collapsed and has yet to be resurrected”
Resurrection is a restoration of life. If you’ve ever felt you’ve died due to a series of betrayal, the understanding of needed death to arrive to resurrection is deep.
I recall the very day I felt I had nothing left to give to a point I welcomed my soul the very death I knew I had to endure. I quietly, to my feeling of knowing that no one would understand, accepted the awaiting event.
For those who will arrive to this of what I’m about to state will understand,
Dying was the best thing that happened to me. To stand resurrected means to have overcome what those hoped would take you down. Let me divulge in my truth.
Beautiful blessings continued to rise around me, catering to all the richness of glory given to me, my husband, and children. However, I was silently taking notice of the non-celebratory attitudes of those around me, those I had let into our lives- the bartenders whom I was giving opportunity to take part in our growth.
The downfall doesn’t happen overnight. The same people I had never turned to in the first few years of my oneness with my husband were slowly expressing dislike on how my husband and I were foregoing our ambitions and aspirations.
I quietly stood, ignoring the whispers, wondering if they were hearing themselves speak the foul, in greater wonderment as to where their gained expertise were coming from, having witnessed how many relationships they had tampered with and broken or how many of their own relationships they had dispensed. Perhaps in my quietness I grew spite, thinking they were in our lives in need of direction, not to give one.
I dared not judge, just listened, for I could only reflect on their words and actions to help my own. Back then, I thought I owed the bartenders my kindness in their given part to partake of our becoming.
I felt I could handle any deficit without losing loyalty to those in. I felt that my personal concerns should never supersede the benefit of company being offered to those around. I felt I could endure all the eyes and ears roaming about us. I felt guiltless amongst those waiting to find a flaw. I held faith that all was meant to happen in able for greater good to continue.
The day arrived where I found myself surrendering to the inescapable death of me- the only thing left to fulfill the end of a chapter. The bartenders were seeing no wrong. The following chapter could not take place until the preceding chapter came to an end.
And so, I died in a chapter. I gave the crowd what they had been chanting to happen.
And, yet, the beauty of such death? A new chapter can finally begin. Upon resurrection, I gave a burial for all those who wanted to see the death of me. Inadvertently, those who threw the stones or chanted along with the rest to be away with me died along with the one willing to take them in.
Those with me have not left me. The best yet to come are to be shared by those who showed me no pity, but suffered with me.
My death in a chapter needed to happen for the resurrection to take place.
Starting over with oneself was the best thing for me. The importance was to remain running with the light away from those who learned to be good at putting out anything illuminating.
That enlightenment is one only those who are stronger, better, and wiser from finding yourself in Golgotha embrace and rejoice in.
Like the words within the series, Luke Cage, “I sent you to hell and you come back with superpowers.”
Indeed.
