We all have the strength

I want to start this by saying thank you.

I didn’t expect the last two posts, where I expressed the bad days I was having to illicit the personal response that it did.

It was overwhelming and touching.

It also made me think about what to write next.

I’ll never not have bad times. I’m well aware of that, but I am conscious that I have the strength to get through them.

We all do.

I think back to people I cared about who I lost to suicide, and I wish I’d had the understanding of this then. Maybe it would have helped.

I’ve never been able to give up. It’s just not how I’m built.

There are times I wanted to but the fighter that has been part of me from the day I was born never let it happen.

I obviously don’t remember the day I was born, but I’ve been told about it often.

My biological father was determined to kill my mother and me while I was still inside her. When she fell, he beat her and proceeded to violently kick her in the stomach until the police came and stopped him.

At the hospital, when I was born, my entire body was black and green from bruising, my head was misshapen, and I looked a lot like a watermelon, from what I hear.

So when I say I’ve been fighting since the day I was born, it’s not just empty words. I didn’t know how to give up then and still don’t.

Which brings us back to strength.

We all go through pain. We all have hardship and tragedy in one form or another in our lives. It’s different for each of us, but the difference doesn’t lessen what it is to us. The pain that it causes. The confusion it brings. The desire for that torment to stop.

Sometimes, we’ll wonder what it would be like to have it stop, what it would take to make it stop.

This is where it gets dangerous. We need to recognize this.

It’s natural for many of us to wonder about this, but we can’t stay there.

I try not to look back unless there is something to learn from it. In times like these, there are things to learn.

In every moment of extreme physical, emotional, or psychological pain, I remember the time before where I thought that was the worst it could be. Then I remind myself I got through that.

Then the next time, I look back at the last one and do it again.

A key to this is to remember that you aren’t alone. I know, I’ve said this before. That’s because it’s important.

Even before I found faith in God, I had people that cared. It wasn’t always my family. Sometimes it was the band of misfit friends I had, sometimes it was co-workers, my team from the military, kids I work with, and so on.

Now, I know that God is there with me. Just as I talked about in the last poem, I shared.

But I promise you that there is someone that loves each and every one of you that may read this. If you think there isn’t, reach out to me, and I’ll show you there is.

Just a little bit of love is more than enough to get you through anything.

When I look at what gave me the strength to battle all the things I’ve had to in my life, it is rooted in love.

That’s a hard thing to remember when you’re in a spot where it feels like the world is crashing in around you. But you need to know that you have purpose and worth.

With all of that, you have the strength to get through the darkness that can, at times, come for us all. And it does come for us all. There’s no person alive, I’m sure, who hasn’t had a time when they weren’t depressed or felt lost.

Sometimes you’ll be able to run from these hardships. Other times, you’ll be barely limping along, and still other times, you’ll be crawling and grasping for every inch. Just keep making progress. We all have it within us to move forward.

Please remember that giving up doesn’t stop the pain that we may be feeling at that moment. It spreads that pain to others. Pain those others would have gladly taken to keep you from giving up.

Let others help you. Let God help you. Let the things you’re passionate about help you.

Don’t rob the world, and equally as important, yourself from the greatness that is you.