Hard Love

I heard the song "Hard Love" play on the radio the other day by Need to Breathe and I almost had a mini-meltdown in my car. They were the words I needed. The chorus states this:

"Hold on tight a little longer

What don't kill ya, makes ya stronger

Get back up, 'cause it's a hard love

You can't change without a fallout

It's gon' hurt, but don't you slow down

Get back up, 'cause it's a hard love"

It's a hard love y'all. Hard when you were knocked down time and time again by a person's hurtful words, mind games, and psychological abuse from when you were a child and all the way up into your 20's by a person who is supposed to love and protect you. And you go visit them in a place you would never normally step inside and most days you choose to forgive, but it's hard.

It's a hard love when you have to love people who continually shun you, shame you, or chew you out for not even really doing anything wrong. It's hard to love people at work when they don't have your back and you are trying your best with a child and they just don't get it, because they aren't in the classroom everyday and they don't see what you deal with. 

It's hard when a co-worker tells you privately "Girl, you are so strong. You must have gone through some pretty tough stuff, because the strongest people go through a lifetime of hurts" and you just start sobbing. And then they think they did something terribly wrong, but instead you tell them "No, it's just that no one has ever really noticed before and I don't really open up to people about it." You breathe a sigh of relief that at least someone outside your family knows your secret. That you don't have it all together, even when it may look like it. 

It's hard when you feel like you are about to have a mental breakdown from all the stress at work, home life, church hurts and more. It's like a huge weight is on my chest and I can barely breathe. And yet God calls me to step out of the bed everyday and keep going. Guys if what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, I guess I am going to be rock solid after all this. 

Sometimes things in this life just hurt really bad, but God gives me the grace to get back up every time I am knocked down. He is my anchor and my shelter in the storm and y'all, I've pretty much had storms on my horizon since I was around 8 years old. Sometimes I want to scream at the sky, "God, why?!! Why does this all have to keep happening to me?" And I am reminded that He didn't promise me an easy life and He told us we would have hardships and trials. If Jesus could go to the cross for me, then I can get through all of this. 

It's a hard love, but it was never meant to be easy.