There has been a lot of grief recently.

It’s ok, I’m not afraid of grief anymore. For years, the only option for me has been to just do whatever I can to make life good for my son. I don’t regret that for a single second, but the rest has caught up to me.

What about me?

I’ve never had the courage to ask myself that, not in the last decade at least. It hasn’t mattered to me. When I realized I was pregnant, while living in Haiti as a missionary, the only choice I saw was to just disappear inside this new identity. But I never let the old skin shed, I never faced the loss of all the things I had loved.

And I did, I loved my life as a missionary. I had just bought land in Haiti. I had been planning to settle in there, make my life stretch out inside those mountains.

When I had to face the truth of the pregnancy, I can distinctly remember feeling like I couldn’t do whatever came next. Like something in me stopped working, and I was just standing still, while everyone else kept moving. With that new life, so many deaths occurred.

I wouldn’t change a thing. That’s the funny thing about life. We can look back and see all the ways it could have been different, but still desperately hope we’ve arrived at the same place anyway.

Any life without my son, I wouldn’t choose it. He was always meant to be here. And everything is sweeter because he is.

I’ve had to look at what I want from my life now. Where did fear make decisions for me? Where are all the dreams I’ve carried now? Buried down so deep I’ve had to begin digging them out. And with that, comes the grief. But I’ve spent too many years denying parts of me that really want to be allowed to exist.

Without having gone through mentorship, I’m not sure I would have known about these parts of me. I would have kept going through the actions, because my life is so good. I am happy, I am fulfilled.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t more. Christ wants to give us life, and give it to us abundantly.

What does it mean to live in abundance with Christ? For starters, it means allowing the grief to be seen, so it can transform. Because all the versions of us have a right to tell their story, to mourn, to ache, to inspire. We don’t have to cut off parts of ourselves in order to find freedom. We just need to listen.

I’ve been a single mom for eleven years now. So much of my life feels steady. Today I sat on a friend’s porch with my son’s family for three hours while the kids played, and I shared my heart with my son’s father and his wife. I let myself not only be seen by them, but held by them. And I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t ashamed.

I am glad to be here. Healing. Fighting. Waking up to parts of me that belong, even if I tried to convince myself otherwise.

As always, His ways are better.

Johnna