The Strength you underestimate
“It’s not that hard.”
I said that to a friend last week. She had asked how I was managing the relentless cycle of month-end closing procedures, heavy audit preparations and just life in general. I immediately brushed it off. “Oh, you know. It’s not that hard. Other people have it much worse.”
She looked at me the way my grandmother used to look at me when I said something that proved I was still terribly young. Then she said, very quietly, “Debbera. It is that hard and you are doing it anyway. Stop pretending that doesn’t count.”
I drove home and just sat in the car for a while. Because she was right and the fact that I needed someone else to tell me that the hard thing I was doing was actually hard that said something about a heavy habit I have been carrying my entire life.
The habit of shrinking.
I suspect you carry it, too.
“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'” — 2 Corinthians 12:9
His power is made perfect in weakness. Not in the pretending we are not weak. Not in the exhausting performance that everything is completely fine. In the weakness itself. In the honest, trembling, “I cannot do this alone” moment.
That moment is not a failure. That moment is exactly where God shows up.
The Phrases We Hide Behind
We have an entire vocabulary of minimising. We use it so automatically we do not even hear ourselves say it anymore.
- “It’s not a big deal.”
- “I’m just tired.”
- “Anyone would have done the same.”
- “I should be over this by now.”
- “Other people have it worse.”
- “I’m fine. Really.”
Each phrase is a tiny act of self-erasure. A small dismissal of what we are actually carrying. We have been saying them so long that we actually believe them. We believe our pain is not significant enough. Our victories are not impressive enough. Our strength is simply not real enough.
It is. It is all of those things.
Your Journaling Prompt: The Reframe
Open your journal. Write down three things you have been actively dismissing or minimising about yourself. Then reframe each one.
Here is the format to guide you:
- I keep saying: “I’m just surviving.” The truth is: “I am holding an entire world together with grace I did not know I had.”
- I keep saying: “It’s not that hard.” The truth is: “It is that hard. I am doing it anyway. Every single day.”
- I keep saying: “I should be further along.” The truth is: “I am exactly where God has me. The fact that I am still here, still trying, still showing up that is the victory.”
Write your own. Be fiercely honest about what you have been shrinking. Then let the reframe stand. Read it out loud if you can. Let your own voice hear the truth instead of the dismissal.
The reframe is not arrogance. It is accuracy. You have been lying to yourself with false humility. The truth is allowed to be bigger.
The Mirror Moment
Try this just once this week.
Stand in front of a mirror. Look at yourself. Not to check your hair, or your skin, or whether you look tired. You probably do look tired you have been carrying the weight of the year on your shoulders for awhile.
Look at yourself the way you would look at your best friend if she had navigated everything you have navigated this year.
What would you say to her?
Say it. Out loud. To the woman in the mirror.
If that feels a little too strange right now, write it in your journal instead. Start with: “You have been braver than you think. Here is the proof…”
With so much grace,
Debbera
