The Middle Matters

I noticed a recurring theme this week, so I figured that meant enough of us wrestled with it to warrant a full post on the matter.

The truth of it smacked me in the middle of an email I had with one of you in the middle of a hard place. (Hi to you, my friend!) I don't have permission to share your story and certainly want to honor your confidence in me, so I'll just say to everyone else reading along that your life is hard in all the ways right now. All the legitimate, heart-breaking, not-just-a-lousy-day kind of ways. And you said to me that you know it will all be okay in the end, but the middle is hard.

I have a lot of friends in the middle right now. I've even visited the middle a few times recently. You know what I mean, right? Whatever is hard about life has settled in. There's no skirting around it. The road has unmistakably taken you through the valley rather than blissfully around it. You can't avoid it. But the end is still a mystery. You don't know what it will look like or when it will arrive. It might show up tomorrow, or it might show up much later than either of us wants to think about right now.

So all you have is your messy, muddy middle, and you're not sure what to do with it. Do you cry? Do you laugh to keep from crying? Do you vent? Do you just exist and hope you make it? Do you do a little of each?

In my email conversation, I had no wisdom. My friend who wrote to me knew all the answers, and she was right about each one of them. So I guess it's perhaps more accurate to say my wisdom wasn't needed. She already had what she needed there. I think (I hope!) what she needed was a word-hug and someone who would sit with her and say "This is hard. It just stinks. God is faithful, for sure, but this middle isn't fun." It's not wallowing. It's just acknowledging the hurt without fixing it, because that kind of hurt can't be fixed. Sometimes you just sit and acknowledge.

In another part of my life this week, a friend of mine was in the middle of another kind of hurt. A health-battle induced hurt. Words carelessly spoken over her that left her questioning everything she was doing, even though she was careful to do all she could to be her own best kind of healthy.

I'm not sure what came over me, and I'm quite sure if I'd given it more thought, I would have handled it entirely differently, but I brought out sassy-Bekah. Finger-wagging, bark-worse-than-bite, big-talking Bekah delivered a speech of what I would say in that situation, both of us knowing full well that if I'd actually been there in the moment, I would have crawled under the table and been rendered mute. But something about the delivery and the monologue of what we both really wanted to say made her start giggling. And for about five minutes, she just sat and laughed. Fueled by her delight, I wagged my finger harder and came up with more great comeback lines I would never dream of actually using.

When we parted ways, she said, "You made me laugh. I needed that." Her messy middle place hasn't changed. All the self-questioning remains. But in that moment, she needed to laugh, and I managed to help her find some joy.

Last weekend, it was my turn. I was wallowing, right in a big old pit of feeling invisible, inadequate, insecure, and all the other ins. I had just cause for my feelings, and I had prayed over my own reactions, trying to respond with grace. I wasn't losing the battle, but I was tired. It was the kind of tired where my mind had been utterly depleted, and my body followed. I felt achy all over, and I knew it wasn't the flu.

My messy middle wasn't lost to Ryan, even if he wanted it to be. I met him at the door when he came home from work and unloaded the entire story. And bless his heart, he took me out for dinner. Gave me the night off from meal prep. Then he took me shopping, bought me new shoes, wandered around TJ Maxx with me, took me for coffee, and let me have a whole evening to recharge.

It wasn't about the food and the shoes (I mean, mostly). It was that he countered the lies I'd been wallowing in all day. He saw me when I felt invisible. The inadequacy, the insecurity - he saw it all and made me his priority. That was healing to my heart. My messes are still there. The messages are still coming rapid-fire, but the boost of the evening recharged me to move forward.

The messy middle can require many things. It might require a good cry. A long hug. Ice cream. New shoes. Laughter. A simple, "I see you. You matter."

If you're in a messy middle today, please know that it matters. And so do you. Don't push past the middle on a sprint for the end. Let God do His work in the middle. He sees your struggle and will send the people you need to be His hands and feet!