Life is Fragile

On my mantle, there is an obituary I wish wasn't there. It is in memory of a young 14 year old girl, a classmate of my daughter who committed suicide last Monday after school. My heart breaks as I think about how broken her heart must have been that led her to take her own life.

As much as we wish we could bring Grace back and have some type of do-over to this story; we can't. I hate the finality of it. The battle of the the unanswerable questions rage in our mind. The what if's, the how come's, the why's.

And we stop and we grieve. We comfort the tears of one another with the love in our hearts. We hug and sit in silence. We tell stories and look at old photos.

Life is fragile and resilient all at the same time.

These are defining moments in our lives, and how we walk through them make a difference. We can embrace the 'unsettling' and find greater means of comfort and hope or we deny and fight it and become numb or hardened to the pain. No one likes to hurt, but sometimes hurting is where the healing begins.

Living your best life doesn't mean everyday is rosey, but it does give you the capacity to walk through the hard times with faith, hope, and purpose.

I pray Grace's death would make my life purpose hold just a little bit stronger, and my desire to make a difference in the lives of others compel me to see the hurting people around me each day. May it do the same for you.