We are all in the process of becoming

by Grace Todd
Feb 04, 2023

An encouragement to those who have experienced, or are currently experiencing, pain.

Challenges can cause our heart to encounter pain. During these experiences, we have a choice to allow these times to shape us or leave us crippled.

I just recently got back from a wonderful trip to France.

Side note: I found that France is my shop's sister country. I could get into why dg belongs in France, but I will leave this for another post.

During our trip to France, I found deep rest and healing from the pain caused by leaving behind what I was comfortable with in the U.S. during the transition of settling in a new country.

Jacob and I officially decided to move to a new country three months ahead of when we actually moved. Three months was just enough time for me to let my job at the time know I had to leave. Three months was also just enough time to figure out how to say goodbye to family and close friends, pack up our house and managed to run a marathon in between. We were able to do all this with the help of the Todd family, Jackson family and close friends. Three months after we decided to move, we were off on the plane to Austria where we were welcomed by a dear friend (who my husband works with). As we arrived we were greeted with a new language but sadly no home. Thankfully our Austrian friend had arranged a place for us to live while we got our apartment settled. Though this was an adventure, it also brought a lot of unknown and un-comfortability. I believe unknown and un-comfortability are important things in everyone's story to help spur on growth and maturity, but it did cause some emotional pain that I am having to heal from after the move. Thanks to our lovely restful vacation in France, I have been able to enter into soul rest that has brought deep healing. Things that I am currently healing from are depression, anxiety and challenge fatigue.

Just as you may have noticed, I have been navigating my own journey, just like many of you. Through simple observation, I have learned that people carry all different types of pain just as I have. Emotional pain, pain from losing someone, pain caused by a physical disease, or possibly pain from losing something you once held dear.

Any way you look at it, pain changes us.

Sometimes pain make us stronger or leaves us weak and vulnerable to our own vices. I have learned through my own experience that we all have the ability to choose if a circumstance will grow us or leaves us crippled. We are all on a journey of becoming, and we have much more control than we think of the outcome.

Beginning Reflection:

Friend, I encourage you to take a moment and ask yourself if you are experiencing any pain. And my heart is for you to grow and learn alongside of me. If you don’t relate to any of the above pains that I have stated, I encourage you to dig a little deeper and ask yourself if you have become numb from the feelings and emotions that have occurred due to specific moments in your journey. I am not here to tell you that it is wrong to become numb to the pain. But maybe your body has just found a way to cope with the pain because you are tired of being beaten down and bruised by it. It is on my heart for you to know that life is so much more than letting parts of who we are go due to experiences we have undergone. I am also learning about the profound mystery of healing instead of becoming numb to emotions and feelings which is the simple grace I am sharing in this post.

It is not easy to confront my pain, so I know this topic is not an easy one to digest for anyone. As I learn to walk through the current pain in my life, I am finding victory won from walking through it instead of ignoring parts of it. It takes time to walk through hurts, as well as thoughtfulness and close community, and most of the time we are not willing to commit to all of this. We tell ourselves that we don’t have the energy to commit to healing, so we give up on following through. As I have been on my own journey, I have found the following three things that have helped me, allowing me to grow from pain instead of becoming numb to it - the state of being numb only allows us to let parts of who we want to be go which is not what I want for any of us here.

Three things that have helped me walk through my own pain:

1. I am learning to be honest and transparent with those who love me and know me so they can speak truth and wisdom into my life.

2. I am learning to give myself grace allowing myself the time to learn and grow from experiences instead of keeping my head on the plow only to ignore the growth available to me.

3. I am learning about the available resources to help my emotional and mental health and spiritual well-being. It takes time and investment to find the resource/resources that are available around us.

I know it is not easy to confront pain. I am currently in the process of becoming the person that I want to be as I walk through my journey.

I believe that there is enough strength inside of you and I to press through the pain and come out the other side of it stronger. If I am the only person in your life right now that believes that you can get through the current season you are in, count me in. I believe that life is not meant to be walked through alone.

I will leave you with this important question:

Are you currently facing any emotional, physical, or spiritual pain? If you are facing any hard emotions or feelings, please do me a favor and give yourself grace as you navigate this part of your journey. Then in a place of grace and rest, ask yourself, "what next step am I going to take so I can heal instead of become numb?"

We can become an even stronger person if we hold on and keep traversing the rocky journey that this beautiful life has to offer us.

Let’s choose to navigate through the pain over letting the pain determine our future.

I believe in you!

With love and joy,

Grace