I never realized how much my picture wall could tether me.
I lay in my recliner feeling emotionally and physically drained. It has been a long season of mixed emotions- gratefulness, joy, grief, and uncertainty. I recognize that life is like that. But today feels so heavy. I can do nothing but be still and lament. Life can push against the human frame and sometimes that is breathtakingly beautiful and exhilarating yet other times it feels absolutely gut wrenching.
As I sit in the silence, I glance over at the wall in front of me. In a moment, glimpses of the past twenty five years reveal themselves to me. The pictures on the wall and on top of the piano tell a story that I know in my bones but have forgotten in my current mindset.
I see moments of my life. So many of them. Children, now grown, in their single digits throwing leaves with abandon in the air. The joy and wonder of a sandy beach. My older son lifting my younger son up to a branch on a tree in a beloved grandmother’s back yard. An impromptu portrait I took of my daughter in our driveway which captured her soul. And graduation pictures. They all have backstories of their own that are worthy of their own blog posts.
So much life is captured on that wall.
I don’t dismiss my grief. That is part of the healing process which is sacred to the intricate way we are created. However, I am reminded that it doesn’t have the final voice. A new day awaits. As my son observed one morning long ago as he looked out the window upon waking up, “Look mom, the world is new.”
I sit in this paradox of feeling grateful yet knowing that painful circumstances in this life are inevitable. But they don’t capture the entirety of my life. Sometimes I need the picture wall to remind me of the bigger story.
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