A Southern reflection on faith, grit, and continuing to move…

Life has a way of handing us moments we are certain we cannot manage… and then, somehow, we manage them anyway. Sometimes we stride through with confidence. Sometimes we struggle, stumble, and come out the other side looking as though we have been pulled backward through a briar patch. Either way, we come through.

My life has been speckled with moments like that, due to circumstances, fate, and… if I am telling the whole truth. the grace of God. I have learned that “never” is a mighty big word for such a small mouth to say.

After my accident in 1990, I thought I might never walk again. For a little while, the doctors thought so too. But they did not get the final word. I walked again, and I still do.

Now, that does not mean everything returned to the way it had been. I have limitations. Some things require patience, adjustment, or what I like to call “evolving”… because “making do” sounds far too dreary. I have learned new ways to do old things, and sometimes new ways to do things I had never tried before. The important part is that I keep moving.

Moving may not always look graceful. Some days it is steady progress; other days it is more of a determined shuffle. But forward is forward, honey, and I have learned not to insult a small step simply because it is not a leap.

Then there was my bachelor’s degree in English Literature… the one thing I had always wanted and, for years, feared I would never finish. But in 2016, I did.

God made a way, and I walked through it carrying books, papers, hopes, and probably more than one cup of coffee. I enjoyed every class, every paper, and every revelation about life that I discovered during my time in school. Literature gave me language for truths I had already lived: people endure, hearts change, and the next chapter can surprise you.

Earning that degree was more than checking a box. It was proof that a delayed dream is not necessarily a denied dream. Sometimes a dream simply takes the scenic route, and in the South, we understand a scenic route. It may be longer, but there is usually something worth seeing along the way.

These days, I do what I can. I evolve so I can do what I need and want to do. I keep moving, keep growing, and keep noticing what life offers me. Then I attempt to do something with the offering.

I believe life is shaped not only by the challenges that arrive, but by how we handle them. We may cry, pray, fuss a little, rest when we must, and then get up and try again. Courage is not always loud. Sometimes it simply says, “Well, let’s see what we can do today.”

If you do not try, you may never know what is possible. You may be standing at the beginning of something you are certain you cannot do… until one day you look back and realize you already did it.

~Never may be where the story begins, but it does not have to be where the story ends.~