I set my alarm early Friday morning. I needed to get some work in before prepping for my daughter’s birthday party. But as I rubbed my eyes and hit the start button on the coffee machine, I realized it was more important I did something else.
Instead of just one cup, I made two. I woke up my sleeping husband and said, “Hey, we haven’t done this in a while.”
When I was 14 weeks pregnant with our youngest child, we found out something was very wrong. The doctors didn’t know what, but the images were alarming. We were at a standstill, so together we sat.
We were too weak to exercise, too weak to be productive outside of required tasks, too weak to really dive into the bible before the day started, so together we sat.
We sat with coffee in our hands and fear in our hearts. There was too much unknown to let our family or friends in on what was going on at our weekly appointments. We only had each other, so together we sat.
Together we sat and talked about our fears. Together we rode the roller coaster of dread through the appointments, for a while each visit brought worse news. Together we sat in silence when words were too much.
The common narrative is to just keep going when life hits you, but I think there’s not enough value in sitting. When we sit in the grief that envelopes our lives, we feel its depth. As we tread the bottom of the ocean floor, we learn, we grow, we find some good in the murky waters. Sometimes that good is only the person we are sitting next to.
Together we sat and grew closer to one another. Together we sat and found comfort in our linked arms. Together we sat and held each other before we had to face the day with its endless responsibilities with the cloud of fear that followed.
Together we sat and were better for it. Today, I realize we need to make time to sit through the calm. Yes, we have the energy to do things that are good for us, we have desires and goals we want to meet but by sitting together through the good times we will build our hearts up for the hard times that will inevitably come.
Together we sit. We sit in grief, we sit in fear, we sit in joy. We sit, we soak, we let this life wash over us instead of pretending we’re immune to its intense forces. We sit, and we sit together.
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