I Guess I Haven't Learned That Yet: Discovering New Ways of Living When the Old Ways Stop Working

by Shauna Niequist

Things break and then they heal, stronger for the breaking. But it’s absolutely okay to cry along the way.

Choosing to see the good right in the middle of the darkness and loss is a discipline, and I’m finding it to be a life-changing one.

It’s very easy when you’re in the dark, when you’re longing for daylight, to stop practicing those things because everything feels hard and who knows if those things even matter anymore and nothing feels right and so you stop.

I don’t know when the dawn will break, for you or for me, but I know that the healing comes in the trying and that even in the dark we have to keep practicing our callings, whatever they are. We have to keep doing the things we were made to do, the daily acts of goodness and creativity and honesty and service—as much for what they bring about inside us as for the good they do in the world.

Resilience is, simply put, getting back up. It’s getting back up, not just after the first fall, but the ninth and tenth and seven hundredth. Resilience is feeling your exhaustion and choosing to move forward anyway. Resilience is watching your lovingly made plans fall to dust in your hands, grieving what’s lost and making (yet another) plan. It’s being willing to lay down your expectations for what you thought your life would be, what this year would be, what this holiday season would be, and being willing to imagine another way.

everything good and worthwhile takes time, and generally way more time than we like to imagine.

It’s okay to let yourself change, to let an environment change you, a city change you, a season change you. You are who you are, and also it’s okay to love one thing and then another.

we go through life falling in love with new things because of the people we love, because of the paths they lead us down.

I’m learning to choose myself instead of giving the best of myself to people and relationships and institutions. Loyalty to myself. Belonging to myself. Looking for joy just for myself. I need a disproportionate amount of care right now, and the one who is responsible for that care is me. I can’t assume that someone else will do it; it’s my responsibility to create a rhythm for my life that nurtures me, that brings me joy, that allows me to flourish, even given the weight of things I’m carrying.

Anger makes us feel like we’re in control again, because loss is, at its core, loss of control, or the myth of it anyway—I couldn’t keep that person alive. I couldn’t make them stay. I couldn’t fix our problems. I couldn’t save whatever it is that was broken.

If anger is active and powerful, grief and sadness are tender, vulnerable. Anger puts us back in the power position, while grief lays us bare, like letting ourselves lie down on a sidewalk, knowing we could get stepped on, crushed.

Prayer is a way to entrust the people we love to God, especially when things feel out of our control.

I asked God to bring joy into their life every day—I thought about some things that they love, experiences or moments that I know would be joyful for them, and even though I won’t be a part of them, I asked God to bring those moments and experiences into their life.

When we pray for people with whom we have difficult or painful relationships, God works lovingly and powerfully inside us, rebuilding and restoring us, shaping us into the kind of people who forgive and repair and give second chances—the kind of people we all want to be but can’t always get there on our own. This is what prayer can do. This is what God can do.

part of growth is choosing what we will and will no longer allow into our lives.

know that a lot of things come around eventually, that relationships get repaired, that the hot sizzle of pain fades to an ache over time, that fresh air helps everything and sugar makes everything worse, at least for me. I know I’m not the only one who has been through hard things—far from it.

Flowers are still blooming, show-offy and bright. The world is still good, still beautiful, still dazzling and interesting and worth tasting and finding and savoring. God is still good, still faithful, still kind. There’s a lot I don’t know, but there’s enough that I do.

I am allowed to heal. I am allowed to be happy. I am allowed to do work I love, to celebrate, to feel joy and delight, to laugh. I’m allowed to invest in my own healing, allowed to protect myself, allowed to tend lovingly to myself in all sorts of ways.

goodness and peace and second chances and joy are not only for the unbroken. They’re for all of us. They’re for me. And they’re for you.