Thin Places

If you’ve ever sat in a waiting room, knowing bad news was probably on the way, I’m so sorry. It’s one of the most anxiety ridden places I’ve had to be in. There are others, and I’ll share as we go along, but I’ll start with the waiting room. It’s one of the thin places. A thin place is where I feel like the spiritual veil separating me from God is just a little thinner. It’s a place where my heart beats faster, the peace and mercy of God are easily accessed, and a place it is really hard to reside. Inevitably, my mind will be spinning and I’ll pull out my bible app on my phone and the perfect verse is waiting for me. Hospital rooms, waiting rooms, bedrooms in the dark of night, places where I know the Lord is waiting for me because life is HARD. These thin places have turned a waiting room or a hospital room into hallowed ground. It is a place where the Lord meets me. Sitting in these rooms with my beautiful baby girl, several times over the years, has given me empathy and compassion for my fellow hospital room mommas. When I hear that a mom will be or has been in a hospital room with a child, regardless of the condition or outcome of the child, a hospital room with your child is not ever a place you want to find yourself in. A broken arm, a swallowed coin, an asthma attack, a cancer treatment, a hip surgery…it’s all hard. This is not the difficulty olympics. If you have been in a hospital room with your child, you have done hard.

A word on the difficulty olympics. Friends, this is something I have struggled with and beaten my own self over the head with over the years and it has not led to healing. I’ve tried to comfort myself with the words,”at least we’re not at the cancer hospital down the street” And you know what, it really hasn’t done me much good. What if I dared to let myself feel sad and disappointed because what I’m dealing with has been sad and disappointing? What if I don’t convince myself that someone has it worse or better than me and I accept that what I feel is sadness and sadness is ok to feel. The warrior mommas at the cancer hospital down the street are feeling their own sadness, as they should. And the momma in the hospital room with a child in a body cast can feel sad too. If what you’re feeling is sadness, then be sad. I’m in therapy right now, because when I got the bead news this time I just couldn’t talk about it without crying. It rocked me to my core and I cried a lot. I went to a therapist and told her, “I just can’t stop crying. I feel so sad. Why am I so sad? Why can’t I just pull it together and handle this?” and she said, “Chelsea, it is because IT IS SAD. Sadness is a natural response for a body to have. You’re crying because it’s sad.” And that for some reason gave me permission to feel my real feeling. Real vulnerable moment here. When I was feeling sad and starting to cry thinking about Rylynn and her hip, I would actually start slapping myself in the face, telling my self to stop it. Stop crying. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Pull yourself together Chelsea. What the heck??? Would I look at a friend in pain and slap her in the face?! Tell her to pull herself together? Don’t I owe myself the same compassion I would expend on a friend? What if I just sat with whoever I’m with and telling the news to and cry in front of them? The akwardness train would leave the station, and tear stained and red faced me would be the conductor. Why is it that we struggle to be sad with each other? I’m committing to feeling my feels, processing them in real time, and moving to the other side of it.

My therapy journey will work it’s way into my words, because I’m doing a lot of deep work and doing a lot of processing. If you’re not here for it, thank you for coming and no hard feelings. Please respect that I’m an actual human trying to be courageous in vulnerability and raising my hand saying I’ll go first. Guys, this is not easy. It’s messy and it’s hard and I’m so far from good at it. I’m awkward and I don’t always know what to say. I’m not eloquent or special, I’m in the middle of the mess, making space for you to jump into it with me.