I remember as a kid thinking there had to be more than just black and white. The way that life happened wasn’t as clear as one or the other, it was more complicated than that. When adults tried to tell me that things happened for a reason I never really believed them.
Why would there be a reason my best friend at six would be killed in an accident while on a Sunday drive with her family?
Why did my “real” father not want to know who I was, or want to be a part of my life and why did the man I called daddy have a hard time loving us all the time?
How could so many see only black and white when I clearly see gray and even red at times?
These were real questions I had, and now I see in the eyes of my little ones the same confusion. I don’t think there is a black and white world but rather a cold gray one. This world is full of those that would tell you that it is either black or white, but how? How is a father leaving his children for a new start at a younger woman black or white? How is a mother allowing her young to be used so she can have a refill of numbing juice black or white? How can a young man pull the trigger and take a life so he can be welcomed into a group of other misguided souls be black and white? The answer is it isn’t. It is full of shades of gray. Not fifty shades, but rather a thousand shades of crazy gray. We all come into this broken world new and trusting, in the womb we can tell that this world will either be safe or scary. Once we come kicking and screaming we are either comforted or reassured we will need to kick for dear life forever. Some will be held with love and safety and others will be beaten and used, how is there a reason to this? Why is that the go to statement? I know I can’t look into the eyes of my hurt ones and tell them this happened for a reason.
Do I tell them that they where put into a family that hurt them and abused them because I would want more children and be unable to have my own? Do I tell myself that I was unable to have more children because there would be three little ones that needed my heart to be open to taking them in? Do I look into the eyes of those that doubt I can love the ones that I didn’t carry and tell them I can because it was written in the stars? I say no. I choose to live on the grayer side of things, on the sometimes redder side of life. I live here not because it is safer but rather because it is more colorful. If I only had a room of white to look at I would go crazy, if the room was always black I would go mad, but here in the gray and red I find peace and life. There is truth here to grasp onto, hope of growth and change. I can look into the eyes of my hurting child who asks why it has to hurt so much to live and give an honest “I don’t know, but I know after the hurt comes the healing and that is the honest truth of it.” I can look at them and be ok with being just as confused and angry over their pain, I can let them see that this world confuses me too but I chose to try every day to figure it out. I think it would be so much harder to live in a world black or white. The weight of that thought makes me gasp for air. Please don’t get me wrong, there is right and wrong, but I can’t add that for every wrong that is done to a person there is a reason. Unless that reason is that we live in a fallen world full of fallen people all trying to decide if they see black, white, or gray. In the moments that I sit and listen to my son pour out his heart over the loss of his little furry best friend, or try to come up with the way to navigate my daughter trying to hide a boyfriend at a way too young age, or tell myself to hold my frustration at yet another lie, I have to tell myself to try and see their shades in between my black and white. I have to look into the color that is their reality at the time and figure out why and that is a hard place to be if I only believe in black and white.
As I spoke on the phone with a dear one yesterday I heard myself giving advice on how to speak life into her little problem child. “Just encourage her, speak beauty and love into her without the disappointment and frustration, give her a safe place to turn when the world chews her up and spits her out.” As I heard the words come out of my mouth I thought to myself, “hey kettle, having a nice chat with pot?” There I was giving advice to someone that I haven’t even learned how to live myself. See, not so much black or white there as much as stormy gray. A beautiful stormy gray that tells me after the rain comes the sun. I am ok with the gray, with the unanswered whys and the uncomfortable be-causes. I can let go of my perfect white walls and my lonesome black rooms. I can embrace the gray of my youth and look into the wisdom it has taught me. I don’t wanna teach that there is only black or white, don’t show your uncomfortablity with the norm. I want to teach them to imbrace their shade and look for where it can inhance the shades around them. I don’t want my daughter to look at all the perfect shades of white around her and feel so imperfect and only feel like she has a life of black to turn to. I want her to be comfortable in her skin, in her flaws that will someday be her profection. I want that for all me children and so I write…….
soshewritesweb 