It is death-defying courage:
To push energy through your body to face another day after countless nights of staying awake from dusk till dawn with no sleep.
To get up and do simple tasks when your body is in tremendous pain that will not go away.
To speak up about anything when you feel like your mind is exhausted and fighting and you struggle to explain, yet you still know it is better to try to communicate.
To go out or do the most seemingly little action that is insignificant to others but massive to your specific fear.
To continue showing up at a weekly appointment or meeting for help, continuously, faithfully, for years - when you wonder if you will ever be able to access full healing and life.
To keep praying, keep trying to believe, and keep doing all you can when it seems like every time it has not happened...yet.
To not fight the 'yet,' but to rest in it, radically accepting all the frustration, unknowns, and anger at the invisible 'why still after everything.'
To take breaks to stop and rest multiple times throughout the day in between doing what you need to.
To not let the fear kill you, that is still trying to kill you.
It is in the deepest testing, the darkest nights, and these death-defying moments that it all truly matters: because every moment you spend here is another moment you choose to defy death by living.
Keep defying death, and know:
Courage is the bravest 'quiet' there will ever be.
- RKD
06-19-22