The Daily Hailey

Yesterday I was digging back through our old photos in search of something specific, and as tends to happen, I found my way down a rabbit hole of memories. I happened upon a few things I had intentionally saved, and forgot about entirely. So I figured I’d share them anyway, even though its late in the game.

I had very freshly joined the one and ONLY support group for people in my incredibly specific boat – wives and girlfriends of men with spinal cord injuries. I know. It sounds almost too specific. VERY niche. But there are more of us on that group than you’d think. I am eternally grateful to Brady’s physio, Kari, who told me about it 💜 In the first couple of days, someone shared this, and it still gets me right in the gut.

I’m late to post it, but it still rings so true. We had NO idea how much change we were facing. Thank goodness God did! Whew! I remember saving this post, and having some silent fears about how things would actually look in a year. Never had I been so afraid. So weak. SO out of my depth. I felt like a shell.

I remember my frustration. Many well meaning people tried to encourage me, telling me I was strong and resilient and capable, and my unwell heart and spirit was just angry. No one CHOOSES to be those things. We HAVE to be. Its circumstances that come out of deep trauma and hardship. I promise, I did hear the heart behind those words, and I’m a lot healthier now 💜 But it was hard in the moment. I just wanted to scream. I didn’t CHOOSE to be resilient!!

Thankfully, I had my faith to rely on. I know not everyone who follows me believes in God, and I hope very much that we can respect one another 💜 But I could NOT have survived this year without faith in Christ.

Much of the struggle lifted when Brady came home 💜

Everything was better. Not all better, but MUCH. We still had a full year of cancer treatment ahead of us, but at least we were together 💜

We continue to move forward, as inelegantly as possible. I feel like we race, and then crash out, and then get ahead, and then fall behind again. Its bumpy and messy and not at all glamorous, but we have one another, and we have God. That cord of three strands tho. That sucker is SOLID.

On the tail end of seeing these things in our past photos, I came upon this just yesterday and it feels pertinent.

Things that seem completely impossible are NOT impossible. As a believer in Christ, I DO believe that God gives us things we can’t handle on our own. But with Him, we will absolutely continue to move forward, however that looks.