Strength Has A Face (And It’s Yours)

Growing up a lot of us may have had this picture of what strength looked like. It was stone-faced and unflinching. It was the immovable object in the storm. It was intimidatingly present everywhere it set its foot. It was steady hands in the face of fear and a voice that never shook. It was a chiseled jawline or a devil-may-care attitude. Whatever it looked like for you somewhere in your heart you may have felt that it didn’t look like you. It may have looked like mom, dad, or the hero that always defeated the bad guy, but never you. It was bigger than you ever imagined you could be. It resembled all the things you couldn’t see in the mirror.

Strength has a face, and it’s yours.

There will be days when being strong feels like anything but. Days when it will take everything you can muster just to stand on your own two feet. Days when strength is looking in the mirror and whispering to yourself, this is me and this is enough. Nights when strength is not texting back the person who keeps treating your heart like a doormat. Nights when strength is finally sleeping with the door open because you know he’s not coming in to hurt you anymore. Days when you decide to not be her second option even though the alternative is being alone. Strength is convincing your soul to take just one more step after a journey of ten thousand. It isn’t always graceful. Sometimes the fight will leave you bruised and bloody, but win or lose strength is in having fought at all. And sometimes, strength is simply finding a way to get yourself out of bed in the morning.

Strength has a face, and it’s yours.

Your strongest moments will sneak up on you. Chances are you won’t even recognize them while they’re happening. It’ll be in that deep breath after a hard cry when the tears are done and you decide to get up and keep going. It’ll be in the way you sever the ties to the anchors in your life that keep you from soaring. It’ll be in the way you choose to forgive, before the apology. It’ll be in the way you show kindness even when your heart is aching. It’ll be in the way you choose to not build a home for bitterness towards those who have hurt you. Sometimes, and this is the tough part, being strong just flat out feels like surviving.

Strength has a face, and it’s yours.

You were strong the day you were born. You are strong in all the ways you may think yourself weak. In your vulnerability. In your compassion. In your brokenness. In your willingness to believe that things will get better in the face of darkness. You were strong in all the moments you let yourself be soft when the world expected hardness. You are strong still.

Strength has a face, and it is undoubtedly yours.