Two years ago today I posted this picture on Facebook.  This picture was a really big deal of myself.  Just days before I had been talking to my chosen sister about how I didn’t think this picture was at all possible.

You see, months before this picture was taken, my world completely fell apart and when that happened I had forgotten my own strength.  When I bought the ticket to Spain to walk the Camino I was convinced that climbing the Pyrenees couldn’t be done by me. I told everyone that was concerned that I would skip this part if the weather was crap.  I wasn’t convinced that I had this in me. I couldn’t remember my center.

Months before when I dreamed of walking the Camino, maybe even years before when I first heard of it, it seemed like a far off dream.

But for the season of Easter, April/May 2017, this picture was the beginning of something that looked like New Life completely.  I posted this picture after summiting the point in the Pyrenees on the Camino de Santiago.  In this moment, I knew that I could make this journey which would be the hardest and the best thing I have ever done. For the rest of the days, anytime something tough would come up so many of us would say, “well, we climbed the effing Pyrenees we can do this.” Even today I hold that mantra to be true.

In this picture I see someone returning to herself little bit by little bit.  I see someone who has cried enough tears to fill oceans and is back on track for a healthier and stronger worldview. I see someone who had been broken but now can see a bit more clearly. I see someone who will learn that grief is not linear but learns the patterns of it for the future a little more each day. I see someone who will find love and pain and love again.  I see someone who is discovering just a bit of her own strength. I see someone who is loved beyond measure and is grateful for the reminder. I see someone who remembers that Easter is a season, not just a day and will live that out through journey after journey.

I spent that Easter season on that particular journey.  I now I realize that each Easter season is a journey.  How will I spend this 50 days I wonder?  As an expat in Berlin, it seems like I am constantly on a journey of self discovery, humility, learning and trying to live into whatever this is here.  There are moments of the center and constant moments of adjusting.

Perhaps this season will be about trying to write about this more. Stay tuned for what is to come…