I spent a lot of my life truly petrified by my emotions. I didn’t trust them and I was certain they didn’t trust me. I took very seriously the concept of “taking every thought captive”. Whenever I felt myself slipping even the tiniest bit, I forced all my will to re-correct my path.

This worked for a while, for the smaller battles. But as I got older and fought bigger demons, I’ve learned something about fighting: Not everything can be corrected – not instantly and, sometimes, not ever.

Some storms need only to be weathered.

The small phrase that continually saves my life from destruction is: “Do the next right thing.” I used to think this involved doing something good to counteract the bad. But as I stumble my way down the beaten path of life, I realize that sometimes the next right thing is simply being still – letting the storm pass.

Some storms completely wipe us out. We have no strength on our own. And sometimes, I dare say, God only gives us just enough strength to not be drawn down into the deep void of our addictions, depression, emotions, and insanity.

I wear myself out on the battlefield over and over again. Sometimes, it’s because I’m fighting with my own strength. But often it is because I’m fighting when I simply should be standing. I’ve come to peace with the fact that sometimes the bravest thing I can do is to just stand (or sit or lay down) in the place where I am. If I can’t move forward today, it’s okay.

It releases so much pressure – realizing that every moment doesn’t need to involve taking new ground. In some moments, the real victory is simply guarding the ground that we have.

I’ve found myself curling up on my bed for hours, taking long walks alone while I come to peace with my thoughts, standing by the window watching the world and the hours pass by, hoping I’ll eventually feel okay again. Every day that I’m not swept away by the darkness is a day that I count as a victory.

I think we are so hard on ourselves in these times. We are discouraged that we face battles to begin with. We feel so defeated when we don’t overcome or counteract the dark things in our lives. But maybe it’s simply a matter of perspective.

Maybe the real victory isn’t necessarily that we can over come our darkness, but that it has yet to overcome us.

Some days we fight and we take ground and we wave that victory flag with the help of our Savior. And some days we simply stand as the battle rages in and around our frail existence. I’m finally accepting that these victories are essentially becoming equal in my life.

If all you can do today is stand still, you’re in good company. And you are loved.

When you’re in the middle of a mistake in life, it feels like you’re the only one who could possibly make that mistake. You feel so stupid – how could you have done this? Other people help you feel this way, too. They help you find a place on your island where you feel like the rest of the world would never mess up like you did. You’re surrounded by the silence of voices who have never told their stories. You’ve never heard from anyone who has messed up like you have. Most people never admit their biggest mistakes.

We alienate ourselves in the moments when we most need companionship.

We feel alone. We feel like everyone is talking about us, looking at us, thinking about our mistakes. But the truth of the matter is – while some are, most aren’t. Most people spend more time thinking about themselves and what they are doing than about us and our mistakes. But it doesn’t feel that way.

It feels like all eyes are on us.

When we feel that way, it’s easy to adopt it as a new identity. We switch into preventative mode – where we spend most of our energy trying to not make that same mistake again.

It’s a shame because we could have great freedom in just recognizing the mistake and moving on from it.

I took up a couple sports hobbies on the side recently. I’m still in between surgeries and not in my best physical shape ever, so it doesn’t seem like the best time. But I realized that I’m excelling at them more than I have in a very long time – maybe more than ever.

The reason? I let myself mess up and I take risks. And when I fail, I try again like it’s my first time.

When you’re on the court and you make an error, it feels like all eyes are on you – like everyone has drawn their breath collectively and cannot believe that you could make that error. You feel like a failure. If you’re like me, you spend the rest of the game trying to not make that same error again. We don’t admit that everyone around us is messing up. We grow timid and careful. We don’t excel. We mostly just try to play in a way that we go unnoticed.

I don’t want to go unnoticed in life.

With a lot of grace and compassion for myself, I’ve reached a point in my life where I can finally admit to myself that I’m not alone on an island. Other people make the same mistakes that I do. Does it make my mistakes better? No. But it doesn’t disqualify me from the game of life. It shouldn’t stop me from going right back out and crushing the ball as hard as I can the next time.

Perhaps one of the greatest lessons in life that I’ve taken with me from these recent years is to have grace for myself even if no one else does. Even if the loudest voices in my life are trying to disqualify me, only I can walk off the court. They are just voices. Voices from a crowd who have all made mistakes, too – whether they’ve admitted it or not.

Keeping getting out there and trying again.

And you know what? There are a lot more of us cheering you on than you’ll ever know.