What Carries You When Everything Else Gives Out
There's a version of strength that gets talked about a lot — the gritted-teeth, push-through-it, never-let-them-see-you-struggle kind. I've lived that version. I've also lived long enough to find out it isn't the kind that actually holds you up when life gets hard enough.
I've sat in enough ER rooms to know this firsthand. The most recent time, my blood pressure spiked, seizures started, and weakness set in — all within the same eight-hour window. Looking back with the doctors afterward, the weakness had actually been building for a month or more before it finally forced the issue. I can't tell you how many times I've been to the ER for leg weakness by now — I've genuinely lost count. But this is the fifth or sixth time I've had to go to rehab specifically because I could hardly move my legs.
This isn't the first time. It's not even close. And right now, as I write this, I'm in the middle of it again — waiting on a transfer to a rehab facility to rebuild strength I've had to rebuild before.
Real strength in adversity isn't about never breaking. It's about what's still standing after you have — and, for some of us, after you've had to rebuild this exact way five or six times.
Strength Isn't the Absence of Struggle
Somewhere along the way, a lot of us picked up the idea that being strong means not feeling the weight of what we're carrying. That's not strength — that's just exhaustion wearing a brave face.
Right now, the honest answer to "how are you?" is nowhere close to "fine." I'm waiting — on a bed, on insurance approval, on my legs to hold me again — and there's no way to rush any of it. What I've learned across enough of these episodes is that strength shows up in the struggle, not instead of it. It's the decision to keep showing up — imperfectly, some days barely — when everything in you wants to stay down, and when you know full well this probably won't be the last time you're here.
You don't have to feel strong to be strong. You just have to keep taking the next step.
The Difference Between Surviving and Rising
Surviving looks like white-knuckling your way through the day. Rising looks like slowly, honestly working through what happened to you — instead of just around it.
That's really the heart of what I've come to call the journey from surviving to thriving: Grieve, Ground, Gather, Grow, Go.
- Grieve — naming what's actually been lost, without rushing past it
- Ground — finding one stable place to stand, even when everything else feels uncertain
- Gather — realizing who's actually around you, and letting them in
- Grow — taking a first, small step forward
- Go — carrying real momentum, not just good intentions
None of those stages happen quickly, and none of them happen in a straight line. But every one of them is a form of strength — even the grieving part. Especially the grieving part.
Right now I'm living in the Ground stage myself — not moving forward yet, just trying to find one stable place to stand while I wait on a rehab transfer. Some days that stable place is nothing more than "I made it through today." That counts. It's allowed to be enough.
Where the Strength Actually Comes From
I'll be honest with you: on my own, I don't think I would have made it through this many rounds of the same thing. The first time, willpower carries you pretty far. By the fifth or sixth trip to rehab for legs that won't hold you — on top of more ER visits for leg weakness than I could ever count — willpower runs out. It has to. And that's not a failure — it's the moment you find out strength was never supposed to be something you manufacture alone in the first place.
"The joy of the Lord is your strength." — Nehemiah 8:10
That verse has anchored me through more hard days than I can count. Not because joy shows up on command, and not because faith erases pain — it doesn't. But because there's a strength available to us that doesn't depend on how we feel that day. It's not something we manufacture. It's something we receive.
Paul put it another way: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9). That's not a tidy Sunday-school line when you're actually living it. It's the realest thing I know. The weakest moments of my story are exactly where I've felt the most carried.
What This Looks Like in Real Life
Strength in adversity isn't one big heroic moment. Most days, it looks small:
- Getting up when you'd rather not
- Asking for help instead of white-knuckling it alone
- Letting yourself feel something hard instead of stuffing it down
- Doing the one next right thing, even when you can't see the whole path
- Letting someone else's presence matter, instead of insisting you're fine
If you're in a season right now where you feel anything but strong — that doesn't mean you're failing. It might mean you're exactly where real strength gets built.
A Few Questions Worth Sitting With
You don't have to answer these all at once, or write a novel. Even one honest sentence is enough.
- What's one thing you've had to grieve — a person, a body, a plan, a version of your life?
- Where have you been trying to "push through" instead of letting yourself actually feel it?
- Who's shown up for you in this season — and have you let them all the way in?
- What's one small, stable thing that's still true, even now?
- Where have you seen strength show up in your weakness rather than despite it?
- What's something you've had to face more than once — and what has the repetition taught you that the first time around couldn't?
One Small Step Forward
You don't have to overhaul your whole life this week. Just pick one:
- Name one hard thing out loud — to God, a friend, or a journal page
- Reach out to one person in your corner and let them know you need them
- Take one small action toward the goal or change you've been putting off
- Rest, on purpose, without guilt — rest is part of strength, not the opposite of it
If you can't do the big version of a step, do the small one. Strength isn't measured by the size of the move. It's measured by whether you made it.
I'm writing this from the middle of it, not the other side of it — still waiting on that transfer, still leaning on legs that don't always hold. Wherever you're standing today — whatever you're carrying, however many times you've had to carry it — that same strength is available to you. Not because you've earned it, but because it was never meant to be carried alone.
Rise Again Coaching | riseagain@abebilodeau.com
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