November Blog Challenge - We never know what we are capable of

One saying that I have often thought about over the years is - never say never. When I was in my twenties, people would say that to me sometimes in response to statements I might make for example - I’ll never get married! They would always respond - never say never. And then they would follow it up with a story of someone they knew who made such a statement, and who was now happily married with kids. And I would say “Fair enough” and in my mind, I’d be thinking ok, but still - some things you just know. 

Spoiler alert - I am still not married, but I no longer say never about anything. One lesson I have learned in my life is that we don’t really know what we are capable of doing. It was easy for me to say never, because at that moment, I could not imagine myself doing the thing. But in reality, I have found that it is almost impossible to know how I would react to a situation at any given moment. And this can apply to our lowest times, and decisions that we make at these times might seem implausible when we are feeling great. 

As a part of my original blog series, I wrote about my spiritual journey, and one of the hallmarks of this time was me leaving the church. If you had asked me in my mid twenties if I could imagine myself leaving the church, I would have said absolutely not. It seemed ludicrous the idea of leaving the church. There was the fact that it was a huge part of my life - there was a time when I attended church almost daily for one activity or another - prayer meetings, teaching Sunday school, bible study, choir practice to name a few. But also, it felt like the right thing to do. In reality, it was a part of my identity. There were so many things about church that I wasn’t sure about, so many unanswered questions, but to me staying away from church wasn’t the thing that a “Good Christian Girl” would do. The story of how I left is long, and you can read the post about it here. But at the height of the devastation I felt from losing a friend, and feeling as if I was isolated from my community, one of the other things that I think was painful for me was a loss of my identity. If I could leave the church then what else was I capable of? I felt as if I was betraying myself.

And I think that this is one of the big reasons that we can find it hard to picture ourselves doing things sometimes - because it is like trying to picture being a different person. And so even when these are things that we feel like we want to change about ourselves, it is hard to let go of that identity. But experiences can change us. As I learned how in life we never know what we are truly capable of, I learned that applies to so-called bad choices that we might make (like leaving an institution that has felt like home for so long, or surviving the devastation of losing a loved one). But I also learned that it applies to the amazing things that we can achieve. We are also capable of so much more than we give ourselves credit for. We have an untold capacity for love, for strength and resilience; we have the ability to create change within ourselves, inspire change in others, and achieve the things that we thought would only exist in our dreams. For me, this discovery was like finding a super power. It made me so much more compassionate towards people who felt that they made mistakes in their choices and actions. It allowed me to give myself grace when I made those same mistakes. It meant that I cheer on those around me with the full faith that even if they can’t see it - they can achieve so much more than they might believe right at this moment. And it made me reach for the stars at a time when I wasn’t even sure that I had a ladder tall enough to take me over the garden fence.

You have no idea what you are capable of. Let that propel you to go for your dreams knowing full well that even if you can’t believe it, you can do it, and I believe in you.

I send you big love from a small island.

And I leave you with a photo above - one of my favourite views, the old St Joseph Parish Church here in Barbados