The 10 Truths I learned in the decade that tried to break me

Math has never been my strongest subject. And yet, I’ve always loved numbers. Maybe it’s the patterns. The way they repeat, guide, and make sense of what feels chaotic. Maybe it’s the certainty, the order, the rhythm, the quiet logic that settles me. Numbers have always felt like a kind of rhythm to me. Sometimes even a melody. Lately, one number keeps rising to the surface: 10.

Ten years since my world was shaken to its core. It was ten weeks between Nova-Mae’s birth, the happiest day of my life, and Costa’s death, the worst day of my life. And now, a decade later, I find myself sitting with the patterns again and noticing ten things I’ve learned in the ten years that remade me. There are countless lessons this decade has taught me, but these ten are the ones that keep rising like a melody ~ steady, clear, and true.

1. Strength isn’t what you carry, it’s what you allow yourself to lay down.

We’re praised for holding it all together, but almost no one teaches us how to set things down. True strength is surrender. It’s contradictory to what the world tells us, but only in surrender can we be free.

I once believed strength meant gripping tighter, holding the family together, holding the emotions back, holding the future upright through sheer will. The world applauds those who carry heavy things without flinching, but that version of strength is brittle. True strength is elastic, it breathes, it bends, it understands capacity. The moment I whispered, “I can’t do this anymore,” was not when I broke. It was when I finally became strong to be present and live a mission driven life. Laying something down doesn’t mean failure. It means you’re wise enough to honour your limits. Surrender is not collapse, it’s conscious release.

2. There is no right way to grieve, and grief and joy can coexist.

Sometimes your way looks like ugly crying on the bathroom floor…
…and then laughing uncontrollably because your baby farts and starts giggling while you were trying to breath through all the tears. Both are real. Both are healing. You don’t have to finish grieving before you start living.

That moment, changing a diaper through swollen eyes and burning cheeks, taught me something: grief isn’t a closed door to joy. They don’t cancel each other out. They coexist. Grief honours what was lost. Joy honours what still lives. You don’t have to finish hurting before you're allowed to embrace happiness. The human heart can hold more than one truth at once. Just like a storm and the sun can show up in the same sky. Grief will forever transition through all seasons of life.

3. You can feel broken and still be beautiful – inside and out.

Brokenness isn’t the end of your identity. Sometimes it’s the place where your true self finally finds room to emerge. I think of kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, highlighting, not hiding, the cracks. What was shattered becomes the strongest part and is what makes it uniquely beautiful. There is nothing shameful about breaking open. What feels like damage is often the first opening that allows healing and transformation to flow in. Sometimes your most authentic and beautiful self emerges during the moments you thought would end you. One of my favourite quotes from a Disney movie is: "The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all," spoken by the Emperor in Mulan.

4. You don’t heal once - you heal in seasons.

Healing is not a single event, it’s a rhythm. Just like winter revisits a landscape every year, grief and growth may revisit your heart. Not because you didn't recover, but because you’ve matured into a capacity that can explore it more deeply. Each season brings new understanding. Where once you only survived it, now you can process it, integrate it, even grow through it. Healing doesn’t always mean “done,” sometimes it means “deeper.”

5. The only way is through - what feels impossible often becomes doable when you take it step by step.

I used to think I had to be “over it” to move forward. But I learned the only way to grow after adversity is to walk through it, one step at a time, with every trembling ounce still within you. Hardship pushes you to the edge of what you think you can handle but avoidance keeps you stuck there. Walking through it is what allows something powerful to move through you. Hard things aren’t meant to be easy, they’re meant to be transformational. Like Bethany Hamilton said after losing her arm to a shark and surfing again: “I don’t need easy. I just need possible.”

6. It’s possible to be exhausted and still hopeful.

We often associate hope with energy and belief with boldness. But some of my deepest hope came when I could barely speak it aloud. Fatigue doesn’t invalidate faith. Faith is often the quiet breath that lifts you off the floor. Smooth seas don’t make strong sailors, storms do. You don’t need to feel strong to still move forward. Exhaustion is not the absence of strength; sometimes it's what grows it. Faith is not the absence of fatigue, it’s the quiet conviction that even when I can’t see it yet, renewal is coming.

7. Pain changes you - but it also clarifies you.

Pain has a way of stripping away what is superficial. Before loss, I worried about the noise, the opinions, the what ifs, the distractions. But pain clarified what truly matters and made the rest optional. Scott Peck said, “The moment we accept that life is hard, we can begin to transcend it.” Pain sharpened my values. It set new boundaries. It brought my purpose forward with startling clarity. What refined me, also readied me. What once felt scattered became clear. Depth grows where comfort once stood.

8. Legacy is what you set in motion, not what you leave behind.

Legacy isn’t static, it’s kinetic. It doesn’t sit as a memory, it moves as a result. My late husband’s life didn’t end with his last breath. It continues through the love he left in me, and in how I live it forward with the beautiful daughter we created. We honour our past not by dwelling in it, but by moving with intention. We honour those we’ve lost not by standing still, but by carrying their impact forward in how we live.

9. Reinvention isn’t starting over - it’s remembering who you were before the world changed you.

Reinvention often sounds like replacement, but it’s more like revelation. When everything fell apart, I didn’t build a new identity, I uncovered the one God always placed within me. I’m not defined by widowhood, titles, or roles. First, I am a child of God, deeply loved, deeply held, and still called to shine His light. Everything else is an expression of that truth, not its foundation. Stripped of what I lost, I returned to whose I am. I didn’t become someone new. I have become who I was always meant to be.

10. Love deeply, no matter the cost.

Fear tells us that deep love is risky. And it is. To love is to make peace with the possibility of loss. But holding back does not protect us, it only limits us. My grief was profound, which only confirmed that my love was, too. The pain of losing what mattered does not make me wish I had loved less, it reminds me I was privileged to love deeply. Choose love always. Every time.

Because when life ends, love is the one thing that doesn’t. It is the only thing we can both leave behind and carry with us.

Love is what remains on earth, multiplying in the people you touched, healed, nurtured, and carried. And love is what goes with you when your time here ends, because love is the only thing death can’t diminish.

Every moment of love is worth feeling while you’re still here.
Fear fades, but love reveals heaven in small, holy glimpses. When you let yourself give and receive real love, pain and fear lose their power.

Love is what makes it all worthwhile, it’s what expands us on this earth and it’s what continues to live in Heaven, forever and ever and ever.

These are the truths I learned not by reading them, but by living them. If they find you in the dark, may they become small lanterns on your path, guiding you back to the Light that has never once stopped reaching for you.