We Can Do Hard Things
By Kim Lilley
@kimlilley626
My husband, Aaron, has a captive audience as he lifts the axe and slices it through the cool, December air. My children huddle in lawn chairs nearby, mesmerized while he chops huge logs into firewood. He makes it look so effortless that I get a wild hair. I bet I can chop some wood.
“Hey!” I call out. “Can I give it a try?”
He cocks his head at me and looks surprised, impressed, and amused all at once. I’m 5’5”, fairly petite, and generally speaking I’m the type to prefer yoga to heavy lifting. I’m not a wuss, but I’m not exactly the next American Ninja Warrior either. I don’t mind hauling mulch or shoveling dirt to plant flowers, but I’ve never mowed our lawn or chopped firewood. But thanks to Hurricane Helene which swept through our yard two months prior, we have a sad abundance of tree trunks scattered around our yard.
He gives me a short lesson on woodchopping techniques and then stands back. With all eyes watching, I raise the axe and let it fall. Thud. It hits the wood log and gets stuck only an inch in. Aaron reassures me that this happens to him as well. “Swing a little harder,” he says. I shake off my disappointment and lift the axe once more. My next swing creates a crack half the length of the log. I aim again at the crack. Thwack! The log splits cleanly in two. A little confidence and joy sprout within.
Aaron sets up a second log for me and I reposition myself. This time, instead of a clean strike, I overshoot, and the axe handle slams into the wood. Shooting pain explodes through my arm and reverberates from head to toe. Little white stars flash in my field of vision. Blinking them away, I stare at the remainder of the axe in my throbbing hand and realize— broke the handle in two.
Aaron rushes to my side and the kids leap from their chairs to see if I’m okay. Angry and disoriented, I pull away. A rumble of self-defeating thoughts gain speed in my head and an avalanche of words cascade from my mouth:
“I’m so stupid!
I never should have tried.
I’m never doing that again!”
Immediately, I want to take back my emotional outburst, but it’s too late. My eyes squeeze tight and will the tears back. Aaron lifts his eyebrows and silently communicates: Reel it in. The kids are watching. I’m annoyed, but I know he’s right.
Diffusing the tension, Aaron tells me how impressed he is as he picks up the axe head. Apparently, he’s smacked the handle multiple times and never had it split in half. His kind words, like a rescuer's shovel, dig a small hole in the rubble, enough for me to breathe and force a strained smile, but I still feel buried beneath my words, the pain, their watching eyes. I’m usually better at reigning in my emotions and words. God has patiently excavated the lies underneath those statements in these past years. I know perseverance and practice are more important than perfection. But I’m still human, still learning. And sometimes, old ways of thinking are set off.
Before I walk inside to get ice, Aaron gently says, “You have to try again after you ice your hand.” While it’s the last thing I want to consider, I know exactly why he’s saying it.
This is a scene played out a thousand times with my oldest daughter. And right now, her seven-year-old eyes are watching me.
For her, trying new things or physical exertion often trigger a similar avalanche of crushing phases:
I can’t do this!
I’m never doing this again!
This is too hard!
Cue the stomping feet, whiny voice, and crocodile tears.
She learned how to ride her bike at the same time as her brother, who is two years younger. Last summer, she still clung to her life jacket every time we went to the pool while her same-age friends were jumping off the diving board. Any attempts to remove the life jacket and teach her to swim resulted in tears and immense frustration. She finally learned how to swim underwater from a random four-year-old at my in-law’s pool.
I can get so frustrated when she lets her fears get the best of her. I want so desperately for her to become a strong, capable woman. I want her to be adventurous and try new things. I want her to trust God when life gets hard and not quit.
These are the very things I also want for myself.
When I was pregnant with her, there was a whiteboard of encouraging phrases in the midwives’ office. One day, I picked up the dry erase marker and added my mantra during pregnancy: you can do hard things. Little did I know I’d keep repeating that phrase to myself over the years and also to the little one kicking in my belly.
No one told me giving birth was only the beginning of hard things in this beautiful new role of mother. The moms at my church made it look effortless as they slung their babies in a wrap or nursed discreetly under a baby blanket while swapping natural birth stories. I didn’t know about back labor or bleeding nipples or sleepless nights or baby blues or at least, those problems seemed far off. I simply sat in my folding chair at church, mesmerized.
Some things you can’t know until you’re in the thick of it—whether you’re swinging an axe through the air or you’re breathing through contractions the way you learned in Lamaze class on your way to the birthing center. I arrived with my freshly printed birth plan, but after hours of labor and little progress with my sunny-side up girl, we ditched the plans. Aaron drove me across the street to the hospital where I was wheeled to a delivery room, signed my name haphazardly on a few forms, and crushed his hand through contractions as a nurse pushed an epidural into my back. It took me a long time to believe her birth story wasn’t one of giving up, but of perseverance.
I lift the ice pack off my hand and wiggle my fingers. Thankfully, there’s no major swelling. Outside, my kids are waiting. My daughter’s blue eyes that first met mine in that hospital room are watching. I want to show her what it means to be strong. I want her to see what it looks like to get back up and try again.
With a slow, calm exhale, I stand and head back out. The kids have resumed their stations in their camping chairs, but leap up the moment they see me. Amidst the bear hugs, I pause to lock eyes with my daughter, “Alright, I’m going to try this again. We can do hard things.”
Aaron wraps his arms around me, kisses my forehead, and then hands me the spare axe. He nods reassuringly as he steps to the side,” You’ve got this.” My palm still hurts, but I lift the axe, eye the middle of the log, and swing.
Guest essay written by Kim Lilley. Kim makes her home in the foothills of SC. She spends her days trying to keep things alive: sourdough starter, house plants, tiny humans, and a few creative dreams. While most days the children fare pretty well, she can’t always say the same for the others. Yet through it all, God’s grace keeps her alive and helps her laugh at the days of come. Her work has been published by Daughters of Promise and The Way Back to Ourselves. Connect with her on Substack at lilleyinthelight.substack.com.
Photo by Jennifer Floyd.