I was breathing, but it did not feel as though any air was moving through my nostrils or my mouth. I was bent over gasping. An invisible fist had knocked the wind completely out of my body. My stomach was touching my back. With my phone in hand my palms rested on the foot of my bed, my knees buckled with weakness like someone had given the back of my legs a push. The sound waves that came over my phone formed into words I was not ready to hear. “He shot her, he killed my mom”. Those words caused my sudden reaction.

I lost my sister to domestic violence a little more than two years ago and that was the scene in my home on that morning. Even now when I hear those words in my mind I remember as though it was this morning. That one sentence rocked my being and I thought I would not be able to stand as my body shook, but I did. I stood up after a long pause and found my beat, the rhythm I live by, the sound that allows me to resume my breathing through highs or lows and live daily.

At first I couldn’t cry, not even when I sat down alone and thought about her. I couldn’t force the tears out; they just wouldn’t come down my face. It wasn’t until the end of the funeral that I was able to release some tears and that was it. A month had passed before reality knocked on the door and I let it in, and that is when the unpredicted tears begin to flow. Life had already shaken me and now it was dropping the aftermath on me. She was not coming through my door for a visit, when my phone rang it was not going to be her, and if I called my sister she was not going to answer. It was real, and my life’s rhythm was steadily threatened as I became more aware of what would no longer be, but I had power within me to make it.

There was enough God given power inside of me to make me stand and listen to my own rhythm. The rhythm that caused me to breathe normally even tough other beats were being propelled onto my path waiting to carry me off. I listened and stepped to the sound I heard, I stepped my way out of the lowest low. Keeping my beat enabled me to keep my joy, my peace, and my mind. I reflected and thought how grateful I was that God had cured me from depression before this tragedy occurred; I needed every part of my life to be on an upbeat to make it.

Tragic occurrences will push us into the lowest lows that we can have, and leave us there struggling to get out of them and back to a low high or a high low. Being aware of your own beat can be the tool you need to get to that stable place. Moving through life with a rhythm that is steady can stabilize you when life has passed out its hardest hits and extreme moments that cause you to go too high or too low. If you know God you can identify your true self and the beat he has given to you. You will know how to keep your stride during every circumstance and live beyond existing.