Waiting for the 8th time.

When the beautiful artist known as “Nightbird” showed off her tattoo of 7 dots to the news reporter after winning a golden buzzer on America’s Got Talent, and explained its meaning, I couldn’t help but wonder how many dots I had.

I remember one of them vividly.

Five years ago, late one summer night, I lay on the couch in a pool of streaming tears with my hand over my heart. Listening to the song by Danny Gokey “Tell Your Heart to Beat Again” over and over on repeat on my phone I whispered “Beat again little heart, beat again.” And I cried myself to sleep.

I woke with another dot. It’s beautiful. It matches the others perfectly.

I know I have at least one from earlier in my life at boarding school, one from college, one from last August, and another from December 27.

I feel like I got another one today. But maybe I’ll know for sure when I wake tomorrow.

You see, I have to pick myself back up to earn my dot. Because the dot represents the fall; it means you had to have fallen really really hard. It has to be the kind of life altering fall that makes you question your strength with a soul-piercing intensity. Dots come when you go through so much trial, it’s hard to believe the sun will ever rise again. But it does if you will it to. And when you do, you earn a dot as a reminder of your strength.

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” -Confucius

Falling is very different from resigning. I recently wrote a post on white flags of resignation, and how, though we may only know fighting a battle or surrendering to it by giving up, sometimes we actually need to learn to trust simply persevering.

Likewise, getting back up from a fall is different from merely persevering and marching forward.

Reviving a crushed spirit will take more out of you than anything you’ll ever do your whole life. When you earn a dot, you know.

But we aren’t to live afraid of earning them. And we aren’t to live ashamed of showing them off. “Scars of Resilience” is a post I wrote nearly a year ago that speaks to this very same concept. Words of wisdom were given to me by my Heavenly Father to script at that time, and I often revisit my own writing to remind myself of previous valiant efforts I’ve put forth. But while the scars we wear visibly, like the one all down my leg, at my hip, and those by my knee, are easy reminders of and linked to a physical trial, dots are earned for the invisible scars too.

The nights of such heartache it is physically hard to breathe. The discouragement that comes from a trial never-ending that leaves you too weak to even have feelings anymore, let alone sort them out. The paralysis of a terrifying diagnosis. The loss of a soulmate here on earth.

These times earn dots. And we are to expect that we will all be given the opportunity to earn them.

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” -1Peter 4:12

But not everybody does.

Getting back up takes courage. It takes faith. It takes hope. And it takes strength. But the good thing is, not always is very much needed- even just a little tells the heart to beat again. And the even better thing is, God will give you that tiny little bit.

You simply have to want it like never before.

“For a righteous man falls seven times and rises again,…” Proverbs 24:16

Maybe I have my 7 dots now and no more will come. Maybe this was my eighth and final time having to get back up. Probably not. But one day it will be.

I can’t wait for that day.