I had a sudden twinge in my memory tonight of something I wrote on my trip to Brazil in 2008, and had to run and find my journal. It's not been a good week, and I don't only mean for myself. It was the last half that I recalled, but when I read the whole entry, the context of it also struck me. This is what I wrote:
(March 2, 2008, Garca, Brazil)
"This morning I rode the bus to church next to a girl who was sold into slavery for fifty cents at the age of eight by her own parents. What do you do with that?
I think we are all given our own hell to survive in life, and we all think for a moment that it couldn't be any worse. But for these children...these children have seen hell. And it renders me speechless.
Oh, help me love."
There is so much injustice in this world; both in our personal worlds and in the world as the big picture. SO. MUCH. Pain is all relative, none of us hurt more or less than others, but we all DO hurt. And that pain we feel? That thing that affects us? It often, if not always, makes absolutely no sense at all. People get sick. People die. People are treated unjustly. Animals get sick. Animals die. Animals are treated unjustly. Bad things happen to good people. Important things fall apart. Circumstances and people and decisions and events JUST DON'T MAKE SENSE.
So what do we do about? How can we fix it? CAN we fix it? I'll tell you this much: we cannot change it. We can change how we accept it. We can change how we approach it. We can even sometimes change letting it happen again. But...we can't change IT. We can't change the fact that we have felt and will feel pain. We can only change ourselves, by examining what it DID to us, what it did to others, what it did to the world.
My point here, my friends, is that last line that my naive mind managed to muster up while my mouth was speechless at pure horror:
"Oh, help me love."
That's what we do. We love. We love God, we love others, we love ourselves. It's that simple. We freaking love the hell out of each other. Love covers over a multitude of sins. Love heals, and love prevents. We don't hate, we don't judge, we don't lash out, and we are not cruel. We love. And that love that we were gifted with to be able to give to others and to ourselves....well, it conquers all. It doesn't erase the bad, but it writes itself all over it and it stops more from happening. Love. In that bold, dark thing called injustice, unfairness, senselessness, hatefulness, whatever word you'd like to use....we love. We just...love.
Go and love...
Friday, January 10, 2014
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Everything My Heart Cries Out For
A good number of years ago, as I sat at the dinner table with friends on a Saturday night, I felt the familiar feeling of my mind and my heart wandering away from my surroundings and into my inner-most thoughts. I don't remember what I was going through at the time, but I remember my heavy heart. I broke the "no phones at the table" rule and sent a text message to an older and wiser close friend. I simply asked, "Does life get any easier as you get older?". I remember what her exact words were in reply: "Yes. It really, really does." And I believed her. If only I would have known...
Looking back over the five years since that conversation, I wonder how in the world I am still standing. I don't know how, in that short time, that that many things could knock me down, over and over. I suffered greatly, and every year, every month, every week, every day, every hour and minute and second, I prayed for it to end. Every New Year's Eve I wished and hoped and prayed that the promise of a new beginning truly would live up to its name. But it didn't. So many friendships lost, so much "starting over", so many disappointments, so many poor choices, and more tears and darkness than one should never endure.
Five years later, in a tiny house with strangers, with a new heart and mind, at a wonderful job, with less true friends than the fingers on one hand, the best family both blood and not, the ability to find the silver lining, new ways of thinking, developing trust and vulnerability with people I love that love me back, no more looking over my shoulder at what has already passed, with the relentless love of my God forever surrounding me, with no less tears than of years past, and with nothing short of a miracle, it did. It ended.
Never in my life have I ever had the ability to shed tears of pure joy and immense gratitude until this past year when the light broke from behind the dark, stormy sky. The beams has been hiding there the whole time, but under my shroud of covered darkness I had no idea how to look up and find them.
I still have the occasional hard time wrapping my mortal brain and heart around the ugly, unexplained terrors of this world, but mostly in the case of the hardships of others. I do truly believe that the bad, scary things of this life are suffered and endured in order to allow us to show our scars, no matter how deep, to others going through the same things. I always say, "There's a reason that God created more than one person". We are to pass on our hope and peace, the kind that surpasses all understanding, to the ones who desperately seek it.
I always have a vision when I feel compelled to reach out to others who are hurting and looking for the light. It is the vision of me holding out my hands, palms up, so that the one in despair can see my deep scars, just as Jesus held out His hands to show His disciples that He and His suffering were real and that He truly died and came back to save us.
I will strive to put the promises of my long-awaited year of hope, love, and joy into others who don't know if the night will ever end. It ends, my dear ones. Morning IS coming. Keep pushing through, keep holding on to the promises that we have been given. They're there. I promise that they are. Look left and look right at the people and the things that have been sent to you to hold you up, and grab ahold of them. Hold on tight. Then look up. Know that behind those storm clouds there are rays of bright, beautiful light streaming directly from the promise of every tear being dried and of no more death, sorrow, or pain.
Hold fast to the fact that you know another who has walked through the fire and come out only slightly burned. I have been bound by the chains of death, of immeasureable loss, of addiction, of a broken heart, of despair, of hopelessness, of fear, of unbelief, of giving up, of being blinded by the pitch dark, and so many other things.
But you know what? I have been given in return a new heart, the ability to love and be loved, the great, glorious gift of redemption, unimaginable hope, a peace that helped me learn to breathe again, the blessing of some incredible people to walk next to, and the knowledge to pass on to others that it DOES end.
Just hold on. Stay alive. Ask for help. Let that tiny sunbeam deep within your soul carry you to brighter days. Know that you are loved. It will end. It really will. Take it from me. Keep going. Just. Keep. Going.
Looking back over the five years since that conversation, I wonder how in the world I am still standing. I don't know how, in that short time, that that many things could knock me down, over and over. I suffered greatly, and every year, every month, every week, every day, every hour and minute and second, I prayed for it to end. Every New Year's Eve I wished and hoped and prayed that the promise of a new beginning truly would live up to its name. But it didn't. So many friendships lost, so much "starting over", so many disappointments, so many poor choices, and more tears and darkness than one should never endure.
Five years later, in a tiny house with strangers, with a new heart and mind, at a wonderful job, with less true friends than the fingers on one hand, the best family both blood and not, the ability to find the silver lining, new ways of thinking, developing trust and vulnerability with people I love that love me back, no more looking over my shoulder at what has already passed, with the relentless love of my God forever surrounding me, with no less tears than of years past, and with nothing short of a miracle, it did. It ended.
Never in my life have I ever had the ability to shed tears of pure joy and immense gratitude until this past year when the light broke from behind the dark, stormy sky. The beams has been hiding there the whole time, but under my shroud of covered darkness I had no idea how to look up and find them.
I still have the occasional hard time wrapping my mortal brain and heart around the ugly, unexplained terrors of this world, but mostly in the case of the hardships of others. I do truly believe that the bad, scary things of this life are suffered and endured in order to allow us to show our scars, no matter how deep, to others going through the same things. I always say, "There's a reason that God created more than one person". We are to pass on our hope and peace, the kind that surpasses all understanding, to the ones who desperately seek it.
I always have a vision when I feel compelled to reach out to others who are hurting and looking for the light. It is the vision of me holding out my hands, palms up, so that the one in despair can see my deep scars, just as Jesus held out His hands to show His disciples that He and His suffering were real and that He truly died and came back to save us.
I will strive to put the promises of my long-awaited year of hope, love, and joy into others who don't know if the night will ever end. It ends, my dear ones. Morning IS coming. Keep pushing through, keep holding on to the promises that we have been given. They're there. I promise that they are. Look left and look right at the people and the things that have been sent to you to hold you up, and grab ahold of them. Hold on tight. Then look up. Know that behind those storm clouds there are rays of bright, beautiful light streaming directly from the promise of every tear being dried and of no more death, sorrow, or pain.
Hold fast to the fact that you know another who has walked through the fire and come out only slightly burned. I have been bound by the chains of death, of immeasureable loss, of addiction, of a broken heart, of despair, of hopelessness, of fear, of unbelief, of giving up, of being blinded by the pitch dark, and so many other things.
But you know what? I have been given in return a new heart, the ability to love and be loved, the great, glorious gift of redemption, unimaginable hope, a peace that helped me learn to breathe again, the blessing of some incredible people to walk next to, and the knowledge to pass on to others that it DOES end.
Just hold on. Stay alive. Ask for help. Let that tiny sunbeam deep within your soul carry you to brighter days. Know that you are loved. It will end. It really will. Take it from me. Keep going. Just. Keep. Going.
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