Tonight it is hard to look upon a loved
one dying of cancer.
Tonight it is hard to stand in the
vastness of the world and have no idea how to belong in it.
Tonight it is hard to have spent yet
another birthday mostly-forgotten.
Tonight it is hard to ache with desires
that feel too heavy to hold on to.
Tonight it is hard to want.
Tonight it is hard to be tired and hard
to sleep and hard to wake up again and still be tired.
Tonight it is hard to be asked about
plans for the future and realize they barely exist.
Tonight it is hard to never be able to
stop thinking, and enduring, and feeling, and wanting, and losing,
and wrestling, and being.
Tonight is the sort of night when you
stand in the shower until the water turns cold because you realize
the only thing waiting for you once you get out is falling asleep,
but you know you won't be able to even if you try; so you linger as
long as you can and dread lying awake in the dark with nothing but
your tiredness to whisper to. Tonight is the sort of night when you
don't want to be alone, but you don't know what you would say to
another person if you weren't. Tonight is the sort of night when you
dream, and dream badly, and as tired and sleepless as you are, feel
grateful that you can at least put the bad dreams off for a little
while. Tonight is the sort of night that ends the sort of day when
you have not been able to focus on anything, create anything, make
anything matter; when you have been able to do nothing but think and
feel and grasp at nothing, and you wonder if you can endure another
day like it.
tonight is hard
I do not often allow this blog to take
on the nature of a journal. It is why, so often, time passes and I do
not write — there are realms of my heart best kept between Jesus
and me, and I am not always capable of wrestling my heart into
word-shapes that mean something to anyone but myself. But there are
some things I think it important for you to understand.
One of them is this: tonight is hard.
Tomorrow may be hard.
The day after that may be hard, too.
And this year. And the next. And some more along the way.
Life will be hard. I promise you this.
My whole heart assures you it shall be so. But I promise you
something else, and this also with all my heart: Life is hard.
but hope is tender
And
no matter how deep we fall, it is hope, not despair, that has
the longer grasp. From heaven to our hollowness and back again; on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on,
and always
