tonight it is hard

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
Category: 1 missives