Words.

For some six years feels like a long time. For me, it feels like no time has passed, all the while an eternity has passed. And while it is important to grow through these awful things - we do just that. We don’t get over it. We don’t move on. We simply grow with this pain now embedded into our very being. And while at times I wish it wasn’t there, I also understand how it’s contributed to who I am today.

But this is what I’ve learned; life, in all of its chaos can be truly beautiful. For pain gives way to comfort, loss gives way to love, sorrow gives way to joy. And all these tensions are held within the hands of Jesus, giving way to a life of meaning.

In order to have light, we must also have darkness. In order to know true joy we must also know sorrow. To know the gift of peace, we must experience some sort of fear.

Early on in this process I could more easily claim redemption to this narrative. Where as now, it comes through clenched teeth, and a twinge of doubt. Not to say some redemption hasn’t happened. More just to say I choose live in new reality of vulnerability and awkwardness, rather than some forced positivity based on what I think I need to say.

I’m coming to realize, I could very well lose more. In fact, it’s almost guaranteed. My heart could very well be shattered again - it’s the price of life. Of loving and then losing. We open our hearts to something, hoping for a miracle, and disappointment comes crashing. It colours our world with new shades of blue; of sadness and of pain.

But hope.

In light of Covid and just when you thought you knew it all. 

For me the continued story that has birthed out of the last two years is one of redemption. One of owning up, and of coming out of the shadows. It’s caused me to face head on the things buried deep within me. Layer by layer, the things I’ve found comfort and existence in for years have been stripped away. But not away as in gone necessarily, but rather away as in differently. As in the Lord was like, “hey kid, look at this, I think it’s time we deal with this.”