**Disclaimer: This piece was written pre-deconstruction of religious beliefs and faith system. Many of these beliefs inform the sentiments of the writing and are not in alignment with my values. As this is a part of my journey and an extensive blog over years, I have chosen not to remove a majority of my posts written on faith. Please as a reader, take this into consideration and take what works for you, leave what does not. I also apologize for any harm my words from this past perspective may cause to any readers.**
Let me elaborate. This year has sucked - I'm trying to get more concise when including that in every post. I recently realized something about my year of struggling, wading through these months of pain: I'm still here, and that means something. Aside from the teen years being, well the teen years and chock full of angst for legitimate reasons as well as at the fault of immaturity, this has been the hardest year of my life. There have certainly been good things, too, but I struggled to enjoy them as much as I should, as I process through having loved and lost being a part of my history now. Then! I lost my first truly professional (in the sense of what I studied to do) job before even hitting the two-year mark - in the midst of house-shopping. So much for concise...
Understand, this year I've felt on edge of losing my faith, stuck, alone, depressed, and downright broken. A few months ago, I realized it was the actual, tangible grace of God that I'm alive. #Realtalk. It feels a little melodramatic to say that now that I'm less and less fragile every day, but I believe it's true. Then last week, something else occurred to me, a silver-lining: I've survived; I am resilient. And that gives me hope; it helps me know this isn't it.
Furthermore, I haven't exactly had it rough in a while. All that has been good and great and gloriously splendid in my life over the years makes a time like this feel heavier. I think we can all agree, things have just felt heavy lately. For starters, our president elect is frightening. There was some kind of shooting in Ohio that I don't even have the energy to look into right now. I just read the news about a friend from church's (a husband and dad of two kids) diagnosis with an aggressive cancer...
And it got me thinking, this Jesus thing just has to be real. I look around at people, and when I have that thought in the forefront of my mind, I see us all in desperate need of Him. He has to be real. All this heavy darkness demands a great light. Not only is it impossible to be a darkness without a respective light, but how much more sweet will it be when it indeed shines!
So it is, through welling tears, my weary heart mutters, Come, O Light of the World...
