Heavy

I feel heavy, which is better than yesterday. Yesterday I just felt empty. Yesterday, hope was tugged up from the earth, uprooted and tossed aside. 

It will grow back, she said. She meant the trees and bushes back at the best place on earth, but I knew it also meant my hope, so when I peered into my garden, I was not aghast. I kneel now and gently pull the seeds from the old plants and press them into the earth. It will grow back. 

Sorrow curves its way around my heart, sometimes tight, like when I tried to sing and my voice would not stop shaking no matter how hard I tried. I am grieving, deep, deep within my heart, there where there are no words. I know that God is good. How many times have I said it to myself? In the morning, when the sunrise is breathtaking, and in the evening, when I am hollowed out and gasping for breath--God is good. God is good, and He means to regrow, to renew, to rebuild, to repair. This sorrow lasts the night, but joy comes with the morning--joy beyond anything we can fathom here and now, because He will restore the years that the locusts have eaten. 

Is there not still hope? Cling to it. Cling to it at the breaking, at the taking of everything that you love. For these afflictions, light and momentary, work for you an eternal weight of glory that remains to be seen. Wait on the Lord, wait patiently for Him to renew your strength. 

My breathing comes, slow and shallow, tasting smoke and wanting to cry, but I'm still too dehydrated. I feel heavy, and so I fall heavily into the arms of my Savior. This year has taken so much--I have nothing left to rely on but Him. So I will praise Him from battered lungs, from torn lips, from aching, aching heart, I will praise Him.