Shades of Gray
The last two months have been the closing of a chapter for me. A chapter that has felt more like a mini novel series than a brief section of my life. Years of hopes and dreams represents more hours, minutes and seconds of my time than I can even begin to count. Realizing how many of my hopes and dreams were wrapped up into one person that I couldn't seem to walk away from has been slightly staggering.
Its hard for me to write now. Its hard for me to hope now. I walked into the grocery store today and I saw a new generation of young couples browsing the aisles shopping together and I thought of how many years I had waited for that and the brief period I got to experience it and now all I can hope for are men my age who are bitter broken and divorced to finally want to meet. And I know that's a lie, I know there are good men out there divorced and never married. I see them and I talk to them sometimes...but I just feel dead on the inside like I am standing in a gray cave staring at a boulder strewn world without the slightest hint of moss. Perhaps the sun will break through and streak the sky with glorious color. Perhaps a white unicorn will prance upon the scene and whisk me away, but... perhaps not...for I have tasted what the world has to offer of love and it was the greatest elixir of my life and it has left me shattered and alone in a barren land.
I am not saying that this place is bad. I am not saying that I think I will remain here forever but my mind struggles to believe that it will ever see and love color and beauty the way it once did. Before I knew him I would lay in bed and sometimes I would be sad and sometimes I would be lonely and sometimes I would feel that I would never meet anyone. However, I could lay and stare at the coral glow of a blooming rose against the vibrant blue of a summer sky and I could dream great dreams of what could be and I was happy and hopeful. The moon was my best friend and now I never see him... Now I have to wonder...Perhaps that saying "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all"...perhaps it is a lie.
So many of my friends are going through truly dark seasons in life that there was no way to see coming or prepare for. Places that other's sin and life has taken them and just beaten them down and they are struggling to stand in the aftermath and still swirling debris. There is nothing I can say. No flippant answer to relieve their pain or give them hope. No gift to take it all away and make it be as they had hoped. Just truly barren painful surroundings. All I can do is walk into their darkness and weep with them because they are broken and I can't even hold them. I can't even touch them or offer them wise sage advice of a beautiful dawn because I truly don't feel I can trust it will come. Beauty will come again, God is faithful in this...I know it like a text book that tells me the earth orbits and seasons will come and go but this season feels like a winter climate that never really hits summer.
Today a wise man, who is entering the despair of letting go of his wife to stage four cancer, just reminded me that Faith comes through believing not sight. He said sometimes as our faith grows those times that we see Christ so close, that we will feel the joy of victory and pleasure of His blessing...sometimes those grow farther apart. Not because God is not there, but because we are walking through a season where our faith is truly growing as we look for God even though its not easy to see him. As we give thanks and rejoice for what we have to be thankful for even though life is truly against us at the moment. We remain faithful to the most often repeated command in the bible "do not fear' not because we feel safe, but because we are safe. Not because we see the warmth of the sun breaking through the gray clouds of loneliness, but because we know that the sun must be shining somewhere or the clouds would not be gray.
Its hard for me to write now. Its hard for me to hope now. I walked into the grocery store today and I saw a new generation of young couples browsing the aisles shopping together and I thought of how many years I had waited for that and the brief period I got to experience it and now all I can hope for are men my age who are bitter broken and divorced to finally want to meet. And I know that's a lie, I know there are good men out there divorced and never married. I see them and I talk to them sometimes...but I just feel dead on the inside like I am standing in a gray cave staring at a boulder strewn world without the slightest hint of moss. Perhaps the sun will break through and streak the sky with glorious color. Perhaps a white unicorn will prance upon the scene and whisk me away, but... perhaps not...for I have tasted what the world has to offer of love and it was the greatest elixir of my life and it has left me shattered and alone in a barren land.
I am not saying that this place is bad. I am not saying that I think I will remain here forever but my mind struggles to believe that it will ever see and love color and beauty the way it once did. Before I knew him I would lay in bed and sometimes I would be sad and sometimes I would be lonely and sometimes I would feel that I would never meet anyone. However, I could lay and stare at the coral glow of a blooming rose against the vibrant blue of a summer sky and I could dream great dreams of what could be and I was happy and hopeful. The moon was my best friend and now I never see him... Now I have to wonder...Perhaps that saying "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all"...perhaps it is a lie.
So many of my friends are going through truly dark seasons in life that there was no way to see coming or prepare for. Places that other's sin and life has taken them and just beaten them down and they are struggling to stand in the aftermath and still swirling debris. There is nothing I can say. No flippant answer to relieve their pain or give them hope. No gift to take it all away and make it be as they had hoped. Just truly barren painful surroundings. All I can do is walk into their darkness and weep with them because they are broken and I can't even hold them. I can't even touch them or offer them wise sage advice of a beautiful dawn because I truly don't feel I can trust it will come. Beauty will come again, God is faithful in this...I know it like a text book that tells me the earth orbits and seasons will come and go but this season feels like a winter climate that never really hits summer.
Today a wise man, who is entering the despair of letting go of his wife to stage four cancer, just reminded me that Faith comes through believing not sight. He said sometimes as our faith grows those times that we see Christ so close, that we will feel the joy of victory and pleasure of His blessing...sometimes those grow farther apart. Not because God is not there, but because we are walking through a season where our faith is truly growing as we look for God even though its not easy to see him. As we give thanks and rejoice for what we have to be thankful for even though life is truly against us at the moment. We remain faithful to the most often repeated command in the bible "do not fear' not because we feel safe, but because we are safe. Not because we see the warmth of the sun breaking through the gray clouds of loneliness, but because we know that the sun must be shining somewhere or the clouds would not be gray.
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