So many people are going through a rough time right now, good people who deserve all life’s goodness, but must deal with painful circumstances—the death of loved ones, serious illnesses, betrayal, financial problems, and a host of other trials life passes to us. How do we continue to go forward, to put one step in front of the other and meet the day? How do we deal with the demons that threaten us in the dark of the night?
Sometimes all we have is hope.
We hope that the next moment will bring us peace, if only for one breath. And if we are truly blessed, that breath of peace becomes a second breath and a third until we dip beneath the grief and emotional turmoil and stress and find a resilience that allows us to lift our heads and, if only for a moment or two, ease our hearts.
It is in these times that we must reach out for it is in the reaching out that we begin healing. It is in the healing that we learn our pain that feels so much bigger and deeper than we are is bigger and deeper than we are. It is in the healing that we find the gift of our own strength and come to understand we are willing to traverse this mountain in the knowing that it is not only our life that we heal but it is the very pattern of the wound itself that we are binding up with our tears and struggle. It is in the healing that we come to understand that we are changing the pattern and creating a space for another to walk through and in doing so their pain is lessened.
It is in this way, we become the healers.
As I sit and watch the tree branches wave in the wind, they cast shadows over the earth as the leaves and sun play with one another. It is in the play between the shadow and the sun that I see the truth of life and its depth; one does not exist without the other, there is no shadow without the sun; there is no depth without the shadow. There is no sound of one hand clapping.
I am reminded of that today when I feel the pain of so many who are in the shadows while at the same time also feeling the joy of others who are in the sun. It is in my own heart where I embrace both somehow knowing that this too is healing, just to hold witness for the other as others have always held me.