"All this will start where it ends
Wake up, you're alive
We're on your side
Wake up, you're alive
We're on your side"
~Lovedrug
Life is hard for most people, they say.
I suppose that hope suggests a need, and it suggests that something has not yet ended. To have hope is to believe for change, to believe for a better ending. I have been thinking a lot about hope because I have been reminded lately that I am a person in need of hope.
I believe that pain is universal, which is to say that all of us can relate to pain. We break and don't fix easy. We break in different ways, at different times, for different reasons. We lose things. We get stuck in moments. We are slow to forgive, slow to change, slow to ask for help. We are slow to truly love people.
It is easy to talk about love. Easy to write blogs about it, easy to talk about it on stages. Love, in that setting, is an idea, and ideas make for great conversations - inspiring even. It is another thing entirely to love people. I suppose it's because ideas are more comfortable than actions. It is a much more challenging gig to be a person who loves other people.
Love is a choice. It is an action. It looks like this:
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."
It is tempting to write these things as if I always have it all together, as if I am a person without need, a person who cares about pain but is not affected by it. The truth is that I am a person in need, a broken person, a person who fails, often. I have a lot to learn. I have a long way to go.
Pain seems to scream. It asks for all of our attention. Pain suggests that we are only broken, that we are only all the things in us that ache. Certainly, we are responsible for our actions but "forgiveness" is a beautiful word. "Change" is a beautiful possibility. "Hope" and "rescue" are important words.
We are a people in need. We need so many different things: Friendship, love, conversation, medicine, encouragement, wisdom, hope. Whatever is broken, whatever your needs are, it's okay to be honest about those things. It's beyond okay, it is essential. Your heart, your life, your mind, these things are golden, priceless. Please be careful with them. And your friends, your family, the people you love, they are golden too. Please be careful with them. Consider your words and actions, the way they affect people.
Each of us will have to fight for the things we call important - the things we hope for, the people we love. It will be a different sort of fight, one of patience and prayers, actions and choices and change. It will be a surgery of sorts, and we will need other people to go with us. It may sound difficult but there is much to be hopeful for.
This past couple of days have been horrible for me. Just making it through each day has been a struggle. Wednesday was the first holiday I have spent without my family. I had made plans with Nich, so I thought being with my best friend and my "family" here I would silently make it through without them knowing how hard it would be. All on the 4th I got ready for Nich, cleaning everything especially my very messy room. I got a phone call around 4:30 from a tearful friend on the other line. He was calling to explain one of the most horrible things I could possibly think of. Not only did he have his life in danger but his families lives were put in danger for something ridiculous. Nich decided it would be best that he stayed in Madison to get sleep for the night and come up for his meeting in the morning. Being the person that I am I was supportive about it and was strong for him while on the phone, but what he and everyone else didn't know is that I was hurting on the inside. I was bummed big time and the plans of making it through a tough situation had suddenly disappeared. I broken down in front of Shell but she didn't know why, she thought it was Nich, nope. I ended up calling Abe and he came to pick me up and bring me to a friends block party she was having with her family and neighbors, it didn't make things any better. Seeing how they were enjoying all the time with their families just made me even more upset. When we went to the fireworks, I wasn't even caring about them I was bummed.
Nich made it up the next day for his meeting and got to spend a bit of time with me. Right before he left I actually told him why I wanted him to be here, and to this day he is the only one that knew why the 4th was such a hard time for me. My roomies don't even know.
Yesterday around 4 Abe and I decided to go to blockbuster to have a relaxing afternoon of movies, it didn't turn out that way. While stopped at a red light a 16 year old girl rear ended us at about 30 miles an hour. She went up and under my bumper so she didn't damage my car that bad. Abe and I both had pretty bad whiplash and concussions so we went to the hospital. We were both put in neck braces and had CT scans to make sure everything was okay. We were there for three hours. We just strained our necks really bad and got drugs for the pain. So more things for me to deal with, the insurance agency, the cops, the car dealership, and my family. As of right now the drugs aren't working and I am still in a lot of pain.
I found out tonight online that one of the girls I lived with last year's mom died. I then called another one of the girls I lived with to see if she wanted to do something for their family and found out that she already knew about her mom dying yesterday morning from a third roomie. I found out online nobody bothered to call and let me know what happened. I'm sad for her family but upset with the other two girls, but what did I expect??? I guess those girls are not people I would call friends, their actions have spoken much louder than their words.
Love is, as far as I can tell, the most mature response to any situation - the pinnacle of what it means to be truly human. Love is a wrench in the wheels of cause and effect, of reactionary living, of casual imitation. Yes, speed and events are all around us in the information age, but motion, true motion, is rare. Love is the movement.~Jon Foreman
I am learning to love other people, and I am learning to love myself...
No comments:
Post a Comment