Be kind, for everyone you meet
is fighting a hard battle.
*
I have often written here of struggles in my life.
But there are some that just cannot be written but
are just as real.
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Grief and facing reality can be hard.
*
Years ago when I was working in the corporate world,
I would often listen to Ancient Faith Radio.
That Lent of 2009 I was working in my small
library that I was in charge of.
Things were going badly and before that Lent was over,
my job was also over;
I can see God's mercy in all of it;
later I read about toxic job environments; for reasons
outside of the control of those I worked with and for,
the job I was in was just that: toxic.
*
So things were in shambles on so many levels
back then; everything I was working towards was
crumbling ~ my job, a friendship I had valued,
some people were sick with illnesses that at the time
were rocking my world into shards.
*
It was very difficult.
But in the midst of that trying time,
I remember while I was shelving some books,
I listened to this song by
*
but it is worth repeating:
the grief of the sisters of their brother Lazarus
and the sense of struggle towards actual
hope, actual Resurrection,
it all was heard suddenly as I
was shelving the books,
listening to this song
and the joy found in it...
*
It says it all to me:
it is the struggle to Rejoice
in the midst of great tragedy,
in midst of broken lives, of facing sickness, death.
*
When things are difficult,
I listen to this and am helped.
