Going dark

I have a person in my world who is going dark. It is a hard month with many difficult anniversaries for them. The calls- or returning calls- stopped first, and now they aren’t responding to texts. 

Sometimes it happens like that- just slowly slipping down into yourself. Or like everything and everyone around you just grows dimmer and dimmer. 

Those of us around the dear soul are trying to give them space, but, it’s like you don’t want your dear one to spin out into the nether so how much space is the right amount?  


So you pray. You worry over their name like rubbing a rosary bead down so the color wears off. You hope that the golden bowls of prayers are being poured over them like balm to cover their wounded soul. 


Loss is hard. Truly, and it can plum knock the air out of your very soul. Some of us bounce up and into ‘busy.’ Some of us sink into the dark. I’m sure there are more responses, as varied as the problems of the world, and the people in it.


I think that some folks get haunted, and rightly so, by the ghosts in their lives. Sometimes the living itself can just seem so much harder than actually dying. (I’m ok, I promise.) 


The other day I went to a funeral for someone who killed themselves and as awful as I thought it would be, it was way worse. Those who have gone through that special kind of pain tend to have a slightly haunted look when they talk about their loved one. 


Look man, death-grief is hard. All of it is hard. Covid deaths are hard. Suicide deaths are hard. Deaths-sort-of-caused by the person, like my brother’s by not keeping up with his AIDS’ medicine in favor of more beer, are hard. All of it is just, plain, hard. 


So can we just daisy-chain together, when one of us is teetering on the edge can we gently watch them and pray for them, and just in general can we please, for the love of God Almighty, be there for each other. Blessed are those who mourn, my friends. 


I do promise a lighter post, but quite frankly, lighter things need to start happening and soon. Until then, may we be the light- however small and wavering- in this dark and crazy world. May we lighten each other’s load in whatever way helps best. 


Ultimately, it is God who changes ‘utter darkness into light.’ Think about that for a minute. I think that Job is both an allegory and actual reality. By that I mean, there must be literal warehouses of snow and stuff somewhere. 


I think that the God of the universe can take whatever darkness you are facing and completely reverse it immediately. But I also know that sometimes He hops down into the darkness with us. And sometimes He pulls us through the darkness. We don’t seem to get a choice how He rescues us, but, we can cooperate with said rescue.


May you and yours darkness’ be made into light. I always pray for the first one- the instant miracle, but whichever may be in store may it restore your deepest needs truly and wholly. 


(I figured out how to add a subscribe link, you should see it on the left-side of this post, but it may be in the drop down menu if on a phone/tablet device. Not sure how consistent I will be as my day-job has a way of taking over my life, so I would recommend subscribing so you get notified when I post. Thanks for reading!)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Darkness deep

I never knew that being deep could be a bad thing. I assumed that the opposite- being shallow- was the bad thing.  But then again, I suppose that hell is quite deep down somewhere in this realm or some other. And in the deep it can be very dark. Our former pastor is starting a bible study on Job and encouraged us to read through it.    So I dutifully started and there I found it: Job 12:22 ‘He reveals the deep things of darkness and brings utter darkness into the light.’ This is a verse I could just sit in for like five years. I tend to tunnel down into things, thinking that is where the gold is, but is it possible it is just where the dark is? I have this theory that God is so massive and complex that our whole stinking lives can be spent just exploring him. My hope is this space is my offshoot of thoughts from my own exploration of that. I’m not sure I can promise to be regular with posting, but I set up a link to subscribe which should be on left side (or in a drop dow...
Read more

Gone through

I realize that probably half of my posts are apologizing for having abandoned this poor blog. This time it was from a medical thing that just dragged and dragged. I finally came through it. But. Man was it a struggle. I won’t put a lot of details cause quite frankly it was not pleasant and required I spend a lot of time in the bathroom. No one wants to read that crap. Literally.  Including, me. But. When you are in something, in the thick of it and it’s like you are suddenly in ‘Honey a Shrunk the Kids’ and everything is a forrest to you even though in actuality it’s just a blade of grass, well, all you can do really is go through it. It helps if some kind souls who have some bit of understanding to your situation come alongside you. I am blessed on that score and don’t deserve the friends and family that I have.  If you are just now hearing of this - I’m sorry. At some point I kind of just shut down trying to reach out and keep folks informed and there was not a clear line re...
Read more

The women who came before

She stares at me, fiercely, every day at work.  She ran the War Office of Tennessee.  Truth be told, she was a ‘Rosie the Riveter’ but. She stayed. Her best friend and her decided now that They had made it into the workforce, they weren’t going home. I stare at that tiny woman with a BOSS face, And I am steeled for my next meeting. She was my grandmother. She was a professor at UT and now retired. No. Scratch that. She just died. And I’m still painfully reminded Because I honestly, weirdly, thought she would live forever. Her scientist background convinced me that she would tick Right past the nineties and live well into the hundreds.  So many ‘remedies’ for this and that, God love her, it mostly worked. I want to live to 90-something. She was my friend, and I miss her already. She was mother, she is sister, she is daughter, she is friend. She flies. She fights. She is fierce. And because she flew the heights  And fought the fights And fiercely did what used to only ...
Read more