What it would be like if you believed it deep down?
What would it be like if you held on to this real tight?
It's in your grasp.
Babe, hear me out: you are great.
You are strong and beautiful and able.
You are messy and together and some days falling apart.
You are surrounded and cared for and hardly standing alone.
You are loved.
You are loved.
I know sometimes it doesn't feel like it. Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and I'm not naive enough to think that it was joyful for everyone. Some of us mourned, while others of us have been mourning our whole lives. For some, it was just another day, another reminder, of just how achy this world really is. I know that someone found yesterday unbearable, because how in the world did we get to this point? We're yelling and screaming and I wish the noise would just stop.
Somebody was sad, because that seat shouldn't be empty right there. For whatever the reason, that place is vacant, and I wish it really wasn't.
Some people were hungry, and some people were privileged. Some people were doing it all, a single parent just trying to force a smile, and some kids weren't fooled; they're getting old enough to see the world.
Some of us were pretending to be happy, because the holidays are supposed to be that way. We shut up and sit down and act like everything is fine, though two days before a town in Missouri was burning to the ground. Yesterday a young girl was imprisoned for attempting to escape a forced child marriage, and today already, someone, somewhere has received bad news. And yet we smile.
This is how the world works, it's how the world is.
Maybe we smile because we feel like we have to, because we know that even if the world is burning to the ground, we should still have hope, and hope, for some of us, means simply forcing a smile.
If yesterday was the worst for you, then I'm truly, deeply sorry. For some of you it was wonderful, and that's so, so happy. I hope some days are great for us all.
On the days when great is gone, though, I hope you can hope.
I hope you can hope.
If life is hard for you right now, I want you to know: you can still have hope.
You can be mad, sad, angry, confused. You can be upset or numb or just really, really, over it all. You don't have to be fake-happy or totally at rest. Genuine hearts: that's all God wants.
Feel. Think. Weep. Sit. Do.
Speak it out or sit in the sadness. Don't ignore the darkness; no one is asking you to. Be real, and let yourself be where you're at this holiday season. If life is really sad, it's okay to say and think so.
Don't quit though.
Keep on going.
Hoping may not be smiling or laughing or pretending like everything is okay. It may not mean joy or peace or any other good virtue. At some level hope is beyond difficult to describe, because it takes such various forms. Then, on another hand, it's vague like smoke, the wisps visible but just barely, and right when your fingers reach out to take hold, it vanishes.
Hope like smoke.
Smoke, no matter how whimsical and faulty, is real.
And so is hope.
Hope is yours to have, babe, but like smoke, it won't come on its own. You have to embrace it, fuel it, you have to instigate it like a fire and keep it going all through the night. If smoke is your hope then perseverance is the flame, and maybe we can throw some logs of struggle and twigs of endurance in there, too. With every ounce of breath deep within you've got to blow on the fire, and if you make it just right, it'll warm you through and through.
Keep it going, love.
Keep going, love.
You're a fighter. A ground-breaker, a mountain-mover, a strong, strong person and a hopeful sort of human. You are fantastic, and you're worth something big.
The best part of this all is that you aren't standing alone. There are people surrounding you, and we are rooting for you, absolutely. Whatever it is that you want and wish and seek, you can do it.
Don't let the world tell you otherwise.
You're strong.
You're capable.
You are loved.
You're on fire.
And you're able to have hope.
Hope like smoke.
