point of view

it's a strange state we're in that's for sure you can't be strong unless you know you're weak won't feel held til you've tasted the lonely ache must be broken down if you want to be made whole can't be blinded by brightness without being encompassed by the dark you can't love without hurting, fearing, bleeding, weeping oh friend, push on for the prize

Technically speaking my birthday has just ended.  I suppose I should be in bed but it's that time of night and of course I'm waxing eloquent and ignoring my need for beauty rest... I just wanted to nail down a few things that stand out from my year of being 24.  (Because I know when I am finished being 25 I'll get nostalgic and go looking for birthday blog posts .) I've had dark years.  Years that were marked by what one of my professors/coworkers calls the "dark night of the soul."  I don't know that I would say that 24 was dark.  But I think I have been learning how to grieve this year.  More than ever before I have seen my own weakness, my own limitations, my own fallenness and the lack and brokenness of the world around me.  And in many little ways I've been forced to give up the notion that I can do  enough to reverse these things.  Oh, what precious grace that has driven me to cry out to the Lord more than I ever have before!  I...