After typing a message to a friend, I read what my fingers had just spelled out… and came to a realization that took me quite a while to arrive at.

It’s so hard for me to allow myself to hope anymore… But I do believe he is beginning to show me that when I really do begin to believe and accept that this life is not my own, he can use me, even if it’s just in little ways. And this is exactly where my hope – and worth – should be.

And I’m thinking it’s probably one of those things that I will be learning and forgetting and re-learning for the majority of my life.

It almost feels as though this were a commencement
of sorts, without the pomp
or circumstance.
A culmination of one season
and the beginning of the next.
A position on the brink
of the indefinite.
But facing forward,
back to the past, gaze set into the distance.
Somehow a remnant of dignity,
self worth, pride,
(dare I say hope?)
has emerged from the rubble.
I have survived this much.
Not with graceful execution
or with a flourished finish,
but with a pulse
and breath.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
And take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
And uphold me with your free spirit.

-Part of the LBW liturgy, taken from Psalm 51:10-12.