The Grey

Sorrow comes in many ways. It can come from loss, from disappointment. It can come from miscommunications or even just loneliness that dwells inside.

Sorrow can seep in like a cloud and cover your days just as easily as it covers over your spirit - feeling the grey.

It’s cold. Numbing certain senses while pricking deep others.

The grey, as I’ve begun to call it doesn’t follow patterns, moving rather like those same clouds mentioned above.

It sits on my presence and hovers.

And then it either grows truly dark, like dangerously dark, or it dissolves into the background as light starts to peek through.

It is always light that cracks its hold on my spirit. Sunlight, spirit light - it’s so amazing that the nature around us can be healing and inside we need that same kind of relief from the grey.

It comes from deeper belief, and even our simple attitude to try to look up and look beyond the cold to move forward. I know in the past I’ve stumbled and stayed stuck in the grey for much longer than I needed to. Holding onto the fears, the uncertainty, the bitterness inside that comes from just wishing things were a little different. A little brighter on a cloudy day.

Possibly wishing I had a little more. Or didn’t struggle quite as much. 

But then I realize the lie that I’m telling myself. Because I have so much. And even when it’s grey, I do have people that care, kids that actually seem to love me, and I do have my faith. And that is quite a lot. 

I may not have the material trappings like some of the people that I know, but I have so much more than others. 

And I have truth. Truth that has carried me through years of the grey. 

~ Peace

The Burtle

Sometimes I just sit and cry.

Not because I want to;

Not because the sky is falling.

Just because.

Because it feels heavy -

And I feel alone.

And even on a day filled with a lot of good depression still sits. Ready to have a smothering affect on my soul.

So that’s where I am.

Nothing blatant.

Nothing that will destroy me - unless I let it.

But tears come.

Been thinking a lot about the last five years. And even though I know we’re not supposed to dwell in the past, it sits. 

So many people say that five years is when things starts to click, and I think they’re probably right. That doesn’t mean that I’m able to understand my fucked up emotions - and even as grateful as I am, I often feel alone. And I just wanna be held. 

And loved.

Thankful for my group - the meeting that has been there since day one (well day three because I was avoiding the cult of AA at first!). I shared this morning that I remember clearly when God asked… “what do you want Chad?”

And I’m grateful for every breath over those years.  ALL of them, going back to the beginning, 53 years. Because they gave me these scars and a story.  One I’ll tell to anyone who asks - given the motives are right.

I don’t seek any pulpit, honestly I just want to walk like my friend Rich did. No, I didn’t know Rich Mullins, but I feel like he got it - the gospel how I read it and want so hard to believe, even as I’m fighting with that same God.

It’s raining outside.

And inside.

And it will be ok.

 - - - -

Have you ever thought about what other people around you carry? The sadness, the hurt, the pent-up anger, even joy that has been suppressed because of relationships that are hard or struggles in their life. Do you ever stop and wonder what’s going on in their lives?

We ALL have stuff. 

And maybe that’s a place we can connect instead of DISconnect.

Maybe?

~ Peace

The Burtle 

Rich Mullins - hard to get