With Hope... Good Morning...

 

Back in the fall I wrote a blog about waiting for the seasons to change.  I had a bad summer, one filled with loss and sickness.   The past summer was such a contrast to the bountiful year I had prior with having a miracle baby and getting my business off the ground.  I thought some how that maybe the seasons of my life and the seasons of the earth would correlate, but that in a sense was wishful thinking.  It's been a rough summer, fall and even winter.  It feels like despite my effort to remain positive there are days where there is blow after blow.  So much is changing but feels like crumbling, not that season of change for the positive that I was hoping for.  And it's not one area of life or one situation, it's several.  But as I look at the lives of people I work with and mentor, I recognize we are all in that place.  That agonizing journey filled with moments of struggle, moments of joy, and moments of uncertainty.  It's not me and a bad season, it's that up hill climb.  It's that waiting place.  It's the reason I started this blog...

I called this blog Waiting for the Sun to Rise for a reason.  It was parallel to a trip to Hawaii where we climbed a really difficult hill in hopes of seeing the sun rise on the horizon at like 4:30 in the morning...  I thought I was in shape, but quickly became tired and hopeless that we would not make it in time.  We ran the bottom of the hill, quickly became out of breath and I struggled the rest of the way.  Meanwhile, for Chris it was a breeze.  He encouraged me, gave me space to pause and focused on helping me, but I was humbled that morning and realized how much life is a journey with few resting places and more twists and turns than it appears from the base of the mountain. 

And the reality is that it doesn't get easier to have day after day of disappointment and struggle.  It doesn't feel good to be in a place of ambivalence.  It doesn't ease the anxiety of ones heart to be still.  But sometimes moving forward doesn't feel like progress either.  It's a damned if you do and damned if you don't in some places.  Not sure if I am going up or down.  Do I try to lose weight or wait?  What do I let go for stress purposes but hold on to so I feel fulfilled?  Who is helping me and who is just taking from me?  It's a lot of thinking, a lot of just putting one foot in front of the other, and sometimes it's a choice to stay focused that this hill will yield the joy that I am climbing it for. 

I have been trying to get pregnant again for 8 months.  After a long dinner conversation with an old friend also struggling in this area, we sternly summarized this journey with "this just sucks".  With each passing month, each passing day sometimes, we don't know what our bodies, our God, and our lives will hold.  Maybe this month, maybe this time, maybe....  Another fork in the road or another dead end becomes a choice to give up or a choice to find new strength.  This endurance developed could be seen as a blessing but say that to the one on the road.  It's only in hind sight that we see the blessing in the struggle.  Only when we reach the top that we truly understand the big picture.  So what do I do with today?

I have been a long time fan of Maya Angelou.  I read several of her books and love the depth of her words.  Her metaphors are laden with heart filled meaning.  I remember logging into a computer program as a child and hearing, "with hope, good morning".  Maya wrote this poem, the Inaugural Poem, and the poem, especially the last part is so descriptive of where I am today:

I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours--your Passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.

Give birth again
To the dream.

Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.

Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.

Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.

No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

 

This is where I am with this journey.  Where I am with continuing to feel like I am losing every step of the way.  But I have hope.  Every passing day.  I wake up with hope.  I hope that continues the rest of my days.  No matter the darkness, that I still am greeted by the light.   We are all able to stop each morning and chose to find hope.  But we have to find it, say it, proclaim it.  We have to find grace that our journey comes with pain.  We, and especially I, have to accept that God doesn't give me a big picture, a map, or even a cold water bottle half way up this mountain.  All I get is the hope of knowing that there is a top, there is an end.  God's grace won't be revealed until that time, so each coming day is just another step up that hill.  Sometimes I will see whats ahead and sometimes I will  just have to trust that His Grace of Sufficient... 

So... with hope, Good Morning, friends....

full poem :  http://poetry.eserver.org/angelou.html