Sunday of Peace

It's the Sunday of Peace - two candles lit on the advent wreath... two Sundays closer to the end of waiting - ever closer to the blessing of Christ. It's a constant renewal... a yearly privilege to reflect on the darkness, the loneliness, the isolation. The hard part is to remember this early reflection as a privilege... to remember there is a promise of light... a promise of a blessing. It's there... I've seen it, but only fleeting glimpses... just enough to keep me waiting, anticipating longer. I remind myself that the time of deliverance isn't known...

The challenge becomes staying focused - an awfully hard thing to do when you're in the grips of the dark desolation of night. I pray for hope - a constant replenishment. I pray for peace - a soft settling of the soul. I sob in the shower and then chastise myself for my weakness and shortsightedness - for my lack of faith. I wonder - wonder if that's why... wonder if the struggle is because I question... wonder if the darkness and pain are because I doubt. Is this what keeps me in the dark, prevents me from walking into the light?

I don't know the answers... I don't know that right things to do. I used to think, when my ex was so ill and drifting farther and farther away - that if I could just find the right "formula," the right sequence of words, some magic incantation to say - that if I could just figure it all out then it would be ok... and the truth was I was looking for the impossible... something that didn't exist... because I had no control over any of it... and I have very little control over any of this now. It is all just what it is....

But I keep searching. And I keep wondering. And I wish I knew how to lay it all down and leave it there. I'm so tired of losing things in my life - losing people. There is a line in a song that says how many times can I break til I shatter... and I wonder that... wonder how many more times. I just want peace. I pray for peace... and I wait. I don't know what else to do.