I write through the tired tonight

Not necessarily because I have anything worthful to say, but because I need to write sometimes despite heavy eyelids and lethargy, because my soul needs it.

Since I wrote an email to a friend this morning about my spiritual state in recent weeks, I’ve been turning it over in my head. It wasn’t until I started writing that email, really, that I realized how much of a spiritual battle has coincided with my particularly stressful work schedule. Whether there is a direct correlation, I do not know. I suppose I would like to think I am somehow a key figure in this policy discussion, or have a role in bringing an eternal perspective to American politics that will forever change the nation.

While I don’t fully know God’s reasons for having me in DC, though, it’s probably not as sensational or sweeping as all that. His economy is so different from ours, you know. He would bring me to the ends of the earth if only to make me who He wants me to be, and so bring glory to Himself.

For me, for now, the “ends of the earth” are DC, and a life richly blessed beyond what I could ask or think. I look back on just the first half of this remarkable year and reflect with delight on the first real snow in the new apartment (which is coming up on a year old now), of wonderful reunions with friends while exploring new places, many special times with God, time at home (by the sea and in the mountains), weddings, a road trip to Cattaraugus with the Italian, and numerous new, exciting challenges at work which, in their small way, may or may not help bring down the horrible policy being proposed.

And there is more, so much more. Two of my favorite people are expecting their first child next month (and since they live two blocks away, guess who is going to be babysitting a lot?). Deo volente, I will see my family for a few days next month. I get to fulfill an almost lifelong dream of going to Ireland in late August/early September. And then the easier seasons come at work, which give way to cooler days, lovely autumn breezes, warm chai, baking, home, family, Christmas.

Yes, I’m waxing sentimental. Deal. My blog.

The point is, for all the struggle of the last few weeks, the tired and the tears, it’s helping me become a more grateful person – to realize the multitude of things I have to be thankful for, the rich life I have the opportunity to live. And I never want to lose that realization: that life is meant to live, not to just float or push through. Life is meant for knowing and being known.

Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD.
His going forth is established as the morning;
He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth. ~ Hosea 6:3