Facing the ache

"Grieving my old life / But I’m not that old"  - Samantha Ebert

Image by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

It’s hard to grieve a life lost.

It’s hard to grieve the misfortunes of the living.

It's hard to grieve the realities that we play a part in and the ones that we cannot help.

It’s painful to grieve what goes unseen. The loss of self. The downward spiral. The overnight change. The constant pain and bone-deep exhaustion.

No one taught me how to carry the weight of multiple griefs all at once. How to live when everything in you wants to run, to stop, to hide.

Some days, like today, my soul aches. My spirit feels heavy, like I desperately need to push the weight off, but the crushing load is robbing me of the strength to be free.

This soul ache is often accompanied by physical aching. As I sit up at 3 AM, willing myself to take my medications, trying to put the internal war into words, the grief is catching up with me. I can no longer run from the reckoning, from the cumulative weight of the last year and a half. I have to face it.

"Day by day feeling more fragile / And I’m not thinking straight / I’m tired of being exhausted / And living in this state / It’s hard making sense of this suffering / When I feel like no one knows what I go through / But no one knows suffering / Better than You" - Samantha Ebert

A chapter of survival. A season of loneliness. A reminder that all chapters end and all seasons shift. A moment to quietly determine that, as lost as I feel in this moment, I cannot, and will not, allow the pain to blind me to peace. Peace the passes understanding. Peace that comes from the only One who fully sees me, in all of the grief I have wrestled with this year—the only One who truly understands it all.

I still have so many questions. So many things still feel unfair. But I want so desperately to find my joy in the chaos. To feel like myself once again.

Somehow, someday, it will all make sense. For now, I will face the ache and gently re-learn what it means to live again.

On this side of heaven

I may never know

Why some of Your children

Get to the end of their rope

But You paved a way for the hopeless

so I can run to the One

who felt all that I do

Cause no one knows suffering

better than You

Can’t wait for the day

That I feel like myself

And all this surviving's

a chapter of life tucked away on a shelf

-Samantha Ebert

No One Knows by Samantha Ebert

Note: Thanks for joining me here today, friend. This post is part of a larger series where I'm sharing responses to the songs and artists that are currently carrying me. The ones that have been witnesses to my grief, and have given me words when I had none to give. If you find any comfort and joy in following along, please join me. I hope these songs minister to you as much as they have to me. See the launch post here: https://www.joyuntainted.com/post/on-having-no-words