Have you ever wondered, at the end of a bad day, week, month, or year how you made it there?  Why is it that sometimes hurt inspires us to do our best?  Are you ever scared that simply existing gives people a reason to turn their eyes away from your pain?

Have you ever been so exhausted, so ready to sleep, only to lie down and not be able to fall asleep for all the helplessness you feel?  The phone, you pick it up and put it down ten times.  You pick it up due to an unrestrained impulse to try and fix something you know you can not fix.  You lay it back down, restrained by the knowledge that there is nothing you can do, and if you could no one would care.

 Oh, people care.  So many people care and for that you honestly and truthfully, with joy in your heart, lift up your praises and thanks to God.  Immediately thereafter ask Jesus to take hold of your heart because you just noticed that you’ve unconciously said outloud, “I’m not going to make it” for the third time.

 Maybe you didn’t know what love was.  Maybe you didn’t feel it.  Maybe it was to pie in the sky.  You were sure you knew it was love, but now you “know” you never knew what in the hell it was…

“Love is patient, it is kind, and it is not jealous.  It doesn’t brag, and is not arrogant.  It does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, it is not provoked, does not take into account wrongs suffered.  It does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes in all things, endures all things.”

Conviction.  Turns out that you yourself have fallen short of what is in fact love.  But, with honestly you can say that you have strived far and wide to perfect your love.  There is an element of turning your sword on yourself.  Doesn’t take into account wrongs suffered seems to fail in light of all your suffering.  Lord, help me.

Knowledge.  It wasn’t that what was happening didn’t feel like love.  Its that love stopped, and that’s why what was happening stopped.  No more bearing, no more enduring, no more belief…no more hope. 

It wasn’t you that gave up, but all the same its gone.