It might be hope

A little while ago, a friend and I were talking about a band we like, called The Innocence Mission. 

"Their lyrics are great," he said. "They're just so--"

"--hopeful!" I finished.

"Really?" he asked. "I was going to say dark, and sad."

Sometimes hope is a sudden joy, a spark of light, a new friend, a new opportunity.

But sometimes hope is dark, and sad. 

*

All weekend you were moved to tears. Watching a friend leave home just like you did a few months ago. Watching another friend say I do and embark on something beautiful and impossible, loving another person just as he is, forever. Watching the church come to communion together and feeling how inadequately we share ourselves and how deeply we need each other.

So today, on your 8-hour drive from what used to be home to what still doesn't feel like home, you play one song on repeat and just cry. Again and again. Because feeling your wounds might just mean you believe healing could come. Today, it's okay to just feel the loneliness. No disclaimers. You don't have to apologize to your single friends for feeling lonely even though you're married, and you don't have to apologize to your busy friends for feeling anxious even though you have lots of free time. You don't have to apologize on behalf of Christians everywhere for not always feeling joy and resurrection, and you don't have to apologize to your blog readers for not always believing the things you write, which you write because you want to believe them and because somewhere down in there you do. You don't plan out the eight thousand things you're going to change about your life when you get home this time, which you have never really changed.

You just let the tears come, and know that it might be hope of the best kind.