there’s the feeling of souls being ravaged — when something dark and foreboding sweeps in, taking the very things you were always so sure of.  it’s the dark, long days and silent tears that fall.  you see it in the shoulders that droop and circles under the eyes that turn darker with every passing day.

it’s the knowledge that we’re in the midst of hardness, difficulty, and tasting a bit of the barrenness that can come — the product of living in a fallen world.

and it’s in those moments of seeing shoulders starting to droop, tasting the dust in my mouth from the dry, barren land i’m surrounded by, that i dig my feet in a little more.  i’m not leaving until i see something — see life spring forth from this dusty, hardened earth.

i’m here.  here till it comes.

and i listen to this on repeat:

She limps on up to the top of a mount
Looks at the faltered harvest
Feels her sweat in the ground and the burn in her nose
And the knowing in her guts
Something’s still gonna grow
She ain’t leaving ’till it does. – Brooke Fraser