Darkness deserves gratitude. It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that all growth does not take place in the sunlight.
~ Joan Chittister
Death and dying, illness and injury.
Gratitude? Maybe it comes easily
for the life of the departed,
for how much worse the illness
or injury could have been.
But for the darkness itself?
Can we see it as the alleluia point
where we learn to understand
growth does not happen only
at the happy times?
I speak of 1997 as my hell year.
For me, my sons, my father
six hospitalizations, seven hospitals.
close to sixty-five hospital days.
The effect on my life? knew
I was physically destroying myself
emotionally. I began a long process
of recreating my life. Ten years later
Rodney Adkins recommended
the option of keeping on going,
a way to see that growth happens
in the dark times.
Gratitude? Maybe it comes easily
for the life of the departed,
for how much worse the illness
or injury could have been.
But for the darkness itself?
Can we see it as the alleluia point
where we learn to understand
growth does not happen only
at the happy times?
I speak of 1997 as my hell year.
For me, my sons, my father
six hospitalizations, seven hospitals.
close to sixty-five hospital days.
The effect on my life? knew
I was physically destroying myself
emotionally. I began a long process
of recreating my life. Ten years later
Rodney Adkins recommended
the option of keeping on going,
a way to see that growth happens
in the dark times.
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