both|and

You know how it goes, the first thing someone asks you: How are you doing?

“Oh good! I’m good.” I say.

And I am. I am good. I feel so much joy and anticipation about the changes I see in myself and people close to me. This is a season of newness! A time of change. Dreams all around me are being realized. Prayers are being answered. The glory and faithfulness of God is on display everywhere I look.

But I’m also tired. And busy. I look at my calendar sometimes and want to cry. I’m impatient. And disappointed. And more than little exasperated. I’m ready to give up on some things. Some people. My tank is empty.

But the person asking How are you? doesn’t want to hear that. Or if they do, I don’t want to talk about it. It’s too hard to explain anyway. I don’t even understand it myself. I am a walking contradiction. Light and darkness. Joy and fear. Excitement and exhaustion.

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Sometimes it’s a hard choice, to sing. To say, You’re bigger than what I feel right now. To listen to the voice that says, My Grace is Sufficient for You. To look up instead of forward.

(excerpt from The Hollow Men, T.S. Eliot, 1925)