I am bleeding

I am hemorrhaging. Not literally, but it feels that way.

Life is in the blood... and I am bleeding. So much around me is bleeding out.

How can I stand up to this onslaught of life seeping, life-sucking bleeding? Today I feel so fragile and weak in it's wake. Life leaving and lives moved on, taking away community and, ultimately, identity. Though I've watched it happen, I did not foresee identity tumbling, staggering, gasping.

Who am I in this death march?

So much transition, loss, change in five, six, seven years time... and now this.

Jesus, You are still the rock I stagger on. I know You are there, but my heart aches and bleeds with all around me. I have stood up to it so long, but I am weakening. There is only so much... too much...
I feel my legs buckling and my heart caving in. I'm so tired of being strong and steadfast. I don't even want You to be my strength. I want to curl up and close my eyes and be done.

I am weary and I can hardly see You for all the blood.

Yet You bled for all this, too.

I know.

Still, today there is grief and heaviness... and no time to stop. No time to be weak.

For every time there is a season...

This is the season of dying, but no time to die.
This is the season of weariness, but life does not care.
Of losing myself in the bleeding and not wanting to fight anymore.

Not even sure why I think I need to be strong, but I have always thought I must.

How can I care for others when life of soul and spirit are leaking out? Most days I soldier on and fake it with grief dragging like a millstone.

Oh, how I long to really rest in a spacious, life-giving place. How I long to breathe again.

I've known that life before. It seems an age away. Someone else's life.

How I long to be her again...


But, how will I stop the bleeding?


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Sometimes life is real and my heart is raw. Most days I keep that to myself. 

Today I let it spill. 

The circumstances: too numerous, thus purposely vague. 
My heart: on my sleeve, clearly bleeding.
No pat answers. No platitudes. 
Just a snapshot in real time.

If you're here too, know that someone else is trudging along... and journaling blog-like prayers.