My soul is tired tonight.

It’s not a bad thing, just a true thing.

Many near and dear to me are in the midst of loss, grief, pain, uncertainty, and unrelenting change, and their souls are weary too.

It’s not a bad thing, just a true thing.

There is no way around or over such times, there is only through. And while we can’t walk someone else’s trail for them, we can accompany them on their way. If we are called to do nothing else, we are called to this. To sidle up to one another, and stick together, come what may.

We listen, and listen, and then listen some more. We connect them with needed resources, and clear our calendars.. We show up without being asked, and pick up the phone and call. We get online and order something that will lift their spirits when they find it delivered to their porch. We cry with them, and laugh with them in that crazy-ass way that only dark humor can turn on a moment of light. We commiserate with them, and cook for them. Shake our fists heavenward with them, even as we offer up prayers of gratitude for the grace and strength to make it through another day.

As they do for me, I do for them. As I do for them, they do for me.

And so it goes.

It is nothing if not a maze of shared grace.

Weary though it may be, at the end of this day, it is well with my soul.