Beautiful

Remember your beauty.
Remember your worth.
Remember that you mean something.
That the world is a brighter place with you in it.

If you feel that you are broken, know that I am broken too. If we were all honest with ourselves and with each other, we'd realize that we are all broken in some way. All the pretty masks we wear won't hide it. Perhaps it's time we stop hiding it.

I know the weight you carry is lonely and painful and devastating at times, and the darkness feels as if it might swallow you whole if you just stopped for a second to let yourself truly feel. But there is beauty in your fight. There's a fierceness in your will to survive. There is brilliant, blinding light on the other side of midnight, just waiting to break through, waiting to save you.

So if you are so buried in the pain that you can't see a safe way through it, if you feel like you're not good enough, not worthy enough, not strong enough -- let these words ring out like an anthem in your soul:

You are beautiful.
You are beautiful.
You are beautiful.

You are too beautiful to lose. 

Brave

Choosing to be brave is never a mistake.
But sometimes it will cost you every drop of strength you had left in your being.
And when it does - when it leaves your heart cracked, stripped bare,
And your soul a desert of wasted love and wilted dreams,
You'll tell yourself that you were foolish.
Too idealistic. Too hopeful. Too bold.
You'll tell yourself to be silent next time.
You'll tell yourself it must be you.
But it was never you.
You, my dear one, are the brightest truest thing there ever was.

So write this on the chalkboard of your mind.
Scream it in the chambers of your heart.
Choosing to be brave is never a mistake.
Because in that choice, you honor yourself.
You honor humanity.
You honor life itself.
We were never meant to be vessels of unspoken words,
Of fear, of cowardice,
Of smothered hopes,
And stifled cries.

I know right now you feel trapped in the sadness,
In the fog of unanswered questions,
In the hauntings of self doubt,
But you are not trapped forever.
Because only in complete vulnerability can you ever be free.
And you set yourself free every single time you choose to speak up,
To step out,
To leap,
To love.

In That Moment

When my heart feels sad for a hundred different reasons, there’s always the sea – soothing me with its waves. Mountains – inspiring me with their strength. Desert – reminding me that even in the dust and barrenness, beauty exists. And if nature weren’t enough, then comes music. Notes and words and feelings all juxtaposed together somehow making sense of the sadness, the madness, the brilliant, brilliant mess. And in that moment of utterly losing myself to the wind and the earth and the songs – the stories reminding me of ones greater than my own – I find a little bit of myself I thought I’d lost. In that moment, I am free.

Too Much

You feel too much.
You share too much.
You think in sharing maybe understanding will come.
But it's too much to put that on anyone.
Your best friend says, "Maybe try being less open -
I hate saying that to you because that's not what you should be,
But maybe you should be."
It's hard to bare your soul, eyes swollen.
It's hard to name your flaws, and then have others name them back to you,
As if you didn't just name them.
As if you don't beat yourself up already a million times over a million different moments
For those very same flaws.
You want to care. You want to be let in to someone else's pain.
But they have to let you in.
You can't just break in.
Just like you can't expect someone else to break into yours.
You deserve to be walked with. But not because you're broken. Because you're worth it.
And walked with means different things.
Talks in rooms about all the what could be's, if you could just be better.
Or sitting with you in your dark and just being.
Breathing.
Accepting.
Fighting.
Together.
Losing the things that bring you joy leave you questioning
Where is the meaning?
Where are the silver linings when clouds are darkest?
If the purpose in your gifts is to give them away,
And you're not able to give,
What then?
Are your passions less potent when you're weak? Less valid when you're vulnerable?
Must you be perfectly whole first?
You are too much.
But somehow you are never enough.
I guess "normalcy" falls somewhere in the middle,
And you seem to miss the mark every time.
This weight you carry is overwhelming.
And words and hugs and talks will not lessen it.
We all carry our own great sadness.
I wish I knew yours, and you knew mine.
It would not be too much.
Perhaps some of us are just meant to be creatures of the shadows.
That is why when the light shines in us,
It shines so brilliantly.
Maybe you feel too much.
Or maybe, you just feel.
But to feel means to be alive.
And that is something worth feeling too much for.

Letters to God

I am standing out here in the storm, screaming. I’m screaming at you, God. I’m screaming for you. What do I need to do to get your attention? If you want me to believe, then be here. Show up. People are starving – for sincere community, for meaning in tragedy, for shelter in chaos, for love amidst hate. What am I supposed to do about this mess of a world we live in? The brokenness and suffering is immeasurable. If you are, then be. Here. With us. Be here, not in corporate songs we sing, but in the trenches of our darkest nightmares. Be here, until your warmth seeps into our veins and frees our hearts from all the pain and all the doubt and all the insecurities and all the unworthiness.

Despite all my best efforts to ignore you, to rebel, to push you away, to scream profanities when no other words seem to express my despair adequately enough, and to annihilate your very existence in my mind – despite all this, I cannot help but see you in the seemingly minute details of the world around me:

In the sun when it rises on the horizon;
In the wind as it sweeps through the trees and cools my face;
In the beauty of foreign landscapes;
In the last bit of light before nightfall;
In the still of evening when an owl swoops overhead and perches on the branches above, looking down at me with wide, almost understanding eyes.

In those brief moments, I want to believe that you're present; and that somehow, everything will be okay.