Dark night of the soul.

If I were you, I wouldn't go into this post thinking it will make sense.

I am listening to Explosions in the sky. They always make me reflect. They may even be making me unwillingly think.

Another of these dreaded nights, where I lay awake and try not to be overtaken by my emotions.

I am glad that these nights are few and far between, but when they do decide to plague me, they bring a fright that I am never prepared to deal with. Nights where I lay awake and am face to face with the deepest hurts and fears of my soul.

Why do these nights suddenly strike? And without warning?

What happened in my day that brought me to this place? What reminded me of you? (what doesn't remind me of you) ?

Oh, yes....

I sang your song today... I let your memory settle in my mind as I sang out of loving and missing you. Oh, it felt innocent enough... But, there you are. There you are now. And I feel it like an old ache.... Always with you, ever-present. Sometimes almost, but never forgotten.

It's much like waking up in a nightmare, the day that something like that happens. You never seem to wake up from it.... You just learn to live in the nightmare. After a while, you may forget it's a nightmare.... But you never seem to go back to the level of innocence that you once lived in.

They said time would heal it. I admit the pain has dulled, but yet, there it is. So easy to access.

What time has done however, is taken me further from you. I remember right after and for a while after... being able to feel you still. The warmth of your arms around me. And the smell of your hair as you held me crying. The sound of your voice as you spoke light into the dark. Time has taken that from me.

I close my eyes and try so hard to remember your warm skin, and I feel nothing but the coldness of my lost memory. No smell. No sound. lost.

I do not cry because I am uncertain of where you are or that we will meet again. I cry because there is a certain sadness in the time I must now spend without you here. I cry (like a tantrum more than anything) as I look forward to what I will face in the next 70 years or so... not just being without the three of you. But, the sure knowledge of the many more pains that I will face in this world. The many more hurts and disappointments that this life will offer.

The frustrations of this life... I cry as I dread those.

These nights when none of your normal pain relievers will offer you relief.

When normally I might be able to write in my journal or write a song, I find it hard to express the word laying at the bottom of my soul. I find it frustrating that words cannot express the feelings I feel. I don't think there is a sound in any language that could bear the weight of loss.

No assortment of pretty vocabulary (or ugly for that matter) could come close to releasing this burden. No, words will fail.

I would run... Run miles... Run so hard that I couldn't help but be still after I'd finished. To drain all my energy out so that there would be none left to think of these things with.

But no, on these nights.... There isn't even the strength to put a foot in front of the other to begin... No, there is no strength for that. But the emotion still overwhelms me... It seems to have its own strength, but it won't share it with my flesh. No. It won't allow me the option of ridding myself of it.

There is nothing I want to do. Nothing I want to say. Nothing I want to hear. I just want relief.

The emotion is built up, and I lay writhing in my bed as I beg for release.

I never thought it possible to have such an overload of emotion. To be afraid of breaking from it. Though I have taken to heart David's words that Joy comes in the morning.

I think he was saying.... Stick it out. Don't be swallowed by this feeling. Don't let it consume you. Hold on as long as you can... get through this dark night... The morning brings new hope. The morning brings perspective.

And so I lay here. And I try to talk to God.

I begin to speak, "God- Just, hold me....... Tak-" And then, I realize I don't have the words. I don't even know what I need. I don't know what to say to him. Words fail. Words never had the power to carry out thoughts of this kind.

These are screams. These are groanings. But not of an audible kind.

This kind of mourning has no sound. One is totally deflated. The energy to manifest it's pain is non-existent. If you looked at a creature in this agony he might seem asleep.

It is silent. The battle is being waged deeper than the skin and muscle, deeper than the bones,

in the very spirit.

I lie here and do not say a word to my creator. I have no interest tonight in babbling on at him. Not one word I have ever heard uttered could explain to him what I need. That word was never created. Even if it were, I wouldn't know what it was I needed in the first place. Every path I begin to walk down in my mind has me stopping two feet in, as I realize that it indeed is the wrong answer to my question.

So I lay here. Silent. Believing that my Lord could heal the wound in me I don't see or understand. The wound I have no name or sound for. Believe that without even knowing fully why I am hurting, that he can make me new.

And I wait for morning.