To those of you.

Love is forming selflessly, from a place and a source completely outside of our own. In fact, it is so holy, ..it is sometimes unrecognizable at first. And those who come upon it, mistakenly push it away.

As the warmth of it, scares them, as they realize: it is everything they've ever been longing to feel.

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I feel as if I have hit a landmark. And for the first time, I don't feel so afraid. I feel like a snake that has newly shed it's skin. I feel the remains of my past stretch, pull, and fall off the ends of my body. I feel the scaly texture leave me. This year has been a year of tests upon tests.

I don't know, for some of you who have been intuitive enough to care, caring enough to assimilate,
this year has felt like its worn away at me.


It is as if,
I am looking back at the survivors of a refugee camp. Turning my head backwards to see the faithful few: tear-stained eyes, sullen faces, small fragile frames, bruised bodies, and grayish colorless skin, and all I can see is the remains of a war-torn face upon their once heavy laden shoulders burden with the pain of the fight. Their frailty physically evident, their souls dangerously alive and frighteningly strong.

The callouses left their mark, they have cried their last tear, and they have felt the remains of the battle that have left their body a wreck, but their soul and character all the more wizened.

We are coming upon a hill...and the cold cliffs no longer threaten us as our only source of what we know .
We start to glimpse and see rays of warm sunlight. And our bodies begin to chill and hair begins to stand on end, as we've come upon what will surely save us.

We've come a long way.
suffered hard and tried much.
Our hopes were shattered and held onto to temporary oasis' in the desert.
Our bodies long to find health and our souls long for our all-deserving nourishment.

I congratulate you, all of you. Those faithful few who have survived. I congratulate you, the war-torn and beaten spiritual veteran. The courageous and young child with the might and heart of a lion and a soldier.

May this year, you find rest for your souls, restoration for what you have so faithfully and unswervingly given away.

May we all look up,.. and see the warm sunshine mixed with the rain.