This is the season of light, when the dark begins to lift before 4:30 a.m. and doesn’t encroach again until well into the evening. The summer solstice arrives in less than 100 hours.
Grief has been my constant companion of late, this sense of impending loss and all of the coulda-woulda-shoulda that accompanies it. I have had a solid and dependable companion and yes love for more time than I deserved, and I am grateful.
I reposted “A Bridge at Crossroads” for Saturday morning. It was wisdom speaking through me and, years later, to me.
Seldom is heard an encouraging word in these times, but life is very good when it is good.
As I write, I look out the window to see Summer prancing toward the backyard fence, and a rabbit scurries along the other side. The intrigued young dog scurries in tandem in a dance of — delight? frustration? sentry duty? I choose to believe delight, and perhaps a bit of longing when the rabbit disappears into the woods and she is stopped at the gate.
I paged through A Bridge at Crossroads and was soothed. “101 Encouragements,” indeed.
Sometimes I reach into my brain, looking for words that may encourage myself and others to find light and reason to hope in a dark world. And sometimes I open my own book to discover I had already found them.
“This can be — should be — a world of joy, though sometimes you have to look hard to find the reason to dance. Life is better lived when you search for the light and not the dark and when, having found the light, you dance for as long as your heart can stand the joy.
“In these pages, I hope you find what you need to hear.”
It must have occurred to me, four years ago when I compiled this book, that one day I might need to hear what I had said. One hundred and one encouragements jumped off the shelf and back into my heart.