Blessings for the Weary

Blessings for the Weary

By: Esther Emery

This one is for the hour of the weary. For the day that you are just plumb tired. Maybe there was a bear and you were anxious all week and you cried in public, maybe. Or maybe life just gets like this.

For the day that is a mess of busy and sometimes frantic and doing all the things that have to be done.

For the day that you live by the clock: slow down, speed up, get there faster, wait.

For the little ones who fight and cry and resist and always, always have to be fed. For the job and the boss and the wood to chop and the days getting shorter.

For that long, long summer that seemed like it would never end, and how far away that feels now. And for when you needed the fall to bring order and regularity, but it also brought anxiety and heavy schedules and stress.

For when the night falls earlier and earlier and you can’t explain away the tightening in your throat. (Fear.) When you are exhausted from holding all the fear.

For when the news of violence and injustice comes in waves and your helplessness becomes numbness and you struggle to make yourself care.

For when depression is heavy on you and you feel thirsty, and your muscles feel weak. For when you are so, so tired of calling out for help that never comes.

For when you can’t shake the memories of trauma and loss. And you feel like you should just get over it, but you’re not getting over it.

For when you’re tired of being a burden on the ones who love you and you can’t explain how they can help, because, maybe, they can’t help.

For when you can’t find your way out. Or your way back in. For when the weariness is set deep into your bones. And God is just something you just don’t want to talk about and hope is a stupid thing on a Hallmark card that costs four dollars.

Blessed is this hour. Even this hour.

Blessed is the grief, which cleans you out and wakes you up.

Blessed is the sorrow, which is your ability to love. You love so well!

Blessed is the memory of loss, how we hold tight to our riches and our gifts.

Blessed is the restlessness, that seeks a more vibrant, more ecstatic life.

Blessed is the seeking, that knows a greater truth beyond this world of our own making.

Blessed are the hours of labor, and no harvest. These are the truth of our humanness and createdness and fallibility.

Blessed are the days of no accomplishment and no productivity. This is how we reclaim our sacredness. How we know our worth beyond and above our fingers and our price tags.

Blessed is the empty vessel, even cracked to let the light in.

And blessed is this vigil into darkness, when we know our mortality and pray for deliverance.

For the hour of the weary, and the day that you are just plumb tired…Know this hour, too, as sacred. Even these weary moments. Even these gaps between gold stars and Hallmark cards.

And rest, right here. Sit, or stand, or lie down, whichever, but do it here. Right here. Right here in this blessed hour, in the midst of the battlefield, in the gaps, on this day that God has made. Set your feet on the ground and be watered like a plant. See the sky, know scale and be humbled by it. And know this, too: that you are a part of this. Even this. Even the sacred and the precious. Even the weary. Even the little or the wrong or the petty or the anguished. And all this, even this, is blessed.

Esther Emery is a woman after God's own heart (this is Susan Schiller speaking, from my heart).  She and her husband, Nick, moved from Boston with their three young children and are beginning to homestead on a mountain in Idaho, having built their own yurt in the wilderness. Esther wrote this article while on lookout duty for a bear. While there is so much more that I could say about this brave, radical home-maker, most of all I want to share a little of Esther's heart for being full awake and for looking for the Light shining in the dark places, by reprinting her article, with Esther's permission. I hope you will click on over to her site, "Church on the Canyon" and get to know her. She's one of the rarist of people – authentic, full of integrity, humble, courageous, and very radical in living out her values!

Tagged as: Choosing Love Today, Getting Your Life Back