Someone Really Does Understand

Near the end of last year, one of the staff members at the Senior Center gave me a couple of books to read.  She felt that they might help me cope with everything going on with Joe.  I laid the books on the ottoman in front of the couch and that's where they laid for many, many days.  One day I finally got around to opening up one of them and read the page for that date and started bawling like a baby.  I read...

"I hesitate to go to a regular gathering for prayer or worship even though the music and messages soothe my soul.  It's comforting to be there, but I can't stay.  In this safe and tender place, tremendous sadness, too long restrained, breaks loose.  I can't hold back the tears.  I slip out to my car and can barely see through the wetness to get home. 

It's too much for me to stay and try to explain to everyone how tired I am, how much it hurts, how out of control everything seems.  But I know it's good for me to go there from time to time.  Even when I can't stay, I am cradled for a while by the sacred sounds and sights and silences.  I feel the understanding, the hope, the eternal caring.  The tears find release there and the grief pours out."

Some really does understand what I experience on a regular basis.  Thank you.