Blackness

No matter how prepared one is, bad new hits hard.  You may anticipate it, knowing all along that it will be coming at some point in the time to come.  The reality of it all still can overwhelm.  You can take time, preparing for the inevitable.  The knowledge that what you imagined is now fact still strikes at the heart of one's soul.  You may even think you can handle it.  When it comes, you cannot.  Bad news is a black cloud enveloping one's heart and mind from the inside out.  It is a blackness that overwhelms, chokes, and even suffocates without thought or remorse.
Before you feel that my life has ended, it has not.  Actually I have much to be thankful for.  I have an interesting job that challenges and inspires.  I know within and without that I have people around me that love me just as I am.  I know Hope as a friend.  Yet there is always more to the story.
I am now at the age where friends, love ones, and family are struggling against the odds.  Disease, heartache, and on occasion death extract a vicious price from those willing to live.  Each is more than a description that fits another's life.  For me, things are happening all around my life and its journey.  In short, it is personal.  Even when I move beyond those I can touch, I find myself in a world that does not seem to care.  Candidly, “good is missing in action.  Anyone renouncing evil is beaten and robbed.  God looked and saw evil looming on the horizon-so much evil and no sign of Justice.”  (Isaiah 59.15)  I looked and I agree.
Even in my sadness I know that sitting idly by is never the answer.  Things can and will on occasion get worse.  Yet you and I can always be a difference.  We can counter evil with compassion.  We can respond to exploitation with grace.  We can right injustice by standing up for those that cannot.  It may be dark but we are the light.