arise.

JMJ
AMDG

my lover speaks, he says to me, arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come! for see the winter is past, the rains are over and gone. --songs 2:10

When Lent ends and it's Easter; when the weather grows warmer and we sing Alleluia, I have a hard time adjusting to being joyful. I overload on chocolate and sing Alleluia, but if feels wrong--for some reason, it's hard or me to remember that being joyful--being happy, even-- is a good thing.

It's somehow hard to believe that it's actually spring again--that the leaves on the trees are real, actually real, that it will continue to get warm again.

i took this picture!

I struggle to accept the fact that God isn't trying to make me miserable all the time. I hear suffering is a gift, and my anxious mind translates that to, despair is inevitable and if I am happy it means I am doing something wrong.

But my God says to me--arise. Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one. Arise from the darkness of sin and brokenness, arise from the things that keep you from sleeping at night, arise and leave it all behind because the winter is past, the rains are over and gone.

There is darkness in this world. There's a lot of it. There's people starving and dying on roadsides, and there is war and homelessness and malnutrition. There is pornography and abortion and children whose bruises match their parents' hands. There is rape and self-harm and suicide. There are girls who stare in the mirror and don't know that they are beautiful. There are people falling and falling over again because they don't know any other way to live.

But arise. The winter is past, the rains are over and gone. There is a lot of darkness, but He's taken care of it. He died so that you wouldn't have to bear it alone.

And so I think it's okay for me to be happy.

There's a lot that I struggle to let go of--past hurt and pain and the memories of people who have genuinely wronged me, whether it was intentional or not.

But my lover speaks, He says to me, arise. 

And it still hurts, but maybe not quite as much.


arise.

***
also arise has stopped looking like a real word after writing this, but that's whatever. God bless.