Where the Lost Wander

by Amy Harmon

is the suffering of love. Every parent feels it. It is the suffering of being unable to shield or save. It is not love if it doesn’t hurt.”

“The pain. It’s worth it. The more you love, the more it hurts. But it’s worth it. It’s the only thing that is.”

I’m convinced everyone is a little vile, if they are honest about it. Vile and scared and human.

Hating never fixed anything. It seems simple, but most things are. We just complicate them. We spend our lives complicating what we would do better to accept. Because in acceptance, we put our energies into transcendence.”

“Put your energy into rising above the things you can’t change, Naomi. Keep your mind right. And everything will work out for the best.”

“These are the things the Lord hates. A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans. Feet that are swift in running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren.”

~ Proverbs 16-19

That’s what hope feels like: the best air you’ve ever breathed after the worst fall you’ve ever taken. It hurts.

It is impossible to explain to someone who is surrounded by their own language and people just how lonely it is to not understand and to not be understood.

“The hardest thing about life is knowing what matters and what doesn’t,” Winifred muses. “If nothing matters, then there’s no point. If everything matters, there’s no purpose. The trick is to find firm ground between the two ways of being.”

The pain. It’s worth it. The more you love, the more it hurts. But it’s worth it. It’s the only thing that is.

Transcendence is a world, a place, beyond this one. It’s what could be.

I realize now that life is just a continual parting of the ways, some more painful than others.