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Still & Forward
A weeping willow weeps but still stands.
A mourning dove mourns but still sings.
A bleeding heart bleeds but still flowers.
The stars disappear but still return.
A winter rests but still finds spring.
A buried seed waits but still rises.
A lighthouse is lonely but still shines.
A river meets stone but still finds its way.
The rain will fall.
The winds will change.
The darkness will come.
And still, life reaches for the light.
Maria Gosur, 2012
There’s an instrumental piece I often return to that reminds me of a poem I wrote many years ago: Vers l’avant by J.T. Peterson.
Vers l’avant is French for “forward”—or, more literally, “toward what lies ahead.”
We cannot move through life pretending there is no darkness, grief, rain, or wounding. So much of it feels unfair. Frustrating. At times, absolutely unbearable.
Perhaps the painful emotions we experience in seasons of struggle are not something to dismiss, hide, or look down upon. Perhaps they are something we must allow ourselves to feel and embrace.
Not because pain is good, or because every hardship happens for a reason, but because fully experiencing sorrow can deepen our capacity to recognize its opposite. Joy. Wonder. Love. —and most importantly, gratitude.
Gratitude may be one of the deepest emotional expressions of this strange, beautiful, and mysterious experience we call life.
There is something hopeful in holding both truths at once: life can wound us, and life can still be worthy of wonder. The hardship does not erase the light. Sometimes, it teaches us how to see it more clearly.
Life is hard.
It challenges you.
It wounds you.
It changes you.
And, somehow, it continues to build you.
Vers l’avant.
Keep reaching toward what lies ahead.
A river meets stone but still finds its way.
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