rocks.

It was incredible how well she could articulate exactly how I am feeling with just a few words.

She described a small jar. A jar full of sand and rocks and water - all settled and calm and nice and pretty.

And then it gets shaken.

The sand mixes with the water and the rocks clank around against the glass jar and it almost seems as if the whole thing is on the verge of shattering. 

As this glass jar gets put back on the table, the whole thing looks like one. big. mess. It's murky and dark and unorganized and unpretty and you might wonder if it will ever look the same as it did before.

The hard truth is that it won't: The rocks will never be in the exact same position as they were before. The sand will not fall back into the exact same spot. It is forever changed, this simple glass jar of rocks and sand and water.

But it will settle. The sand will find its home amongst the rocks. The rocks will find their places against each other. The water will become clear and this jar, though different then it was before, will be calm again.

The key, she tells me, is to wait. There is no possible way to force the sand and the rocks and the water to lay still any faster.

Wait. Let go. Surrender. Sit in what may feel like the murky waters of your thoughts and feelings and questions.

So I sit while the rocks and the sand settle back down. I wait for the water to clear. And in the sitting and the waiting and the surrendering and the letting go, I seek hope.