I am loved enough to be allowed to hurt. I am loved enough that pain, suffering, and trials are allowed to enter into my story so I can be shaped into something better. I have tasted joy and I have tasted salty sorrow.

This is a world full of sunrises and sunsets, bright days and long dark nights. Babies are buried here, fathers never make it home, tragedy enters the scene, hearts are shattered, and we scream as pain carves scars into our souls.

I am alive, my heart pounds, my lungs take in breath and this means that while I see life, I will also see death. I will see the curse played out again and again and again. And when I see the curse: I will run. I will run hard and fast back to Truth, and I will lash my heart to the ancient mast and I will not give up.

I will live and pour out as much of my little life as I can. I will love to the best of my ability, I will hold onto hope, and I will grip with hands full of grief to the knowledge that this not the end of the story. I will run this race with vigor because I know that there is an end.

Pain, tragedy, and death will not have the final say. One day I will wake up across the shores of that river that we all must cross, my tears will be wiped away never to be seen again and everything that is ugly will have been burned away like the dross that it is.

Good is coming.

I don't care what any of you tell me. I am not home yet.