{oh, we've got a heavy heart to carry}

So I wasn't planning on writing tonight. And I especially wasn't going to write about this because it doesn't reflect at all what I currently feel, it's been a really great last few days even amidst all the crazy we've been in and I feel really encouraged, full of hope and He has given me life again and a peace that seriously and literally surpasses understanding, but I have been finding that there is a cry of the soul that longs to be heard. That demands expression.

One that has been heard and expressed in conversations and private writings but one that was ready and finally felt somewhat safe to venture a bit into on **here. In jotting down some thoughts as I watched this routine from tonight over and over, I found my heart needed to voice some of where I've been as we have slowly been coming up for air.

Something was beckoning me and calling me to come near. Something deeper, something that kept rising again to the surface as I re-watched this and a few other routines that spoke to me tonight.

Something only my heart recognized and knew I could not ignore.

I was just going to post a couple more of the SYTYCD spotlights I've been doing since I need to get sleep and gear up for another day of appointments, but then there was something that would not let go of me.

::

It is crazy now that I think about it. It is just crazy to me, this thing called time. Time is a phenomenon that continues to allude me. How it has only been a week and how it has been a week I simply do not know. The days and the minutes and the hours are all a rolled into one. 

And it's never one thing when things like this hit, when it rains it pours. There are so many tentacles on this monster, so many ways in which it has touched and seeped into and affected nearly every area of our lives.

As I sit here it literally feels like last Wednesday was yesterday, but at the same time it also feels like months ago. I do not understand and cannot explain all the life that has happened and been experienced in that time when crisis touched down in our world again just a week ago today and last Thursday when I first learned news that sent me reeling, news of what is now attacking my body.

Life again became this “blur of joy and chaos,” some of the most heart-wrenching defeat and despair, yet interspersed with some of the moments I have never been more grateful for life or enjoyed life, felt more loved, seen and fought for. By Ben and others around me.

It's been back to having to nearly shut everything out just to survive and protect my heart, as my counselor even reminded me last Thursday as we talked about survival mode. Again. There have been moments of relief, moments even in the midst of emergency that have felt normal.

Days like today and much of the last few days where things have felt lighter I have felt encouraged and days like much of last week and over the weekend, and off and on really, where the pain, physically and emotionally, has never been more real. In a much, MUCH praise GOD glory HA-LLE-LU-JAH different place now physically and emotionally, which is why it is just now that I am first able to write about it publicly on here.

My body has finally adjusted to some of the new medications and is responding well after striking out several times, I am finally experiencing relief from honestly the worst pain I have been in throughout all of this.

Just writing that makes me shudder because I always think I have experienced the worst amount of pain or that things couldn't hurt anymore and find myself knocked off my feet just stunned. Stunned by the pain.

A pain that was so horrible in the last two days experiencing FINALLY some RELIEF, yesterday I was literally struck by the fact that I felt like I could literally hear myself think again. The pain had been so loud, shrieking constantly along with the splitting headaches that have latest the last two weeks, it was a pain that felt like a nightmare. A pain that has raised some of the most searing and heart-wrenching questions.

A pain I could never escape and one that literally made me feel like I had to strain to hear anytime I was talking to anyone or hanging out with friends or with Ben. I felt like I had these large headphones on that were blaring loud music all day, constantly, without letting up. It took so much energy to listen and try to hear people talk over the sound of the pain.

All day yesterday I literally felt like I was on cloud nine. I could not believe the shriek was gone. I hadn't experienced the silence for weeks. I could not believe that I could finally live, hear, be again without having to constantly fight to listen, do things, even with the noise.

Yet it is so strange and paradoxical but at the same time makes all the sense in the world to me. I read once that “strange as it seems to believe, often in our most painful memories, we find our most treasured ones.”

That statement could not be more true of my experience in battling this illness the last 18 months and my experience the last 6-8 months, my experience this summer and my experience of the last week.

I am reminded that “We are never more alive to life than when it hurts.”

The pain has blessed me. The pain has cursed me. At times my bitter enemy. At others, my friend. Opening my eyes to the unseen and revealing so much of what really matters.

Drawing me into the deepest realities of what life is really about, why are we all even here, who is God, really and who, what am I.

Drawing me into the deepest realities about how precious, yet how fragile life is. And that each and every day we're given is a gift.

Reminding me again and again in this season that life is short. All I know I've got is this moment and in this moment, I choose life. Life over death. Life in the desert. Life in the midst of all I would have thought I could have never survived. Life in the fire, in the storm. Till I safely arrive Home.

::

I find I am brought again to the realization that even though as Ben had to remind me several times this weekend when I was beating myself up for various things I wasn't able to do because of what my body was doing or reacting to all the new medication they gave me, that we were in emergency.

It is weird to even say or think that things have been in crisis again with my health this last week because through it all there has been peace even in the midst of uncertainty and chaos. Hope in the midst of despair. Joy in the midst of our sorrow. Life in the midst of all that was threatening to consume it.

That all of these things can co-exist is still an amazement to me and a testament alone to the power of our God. Whose grace is never-ending. Whose love is unchanging. And whose mercies are truly new every morning. Where I am reminded I am never alone.

My God who will never leave me nor forsake me.

My God whose goodness I have truly come to know “reaches far deeper than either joy or pain, it embraces them both.”

My God whose goodness and faithfulness is not contingent nor dependent on my circumstances.

My God who is always there, always loving me; my God who will always see me through.

Who I have cried out to and who has heard every single cry I have made out to Him. My God who has and who will deliver me.

My God who I have found waiting there with me in the shadows as well as in the light. My God who is there beneath my every heartbreak, my God who is with me in my delight.

This God that I have found that truly “laughs when we laugh, and cries when we weep.”

Even in the moments when things are spiraling out of control and it doesn't feel like it. Even in the moments when God feels most silent, when God does not feel near, when God does not seem to be doing anything, it is in those moments there in the dark where I have to recall and remember all that I learned in the light.

That my God is with me. My God is there. My God is present and active in my circumstances even when it doesn't feel like it. And my God can. And He will. And what may not seem like love at the time, is still love.

“His love is too steadfast to be weak.”

This God of Hope, this One that I love who alone in is my comfort and peace in the midst of uncertainty. The One who awakens my heart to life in each and every new day, the One who tunes my heart to sing His song.

The One who gives me strength to face another day. The One who is “the light, that's leading me.”

Yes, “because Your love is better than life, my lips will glorify You.”

You who is my rock.You who is my hope.
You who is my strength.
You who is my life.

My treasure, my great reward.

--

**(I hope to share in greater detail on here about what's been going on lately and this summer with life and my health since a lot's been going on, once I hopefully implement one of the new ways I am attempting to keep my close friends out of town updated who know I have a lot of really great people around me and close friends here living and walking with me in the day-to-day of all of this, but I still have and they still have a desire to stay connected and in the loop not just on how my health is, but life in general and what's going on in their worlds as well.

So bear with me, I am constantly figuring and re-figuring these things out! Which has been especially difficult in the last week when things have been again so unpredictable with my health and I haven't gotten to touch base with all of them and those who've emailed or called this week.)

::

So this was one of my favorite routines of the night (above). One of the things that was talked about tonight on the show and that I have experienced several times throughout the season or in my late nights staying up watching dances is I am reminded of why dance means so much to me.

Dance connects with and expresses deep within something that cannot be said in words. It has been a way my soul has learned to speak from the time I was a little girl. Speak and express all that was within before I was even able to find words or fully comprehend all I experienced.

There is a pain that this dance (and others), but I will focus on this one in particular, there is a pain that it voices that is universal.

A pain that none of us are immune to. A pain that shrieks. Moans. From the harsh realities in which each of us is faced with at one time or another that sometimes life is just hard. Extremely difficult. Unfair. Doesn't make sense.

We don't always understand all that is happening or has happened to us. All we know is that in this world we will encounter pain. Times when our questions go unanswered and our backs are against the wall.

That is a pain universal to the human condition that could not be more real.

A pain I was reminded of as I saw not only this dancer express and shed tears after her routine, but a pain so real it touched all the judges on the panel. Bringing some of them to tears as well. I thought it was so poignant, it's worth including here:

It reminds me of that saying that some of the best books ever written or songs ever sung were forged in times of pain. That couldn't ring more true here. That some of the best dancers or choreographers dance and choreograph from a real place.

A pain that cannot be escaped and that often I feel weak even to admit or to feel. Yet, a pain that I know it not a stranger to you or me.

For we all have heavy hearts to carry.

Not always, but at times. And to feel so and admit it when our hearts do feel heavy is not being weak. It is simply being human. Simply being who God wants us to be. Real.

I loved what Sasha said in the rehearsal footage you'll find a link to in the corner of the judges' clip, as she was explaining the concept of the piece, she got choked up when she said it connected with her because life is a struggle. It is hard. Amen sister. Something about her words and the way she said it made me feel so relieved. And that I am not just weak. Life is a struggle. Something I am reminded of each and every moment of the day. But back to what I was saying. This pain is not to be avoided.

There is a heaviness and a pain we can and will experience on this side of eternity that both pierces our hearts and has us cry out.

For small or big things. Sometimes a heaviness and a pain that we don't even know why we are feeling sometimes, yet a pain that cannot be ignored.

A pain that reminds us that it was never meant to be this way.

A pain that never whispers, but always shouts, demands attention. 

The crazy thing is, in watching this routine and Melanie's solo tonight and a few other pieces and even reading various comments on some of the videos from tonight, I realized it was not just me. Something I have been trying to wrap my mind around and express, the connection between pain and beauty.

That as several of the judges or dancers shed tears tonight, there was a pain that became something beautiful.

A pain that was the propellant of some of the most brilliant dancers we have seen on this show. A pain that reaches deep within our hearts and finds something there that we know too.

That something can be so beautiful, it makes you want to cry.

So beautiful yet that within that beauty, there was a pain that had to come first. As I kept reading the comments, I kept finding people say, this moved me to tears.

When I find myself moved to tears by something beautiful I have found that it makes me cry because it reaches down deep and seems to rip open this scab off a wound, it makes it so I can no longer hide anymore from how I am truly feeling.

I find I am exposed and so many times I can be brought to tears because I am reminded that things are not always going to be this way.

I am reminded that there is a...

“Light that is coming, for the heart that holds on.
That there will be an end, to these troubles,
but until that day comes...
Still I will praise You, Still I will praise You.”

You who alone can make beauty out of ashes.
You who alone can move the mountains, still all the chaos inside me.

You who holds me in Your hands, You will never let me fall.

You who is the same today as You were yesterday.

You who lifts and soothes our heavy hearts.
You whose words and love and peace alone can lift the weight of all we feel.

You who binds up all our wounds, washes us and makes us clean.

You who is near to the brokenhearted and those crushed in spirit.

You who holds every tear we have cried and is always by our side.

You who is there in the midst of our hope and in the midst of our despair.

You who is there, my God who alone can turn my darkness into light.

My God who is good.

My God who is faithful.

My God who is real.

My God who is always, always here.

My God who makes everything beautiful.

My God who is making all things new.

My God of Hope, who is my comfort, who is my peace.

My God who sees me, My God who is carrying me.

Who leads me through deserts to rivers of joy,
From strength to strength, and in hope against hope,

I will, in hope, believe.

For You hold me in Your hands, You will never let me fall.

So yes, I will praise You and I will thank You and I will sing.

For You are my God who sees me,

my God of great faithfulness.

My God of unending love.

My God who is making everything... new.