Worn

The words are clear. Tenth Avenue North sings:

I’m Tired I’m worn
My heart is heavyFrom the work it takesTo keep on breathingI’ve made mistakesI’ve let my hope failMy soul feels crushedBy the weight of this world
And I know that you can give me restSo I cry out with all that I have left
Let me see redemption winLet me know the struggle endsThat you can mend a heartThat’s frail and tornI wanna know a song can riseFrom the ashes of a broken lifeAnd all that’s dead inside can be rebornCause I’m worn
It's only to camouflage my sadness
In order to shield my pride I try
To cover this hurt with a show of gladness

What comes next after this is what Christianity is, I'm thinking. Or what it should be. Or what it still must become.

What I'm asking today is that we notice those who need noticing. I pray I start.

Clearly there is more to this world than what we can feel, sense, exhibit. Clearly other folks are walking around with different ailments and pains than we can possibly imagine, mainly because we don't have them and never have had them. So, we simply don't know what the other person is feeling, sensing, exhibiting.

There are people walking around who are as unhappy as unhappy can be, and the fact is we don't recognize this because, among many reasons, we just don't take the time or don't know what to look for or are simply into ourselves and not others.

But behind the smile can be a world of hurt. Behind the everyday appearance, can be a pain as big as the sky above Wyoming. 

I think Smokey wrote it best in Tears of a Clown in the 60s. 

Oh yeah baby, now if I appear to be carefree

The point is, we just don't know, and out would be a swell thing if we simply stopped acting like we did. I know I'm terribly actionable for this.

In my search for understanding this morning, I came across a blog from an unnamed persons who suffers from something called chronic fatigue syndrome. As an example it couldn't be better. I don't know anything about this syndrome, but it apparently causes great hardship.

Read this: In my journey to recovery from chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and past trauma I have reached a place where, "I am tired and worn and my heart is heavy with the work it takes to keep breathing", as in the song lyrics above. For many years I have strived to be well, tried lots of different treatments and each time went so far to then come up against a brick wall and "let my hope fail, my soul feels crushed", the result of another hope filled strong willed drive to overcome     defeated. Then for a while I have felt, "the weight of this world", the weight of my own personal world with "a heart that's frail and torn", my heart in pieces bruised and fragile and feeling as if it has indeed been torn apart.I desperately want to know, " a song can rise from the ashes of a broken life and all that's dead inside can be reborn". To survive to strive for healing to overcome trauma and illness it breaks your life apart and a part of you dies inside every time to survive back then during the trauma and now during the strive to recover. The very treatments for CFS/trauma when they fail cause another part of you inside to die. The very existence of a chronic illness filled life does not produce more life but the death of many parts of what a healthy person would call living. 

Is it possible to come back to life? 

I reckon one could substitute all sorts of things for CFS in his or her story. One could sub depression, one could sub the weight of homosexuality and others reactions to it, or being bullied, or sexual harassment, or weight issues, or one could sub physical pain that is no more real than any of the others.

One could.

It's probably time we did, those of us who a spouse the love thy neighbor stuff.

We don't know what our brothers and our sisters are feeling. But what we can do, as I learned years ago and am seeking to actually apply, is we can still love them and still try our best to sympathize with them. I think it's probably best we do this before it's too late.