Dark in the Dell, Joy in the Morning

"One evening Sam came into the study and found his master looking very strange. He was very pale and his eyes seemed to see things far away. 

"What's the matter, Mr. Frodo?' said Sam. 

"I am wounded,' he answered, 'wounded; it will never really heal.' 

But when he got up, and the turn seemed to pass, and he was quite himself the next day. It was not until afterwards that Sam recalled that the date was October the sixth. Two years before on that day it was dark in the dell under Weathertop."

~Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien~

I keep thinking I'm going to be 100%, I'm going to get over this, I can heal and be like I was or should have been, but no matter how much I grow or learn or heal or change, it never seems to be enough.  Frodo came back from Mordor triumphant, but not whole, a different person than he was when he set forth, a better, bigger person no doubt, but one who was wounded with an ache that would never heal.  And he had to embrace that pain, that sorrow, that wound if he was to live without the chains of bitterness dragging him down into the inescapable pit of despair.  We all carry such a wound, whether we realize it or not.  It is the way of this broken world, none escapes it unscathed or unscarred, and we must realize the truth of the matter if we, like Frodo, are to live at peace with ourselves and our world.  We can't despair because things can't go back to the way they were, rather we acknowledge that truth and move on with our lives as best we can, we give ourselves permission to have bad days and weak episodes, but we can't live in that place of darkness, else we aren't really living.

What are you dealing with?  What haunts you?  Are you tired of trying every pill, diet, exercise, supplement, lifestyle, therapy known to man?  I'm not saying there aren't things that can help or that medical help should not be sought, but rather that there are just some wounds that this world can't heal, that we must learn to live with rather than letting it consume our lives and hope.  But Frodo had a hope, even when all hope seemed lost.  We can have that hope too.  We are promised that joy does indeed come in the morning, but first we must make it through this disquiet and interminable night of sorrow called life.  Even in the grim and hopeless shadows of Mordor, Sam sings this bit of encouragement to lighten their aggrieved and weary hearts:

Though here at journey's end I lie

in darkness buried deep,

beyond all towers strong and high,

beyond all mountains steep,

above all shadows rides the Sun

and Stars for ever dwell:

I will not say the Day is done,

nor bid the Stars farewell.

And that too can be our hope, no matter our pain or lot, at least if we are willing to seek the true Master of those stars, the One who wrought and named each one, Who counts the hairs upon our heads and knew our names ere we were born, Who counted our lives more precious than the life of His own Son.