"If You Can't Find Hope" - Able Heart

They say you can't pour from an empty cup.

That's bullshit.

I do it all the time.

I've never seen someone stand at a crossroads when they're at their best.

I've never seen the timing be friendly.

Timing is everything.

And it is irrelevant all the same.

A hard decision.

Could save someone's life.

Could change someone's life.

Could save my own.

Could change my own.

I will always fight for those I love. I do not cower in the face of hard times. I never have. I won't start now.

I used to, maybe still do, think the pain I have seen in this world was always adjacent to me. It seems nothing ever happens to me directly. It has a few times, almost like exceptions to the blanket rule.

The people I love. For some reason, pain is a constant companion for them.

Why does God spare me and make me watch those I love suffer?

I was built to handle it. I was built to be the rock for people born onto rocky waters. I am a lighthouse. Sometimes the storm hits me directly, but most of the time I focus on shining outward. Anyone who can see that light just has to fight to get there.

I can't control the waters.

I can only point to a safe place to land.

I keep my light on day in and day out. No matter the weather. No matter my energy. My call to others for comfort and peace does not waver. I try to take care of myself, sweep my own halls, repair my own walls. I have the capacity in some moments, and in others I don't.

I am not one to turn my light off when a storm rages. I might be in need of major repairs, but my light still works, and I won't punish sailors on the sea for what they cannot control and did not cause.

They say you can't pour from an empty cup.

But I do.

All the time.

There's been a storm brewing.

I've watched it from the shore.

I've ignored the forecasts.

Pretended it wasn't there.

On my island, I control the light.

I struggle to remember there are other lands on this earth.

I am susceptible to the changing of the tides just like all the rest.

I can pretend, but only for so long.

I look at this storm.

I see it for what it is.

It is an act of God.

Here to challenge what has been built.

It can blow. It can scream.

I will stand through it.

My walls may shake.

My windows leak.

My doors bow.

I will not run.

I feel the rain.

I bask in it.

I know blue skies await.

But they are not free.

There is no price too great, no climb too steep.

Forward.

Upward.

I have never met a storm I could not outlast.