Pour out your heart like water.
The phrase brings tears even now, four years later. Can it really be four years? Yes. This is my fifth Independence Day weekend without my husband. The loss is still heavy. I've grown stronger through the years. I've grown weaker these past four months.
At sunset last night I went for a drive to QT to buy snacks---a weakness. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I found myself, car windows open, singing God Bless America, a patriotic song I'd been taught in elementary school... then stopping my voice abruptly when a couple of neighbors out on the sidewalk raised their heads to glance at me.
I rolled up my window, looked straight ahead, and kept driving.
Along the way my comfortable, established, middle-class-to-affluent neighbors celebrated our independence---the American Revolution and our growing freedom from COVID-19 (or at least an easing of its restrictions).
The sky over our neighborhood lit up with exploding fireworks; the night echoed with rhythmic, spontaneous bursts of pop-pop-pop; and the air beneath the streetlights clouded with fog-like smoke.
I wept... for the battles, for the victories, for the people.
Rw
Arise, cry out in the night
as the watches of the night begin;
pour our your heart like water
in the presence of the Lord.
Lamentations 2:19
Photo by Chris Nemeth on Unsplash
