Please speak these words to yourself:

So, you are ready to make the journey out of this? You are desperate to make the journey out of this? You have felt this before, the “I must beat this” feeling. What will be different this time? I will tell you. This time I will not leave you to do it alone. I will not forget you. I will not give up on you. I will remind you a hundred or a thousand times of things you would say you know, but have not been able to keep in your hands. I will keep picking them up when they clatter to the floor. I will pry open your fingers if I need to and give them to you again, and again, and again, until the clattering sound reminds you, not of something being lost, but of something being given and held.

You are tired, more than tired, worn, threadbare. You are afraid, at times even terrified. You are sad, hopeless, discouraged, lonely, angry, numb, guilty, ashamed. All of those emotions and more have trudged by so often with such heavy steps that deep trenches, even ravines, have scarred your landscape and you despair of ever seeing the fields and meadows that are such a remote memory you wonder whose memories they are. The depth and length of your pain has broken you off from other people, the people who live in that other world, beyond the glass wall where pain hurts but is bearable, disappointment stings but goes away.
I know. Here is what I remind you of today. People feel this way, the way you do. People have felt this way and people will continued to feel this way in the future. It is a human experience. You are not as different as you feel. The glass wall is not as thick and impenetrable as it seems. You have sustained injuries. Your design allows you to withstand injury and suffer immense pain and still recover, to still be as human as anyone else that you see around you. You have some knowledge of who designed you. Trust the designer and trust the design. I will have more to say about this again. I’m sure.

These samples in the “For those who hurt” series are taken from a book to be released later this year. Check back for details.