There's nothing that can make even the strongest person feel weak than when they're in the face of death.
There's nothing that can make the brightest person feel a kind of dark so deep than when they see the people they hold dear to their hearts face a seemingly hopeless battle with death.
There's nothing that can make the toughest person break than when they see a loved-one throw in the towel and say "I'm done".
Death wants us to believe it's in control. Death wants us to believe that it's powerful and though it may be dark and painful, that it's beautiful and peaceful. Death wants us to think it's the ultimate answer to our pain. Death will end it all and then after that, everything will be okay.
For the longest time, death got so many people convinced. My heart bleeds for them and I could never wrap my mind around the idea that their final minutes, seconds on earth was full of unbearable pain that they decided it's time to say goodbye. I would never have the right words for the loved-ones they've left behind.
But I write because somehow, I feel them for I'm one of the many that death convinced for the longest time.
I write in the hopes that if you're in such kind of pain that is just too much for you right now, tomorrow, and the days to come, that you'll see you're not alone in this.
That it's okay to take off the mask and let the tears fall.
That it's okay to drop the façade and let the walls come tumbling down so someone who wants to be there for you can be.
That you and I, we're never meant to walk with our pain alone.
Our pain was designed so we can strengthen and find hope in each other, when the world where we live in can't and won't offer it to us.
Hope doesn't have to be a myth. We can be each other's hope.
We can be each other's reason to want to wake up again tomorrow.
We can be each other's reason to give ourselves another shot because even if at times we don't believe it, we're worth it.
We are more than our pain and though it's a huge part of us, we can refuse to let it be our identity.
We can be each other's reason to be a better story even if good, better, and best are words that are way too strange from where we are right now.
Though death will ultimately be a part of our story (because there's no denying we'll all die in the end), it doesn't have to be its highlight. As powerless, weak, unworthy, hopeless, and broken we feel, there's Someone out there who loves us even if we don't feel it and we can't get ourselves to believe it.
He welcomes our impossible questions, our deepest doubts, our most painful cries. Yes, He actually gives a sh*t about you and I.
So let's all take to heart what Jon Foreman once said: We can live for more than just a funeral. Because there's more to this life than waking up, existing, and getting back to bed again. Because despite the seemingly endless reasons to throw in the towel, there's that one reason left to continue to fight: the other walking wounds who we still need to find.