We hope that today is a good day, a day spent with family and friends and a day to pause with thanks. We know for some it’s not, or it’s simply not that simple.
To everyone heavy with the weight of things missing or fractured today,
It doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful or unthankful.
It only means you’re human.
And you’re not alone in that.
We lose things in this life. We all do.
Things are taken. Things break and leave and we are kept from what we love. We are kept from peace.
If today finds you more aware of what you’ve lost than what you have, this is for you, a note to say you’re not alone. A lot of people feel what you feel today.
Perhaps today finds you with the same faces as one year ago today. And when they ask how you are or if anything is new, perhaps you wish you had some different answers. Answers that sound like change or pride or progress. Maybe you wanted this year to be about change but not a lot has changed. Or maybe changes came but they were not the ones you hoped for.
It’s okay. Where you are and what you feel and what you wish was different. It’s okay.
You’re still here and this day will pass and tomorrow has never happened before. The same is even true for the rest of today. Things can still be new. There is room for healing and surprise and even room for change.
This life is not a race. It’s not a contest or a competition. It’s a patient broken story breaking more and healing more with all our different days, rich with winning as well as losing. The beauty is that we get to go together.
The highlight of my 2011 has been to get to know someone walking through the hardest year that they have ever known. For them, it’s been a year of loss and losing. To get to know this person in this time, it’s been nothing like a burden. It’s been a privilege and a blessing and a surprise. It’s caused me to believe in better things, reminded me of dreams I used to dream and how i hope to live.
We’re meant to win and lose together. We’re meant to know some people on this journey, to walk it together, to mourn and cry one day, to laugh and dance the next. We get to carry each other and we get to remind each other all that’s true, of everything not lost. We get to remind each other that we absolutely positively can’t give up, can’t settle. We get to say that these terrible wonderful journeys are priceless and we must keep going. Not because we have to but because our stories our bigger than ourselves and because we just might be surprised.
On behalf of our entire team, please know that we’re grateful beyond words for you and your support. We could not have dreamed this thing up, this story that you let us live, the chance to do these jobs that we believe in, this work of bringing hope and help to people all across the planet. We’re thankful and we say thank you.
Peace to you today.
And Happy Thanksgiving.
jamie