let love find you

“let love find you”

those were the words that landed in my spirit as I looked back over my shoulder at the sunset lighting up gold the last bit of my walk.

“how do i do that?”

“you sit still long enough to be found.”

i’d been running for so long I had forgotten how to be still with the quiet sacred parts of my soul.

so much of my life up to this point had felt like the game of whack-a-mole. Surrender, while she was a well-known friend to me, had felt truly hard to connect with in the midst of my dark night of the soul, as I like to call it. “dark” in that it was a time of seemingly unending pain, unanswered questions, and the slow burn of many things i had once stood so solid and tall on. some say she comes to shake down of our souls, to shake out what never belonged. i think of it as the most glorious invitation i’ve ever been handed.

so i stood with my pockets full of 100000 questions and doubts and the sun kept falling as I turned toward myself. then i felt it.

an old familiar tinge of grief welling up behind my eyes and catching in my throat.

i had gone for a walk with the feeling I needed to cry, but i wasn’t sure why. but if i have learned much about myself, i’ve learned my deep need to know “why” i feel the way i do is usually my own sweet self stalling me from processing whatever emotion my body has been working so hard to protect me from feeling (she’s brilliant i know). so i turned down my driveway and laid down my need to know why and made room for an aching little girl’s tears.

tears that had wanted to be wiped and held and listened to. tears that had been waiting to tell me their stories, stories of what mattered most. of loneliness and of hopes and dreams we hold extra close inside.

for awhile i had been calling out in the darkness without feeling “found.” but right there in the middle of my own walking home, I felt softness come like an sweet old friend. a tender, gentle, loving softness that longed to wrap me in blankets and truth and compassion and comfort. the kind of comfort that comes to overstay its welcome, like the friend that longs to be with you for days on end. the kind of comfort that comes after connection, after deeply being known. after feeling seen or understood. like someone warmly playing with your hair while you watch a show together or a bowl of soup when you don’t feel okay, like someone seeing and knowing the best and worst parts of you and loving every bit all the same.

in every sense of the word, i felt found.

feeling found always comes for me in the small ways, split second miracles. like the way the lights falling in my room coloring it burnt orange, the way my neighbor lights up when my golden retriever greets her unexpectedly, the way I want to linger in my first sip of coffee every morning. how the rain falls out my window while I’m writing down the details of my life. how things like strawberry popsicles and handpicked wildflowers from my daddy still make me giddy. when I can cry and feel held by love, knowing it’s all that I’m made of. letting love find us, in this moment, and the next one, not tomorrow or the next or once life feels tidy or complete enough, but knowing the very thing we’re seeking is the very thing that’s already found us.

honoring the tears leads to being found.

and being found, i’ve found, may be the best feeling in the world.