There is Much Meaning To Be FouNd IN Showing Up

​Some of the most important parts of life aren’t things we finish, they’re things we keep returning to.

I work in the world of healing. Helping people heal from trauma. From addictions. From broken and struggling relationships. Healing from emotions and thoughts that often take people to dark places.

Maybe the hardest part of showing up for that work is knowing the work will never end. There is no finish line. In fact, any imaginary finish line to the work of healing seems to be getting harder and harder to imagine.

So what does one do?

Quit?

I chatted with a dear friend yesterday who is feeling overwhelmed by mom life. Maybe parents understand this idea of showing up for work while knowing there is no finish line.

There is no final victory over caring for a child. The dishes return. The worries return. The conversations return. The need for patience returns.

Yet love makes repetitive work meaningful.

The same is true for healing. For friendship. For marriage. For faith. For kindness. For building community. For becoming a better person.

Some work has no end because life itself keeps happening.

Maybe what exhausts us is not the endlessness itself, but the expectation that meaningful things should eventually require nothing more from us.

But there is something deeply hopeful - for me - about continuing to fight the feel impossible to win. It means we still believe people matter. It means we still believe suffering is worth responding to. It means cynicism has not completely taken over our hearts.

Some days my greatest fight against darkness is to keep showing up in it. Some days my greatest source of optimism is making sure darkness knows I'm not giving up on the idea of light.

Perhaps that is one of the deepest forms of meaning available to us: not eliminating brokenness, but refusing to abandon one another inside it.

Some work in this world today feels without a finish line, but I am sure that's the work begging us to keep showing up.