Morning

It's really early. I just can't sleep. So here I am, wide awake with a pen in one hand and my phone in the other. Most days it's hard to write really. My journal feels more like a log than anything else. This is what normal is....real life....? The last decade has felt anything but real. The things we walked though still leave me shaking my head. This morning I slipped into the den quietly and laid on the couch. I haven't done this in quite a while. But I remember how it used to be almost a daily occurance, when sleep seemed like an ability that I had lost forever. When the quiet of the pre-dawn pressed in and it felt like this was my only peace, because who knew what the day was going to hold. These were the days I learned to pray. The whispers of words. The hollowing out of all that pain. These were the days that I learned how to breathe by running. It saved me. I look at myself in the mirror and I see a very different girl. So many years have passed since those horrible days...weeks...months. And the normal I prayed for quietly found itself right at my doorstep. New. Nothing like I dreamed. Yet the thing that I learned most about me is how to get back to center. How to come back to the quiet. How to settle my soul. The storms of life come. I learned how to swim. So much was lost in the fire that consumed my life. Yet so much lovely has grown. So much more. So I'm sitting here on a morning much like the years of the past. Only they aren't. These are the days of change as well. But He has equipped me. He has made me strong. Able. And He gave the the ability to love. Thankful.