WIGGLE
BY WALLACE CALEB BATES
Take a moment to pause.
Feel your toes. Wiggle them if you need to. Feel your hands and your breath moving in and out. Hold it for a moment, then slowly release it.
Could you do it again? Let it remind you that you are still here, that your body, despite everything, is carrying you through.
Right now, the weight of this disaster feels unbearable. The water has taken too much.
It is not fair. But the pain is not something we can push down or ignore. So do not.
If you need to cry, allow yourself to cry. If you need to scream, then scream. If you need to sit in silence and let it all sink in, do that too.
Grief is sacred. Jesus wept when He lost someone He loved. He did not brush it off or hide it behind a forced smile. He stood in the pain and allowed Himself to feel it fully.
If He, God in human form, could mourn so openly, then surely we can do the same. But grief is not where this story ends.
Even in the midst of devastation, love is moving. It is in the neighbor who pulls a stranger from the floodwaters, in the volunteers handing out dry socks and warm meals, and in the arms that hold us when we are too weak to stand.
I do not know why suffering comes the way it does, and I do not have answers for why the rain continues to fall. But I do know that love remains. And where love is, there is hope, even here, even now.
So breathe. Allow yourself to feel everything: the sorrow, the anger, the exhaustion, and yes, even the glimpses of hope when they come. We will carry each other through.
We always have.
Feel your toes. Wiggle them if you need to. Feel your hands and your breath moving in and out. Hold it for a moment, then slowly release it.
Could you do it again? Let it remind you that you are still here, that your body, despite everything, is carrying you through.
Right now, the weight of this disaster feels unbearable. The water has taken too much.
It is not fair. But the pain is not something we can push down or ignore. So do not.
If you need to cry, allow yourself to cry. If you need to scream, then scream. If you need to sit in silence and let it all sink in, do that too.
Grief is sacred. Jesus wept when He lost someone He loved. He did not brush it off or hide it behind a forced smile. He stood in the pain and allowed Himself to feel it fully.
If He, God in human form, could mourn so openly, then surely we can do the same. But grief is not where this story ends.
Even in the midst of devastation, love is moving. It is in the neighbor who pulls a stranger from the floodwaters, in the volunteers handing out dry socks and warm meals, and in the arms that hold us when we are too weak to stand.
I do not know why suffering comes the way it does, and I do not have answers for why the rain continues to fall. But I do know that love remains. And where love is, there is hope, even here, even now.
So breathe. Allow yourself to feel everything: the sorrow, the anger, the exhaustion, and yes, even the glimpses of hope when they come. We will carry each other through.
We always have.