This week

Life hurts right now.

I started reupholstering a chair this evening. I was excited to get started; visions of it being finished and looking amazing flashed through my head. So I jumped in and started removing the staples. Staple after staple. I have a cup full of staples to prove my effort, but it looks like I have barely started. There's very little sewing involved, you might be surprised. The chair covering is put on in pieces, layered like an onion. So all I get for my work is a blister and a scratched up hand.

Life seems to parallel this picture often. I'm encoraged by the prospect, by the promise of change. Yet, that change doesn't come without some battle scars. And it definitely doesn't happen quickly. The layers need to be stripped off before the new ones can go up. Somehow that's really easy to forget.

As layers are removed, they expose pain that hid behind them and the fears that have been hidden for a while now. Life just seems to have an ache right now. An almost indescribable dull throb. It hurts to keep going.