Life is hard, full of painful moments, sorrows and suffering.

To be human is to feel deeply those times in life when we’re beset with difficulty, when life feels stuck or we seem to come to dead ends along whatever path we walk.

We enter dark times often and often unexpectedly, having no choice but to allow our eyes to acclimatise to the dark until we feel less disorientated.

It’s this part of the dark night that can be the hardest. The shock is over, the acclimatisation has happened and yet we still find ourselves in darkness.

It’s here that we can experience disappointment and despair, we my find ourselves becoming cynical about life and grow into an expectation that little good will come our way. We wonder when the night will end.

And yet, the promise remains… light follows dark. Day follows night. Always, without fail.

Psalm 30 verse 5 says

In the evening we may weep

yet joy comes in the morning

This meditation comes as a reassurance that joy will come again.

That the night you find yourself in will give way to a new day.

The day may look different to the ones that have gone before but light will return.

As you wait for your dawn, for the joy of the morning I invite you to make space for all that you are experiencing at the table.

Pull up a chair for sorrow

Pull up a chair for anger

Pull up a chair for disappointment

Pull up a chair for cynicism.

Welcome them as friends at the table of your life, let them have their say and be seen. Let them bring their gift even if at first it may be unclear what that is.

And pull up a chair for joy. She too may have a place at the table even as you wait for the night to end. She too may have an offering. She too may have moments of laughter, of blessing, of oasis to bring to you as you wait through the night.

As dawn comes may joy ring louder and brighter. May laughter tell stories at your table. May the light of dawn bring warmth and grace.

As joy comes may you remember in time, what gifts this dark night brought and how it changed you and melted you and re-formed you into something new.

May the grace of joy be a companion wherever you find yourself in the cycle of night and day. May it ring loud and clear or may it be a whisper barely heard but heard none-the-less.

For Equilibrium, a Blessing, by John O’Donahue…

Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,

May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.

As the wind loves to call things to dance,

May your gravity by lightened by grace.

Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,

May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.

As water takes whatever shape it is in,

So free may you be about who you become.

As silence smiles on the other side of what’s said,

May your sense of irony bring perspective.

As time remains free of all that it frames,

May your mind stay clear of all it names.

May your prayer of listening deepen enough

to hear in the depths the laughter of God.”