even so, he is

when friends go their own way and my heart cannot find poetry and I have forgotten the glory of former days and my senses can no longer perceive texture, color, harmony or the journey of wine...

...and plans are no longer frustrated but dead and no experience is overwhelmingly grand and when I am invisible and counted as weightless and of no benefit by the world, what will remain, what will stand?

And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not, for behold I will bring adversity on all flesh. But I will give your life to you as a prize in all places, wherever you go.* 

what will stand is that he endured the dark for me. my life is given to me as a prize because he lost his. i am well and sustained by what he has done, not how i feel. what a relief this is! 

*Jeremiah 45