“Even darkness must pass. A new day will come and when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer.” –J. R. R. Tolkien

Guys. I’m going to be very real for a second. I had a meltdown this week–a huge catastrophic meltdown. The last few weeks finally caught up to me and I felt all of the feelings. Anger. Sadness. Hopelessness.

Sobbing, I texted my best friend. She didn’t even hesitate, and she raced over in the night to hold my hand and sit with me in my mess. She let me scream and shout and cry and throw things. She didn’t try to talk me down out of my crazy. She just listened.

Even in all the darkness, she didn’t leave. (And trust me, I’m not a cute meltdown-thrower. It’s ugly crying on steroids.) She didn’t try to talk sense into my irrationality, she didn’t try to talk at all actually. She let me be upset, she let me cry because she’s wiser than me and knows that tears really do clean out the soul. 

She’s the hero of this story. And she’s the kind of friend that we all need. The one that climbs into the darkness and doesn’t try to fix it and doesn’t try to analyze it. By staying, she ever so slightly became the beacon of light that quietly started to illuminate the shadowland. She is the definition of a hope-lender. And I think we all could learn from her. 

We all need a hope-lender in our lives right now. Each one of us is going to have our catastrophic meltdown moment, the world is stressful right now. Things are scary and fear continues to roar its ugly cry. But even in the darkest moments of the unknown, hope-lenders can shine their lanterns to remind us that we aren’t alone and that this too shall pass. I’m a firm believer that if it’s not good, it’s not the end. And right now, for all of us, things aren’t good. But even in the not good, hope-lenders charge into the darkness to sit with us and remind us that it’s going to be okay. We are all going to reach the point of needing a hope-lender, but we also all need to be hope-lenders. We are all in this together and we will get through it, and we will be stronger than before. 

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