yeah, it's one of those nights. . .

. . .when I'd love to sit here in bed and write something melodic, something so vivid and picturesque that you'd immediately know what I'm feeling. It isn't in me tonight. I'm fried.

Heard a song on the way home from the hospital tonight, one I haven't heard in a long time. Not the kind my girls would quote from, but hey, I came of age in the seventies.

Doctor, my eyes have seen the years
And the slow parade of fears without crying
Now I want to understand

Well, today I'm sick of talking to doctors. . .these are questions I'll ask God. But tonight, the slow parade of fears threatens to mow me down.

A daughter lies in a hospital bed with unresolved pain and twenty holes in her arms and her back.

There are new concerns about my own health.

A dear friend and his family are facing a diagnosis of leukemia.

Other serious concerns in the lives of those closest to me.

"Now I want to understand."

I know. . .I have a God who understands and sees and is in perfect control. But tonight, just one night, I want to see too. That's what exhaustion does. It takes away my perspective and makes me prone to make demands of God. Just enough sight, Lord, to hold it all more loosely. Just enough light to keep me from feeling that I'm going to fall over the next surprise and never stop falling.

I don't have a neat way to wrap this all up. Tonight, it is what it is. . .

Doctor, my eyes
Cannot see the sky
Is this the price for having learned how not to cry