You Are My Delight

This year has been one of the toughest of my life.  Both my wife and I have been dealing with unforeseen hardship.  Even though the struggle itself has been trying, it's the length of it that's been the hardest.  It feels like we've been running a race where someone keeps moving the finish line.

Humans aren't well equipped to deal with obstacles that don't have well-defined ends.  Anyone can deal with known difficulties that will pass.  It's the challenges that suggest they could last indefinitely that try to break you.

Even though we are both just ready for this difficult season to be over, I'm grateful for it.  I know that sounds weird, but I think one of the most powerful ways to conqueror difficulties is to be grateful for them.  Difficulties expect you to fight them, but when you can find ways to be thankful, the difficulties kind of just lose their oomph and deflate like an awkwardly activated whoopee-cushion.

For instance, I know this trial is strengthening our marriage.  When we get through this, we are going to have the tried-and-true conviction that we can make it through anything.  I'm grateful for that.

I also think it's going to greatly enhance my already natural gift of empathy.  I've always had an organic compassion for others going through hardships.  It was just in the past, I felt like I was mostly caring for them out of a place of surplus rather than from a place of having-been-there emptiness.  And, really I think that's one of the most powerful things you can give someone:  The hope of having been where they are and somehow pulled through.

Struggles can also give birth to great songs. The following is a song I've tried to write for awhile.  But yesterday, it happened almost effortlessly.  Amidst, a tangle of tears and bed sheets next to my wife, this song came together in the course of about fifteen minutes, chords, melody, lyrics and all.

It's a song that wholeheartedly acknowledges the suffering that is all too real, but simultaneously embraces hope, striving to channel that hope with each note, chord, and lyric.  It's called "You Are My Delight."  Give it a listen.

You Are My Delight
by Mark Chase

You've been pushing long and hard
Heart is heavy, soul is scarred
Can't even walk another mile
Whatever happened to the light in your smile?

But Hope is coming fast today
Hope is coming here to stay
Hope is coming here to say

You are my delight
The sparkle in my eye
The teardrops down my face
Happiness enough to cry

You are my delight
I'll never let you go
I wrote this song
So that you'd always know

Trapped by the lies in your head
Curling up in this unmade bed
Finish line not even in sight
Will we make it through the night?