To The Little One in All of Us

to my little one (and the little one in all of us):
may you always be the one
who sees the Light in the little things

when the world is in a rush around you
may you be the one who stops to notice
where the hope gets through.

and years from now,
when you have grown up
and the world has changed,
I hope
Glorious Light
finds you all the same.

for this road will not be easy
but you are free to keep traveling, anyway.
trusting that even your most uncertain moments
are wrapped in endless, boundless, grace.

and what is grace?
it is unmerited favor,
the faithful rhythm you cannot see
saying, “you do not always have to explain why or how
you’re seeing the Light in the little things.”
simply trust
believe.

I

Word of the day: HOPE

Many of the poems in my new book “All Along You Were Blooming” were written when I was pregnant with my son. I was extremely fatigued and there were many moments that I felt like I couldn’t carry this project out. There were also so many moments where this kept me going, “well, at least I can write for him. I hope he reads these words someday.” I can’t tell you how much pressure I feel to deliver a good book, a worthy book…a book that makes people feel like it was worthy of their time, energy, money…I love to create, and this is also true: it never stops being intimidating. I still get stuck in my head. Every. Single. Day. This book and everything I write is not about having all of the answers, but about choosing to carry on, with grace. Choosing to look for Light in the places where my mind tries to tell me there are only shadows.

In this season, I am hoping to hold on to childlike wonder. I am hoping to write from the days of my youth where I filled my dollar store notebooks with colored pencils and I wrote songs on an untuned piano. The time in my life where my dyslexia didn’t stop me from writing.

I hope for whatever part of you that tends to see the hope where there is none, you remember this today. I hope that you can see how Glorious Light still finds you in the most simple, yet grace-filled ways. 

-MHN

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