Several weeks ago I wrote that I struggle most with routine tasks and the upkeep of my own life. Lately I have found severe comfort in these same things. I have come to realize that it is the daily practices that give the most respite when grief knocks. There will be times that I will need to step away from facing the looming giants that guard my soul’s path forward to find in myself the courage to face them, and it is the small checked boxes of a to-do list that allow me to do so. When I am toiling towards progress, these items feel tedious and distracting. But it is when I do not have the strength to fight that they are welcome to me; there is hope there, in the laundry and the dirty dishes and the vaccuum cleaner, waiting to be useful. Sometimes hope can be overwhelming to keep close by. Yet there will one day be need for it, and worth is measured not in days but over seasons.