Long before Christmas had a name, there was Mother’s Eve—the night before the Winter Solstice, when women tended the hearth and listened close. It was the eve of the longest night, when the dark reached its full stretch and then, without fanfare, began to loosen its grip. Mothers knew this turning by feel, not by clock. They baked, they told stories, they held children close, and they whispered hope into the fire—not because the world was gentle, but because life had taught them the light always returns.
This was a night for remembering. For trusting what couldn’t yet be seen. For saying, even in the depth of winter, we are still held.
That same knowing has moved through generations—through hymns sung in grief and courage, through quiet prayers spoken when words were all a person had left. It is well with my soul was never a denial of pain. It was a declaration made in the storm: the soul endures, even here.
What follows is offered in that same spirit—an old truth wrapped in familiar cloth. A remembering meant for the long night. A quiet way of saying, together, that even now… it is well.
It Is Well
We come into this world breathing borrowed air,
named by others,
held by hands that are learning too.
We forget for a while
why we came,
but not that we came.
There are nights when the dark feels longer than we planned.
Days when sorrow knocks loud
and fear tells us we’re lost.
Still—
something deeper stays steady.
It is well.
We were not sent here to be broken,
but to be shaped.
Not to suffer endlessly,
but to remember ourselves
inside the living of it.
Storms come.
They always have.
And they pass—
not because they weren’t real,
but because they weren’t the whole story.
And like the women who kept the fire on Mother’s Eve, we carry this knowing through the longest night, trusting the turn before we can see the light.
It is well with my soul.
We chose this walk—
the body, the family, the time, the work of loving and letting go.
We chose to wake up slowly,
to learn by touch and loss and laughter,
to find the light again
after the longest night.
And when the world grows loud,
when the voices argue and demand and divide,
we return to the quiet knowing underneath it all.
I am still here.
I am still held.
I remember.
It is well.
It is well.
It is well with my soul.
And When the World Feels Cruel
When the world feels cruel, unforgiving, and loveless,
do not search the sky for answers.
Look smaller.
Light is found in the next kind thing.
The honest breath.
The hand that reaches without needing to fix.
The courage to stay tender in a hard place.
You find light by choosing presence over armor.
By refusing to let bitterness be your teacher.
By remembering that even in the longest night,
the turning has already begun.
Walk gently.
Tell the truth.
Rest when you need to.
Love what’s in front of you.
That is how light survives.
That is how it spreads.
And even here—
especially here—
It is well.
And for those who grieve what has been lost—
Know this: nothing true ever ends.
No soul disappears.
What we call death is not an ending, but a changing of clothes.
Energy does not cease.
Love does not vanish.
It only shifts its shape—
from breath to memory,
from hand to warmth,
from voice to presence felt when the room goes quiet.
Those we miss have not gone nowhere.
They have gone everywhere.
They move in the light that returns.
In the warmth that lingers.
In the way love still finds us, even now.
So grieve, and grieve honestly—
but do not despair.
Nothing that has ever loved you is lost.
Nothing that has ever lived is finished.
It is still here.
It has only changed form.
And even so—
even here—
It is well.
Granny Woman 
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