I hereby choose not to dwell in anger or wallow in pain for any second longer than I have to. I know those companions far too well and they have brought me nothing but suffering.
I choose to take a deep breath and release all claims or rights I have to hold onto bitterness. While I may be justified in some self pity, there remains no benefit to be seen from holding onto that familiar fiend. In moments I feel that keen sting, I greet pain as the friend I have known since my youth. We have shared many conversations long into the night and bottled an ocean's worth of tears, but there remains nothing for you here anymore. No longer will I sit in a huddle while your cold arms wrap around me. No longer will I await your coming with a resigned sense of fate. No longer will you be the one I share my hopes and dreams with because I know now how you twist them. I have seen the fruit of your advice. Time and time again I have felt the emptiness of your company and here I say no longer. No longer will death's heavy chains wrap around me while I sit idly by watching as a spectator to my own life. No longer will I don the glasses which taint the world that sickly grey. No longer will I permit you to turn my friends into fears or my moments into misery. Here and now, I choose life. I choose it just as I have chosen it many times, and now even more. I choose to see past how my pain is affecting me and see how it might be affecting them. I choose to see past how their pain is hurting me and see that their heart may be hurting them even more so. I choose to see beyond the pain into something new and beautiful. I choose to see that there is healing after the pain. Yes, it comes, and I know far too well than to say that it doesn't belong here. But I also know that it doesn't have to stay. There is another day, another song, another heart ache, and another heart break. And then I get back up again. Not from my own strength, but from that of a friend and a redeemer. A hug without words when words aren't enough. A simple gesture that might not mean anything, or it might mean everything. A smile that lasts long after they've passed because it left its warm impression on your heart like footprints in the wet sand. I want to be that smile. I want to be that hug. I want to be that person who sees the little things and isn't scared to show a soft heart to a broken world. For all the times I've sat broken but not alone, I want to be the ear that will listen long into the night. For all the tears I've cried onto shoulders that didn't even need to know why, I want to be the one to always show up. For all the moments I've felt finally heard, seen, or known, I cannot hide the journey I've walked, nor do I want to. This world will have trouble, and we are in a war made up of a million little battles running moment to moment. Sometimes I win, many times I lose, but the one thing that remains constant is that I have not walked a single step of this journey alone. I am the receiver of magnificent, astounding, and abundant grace, and love that has conquered my every fear. I am miles now from where I started, and the end is still nowhere in sight, yet I keep pressing on to the glorious end I know must await me. No prize ever worth attaining came without obstacles along the way, and that is how I know I'm on my way to something truly spectacular.
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ErikaJeremiah 29:11 Archives
March 2023
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