Life's Journey

Just words from heart

 

 

In this stage of my life I seem to see way more than I want to sometimes. I watch myself as if I am not me, looking to understand just how and when did I end up here… A soul searching for answers outside of myself and the love I never have known? How did I end up here with a voice that isn’t my own speaking loudly over my heart, and even louder over the voice of God? When was it exactly that I learned not to trust my own judgment, better yet my own self? I comb through the years that have passed me by,  searching them for these answers, knowing that my freedom from past lies and heart ache lie right there… right there in the ashes of days that have long forgotten their effect on me.

 

I watch my life unfold as if it were a movie on a screen cheering on this character I have become to find her way back home or better yet make one. I watch her stumble and falter and then begin again as if a wind pushes her silently along when giving up has been a silent wish that won’t come true. But she isn’t someone outside of me, She is me. The days carry me with them, from one battle to the next and the gloves never get to come off when rest is all I long to know. A heroine, I know inside myself but yet I see what lies beneath the strength of me. I see the places where the wounds have did major damage to the being God created me to be. I see the fear that lies behind the walls of my mind daring me to try to be so bold as to think happiness is my right. Daring me to try to be so bold as to allow love to fill me and become the song I live. In my heart there is an anxiousness begging to be calmed and it seems as if the rivers flowing from my eyes will never still it, the waters are troubled within me and yet I stand as if they are not.

 

I have found the enemy to be me. No greater enemy has entered into my life than the one I live with daily, doubting who I am to be and what I was destined to accomplish. My voice speaks clearly but it is blurred by this place in me that never knew it was allowed to be loved. The place in me that allowed neglect and abuse to rob me of my right to stand up for what was and is good and right for me. That place where the enemy in me resides afraid to trust and touch, afraid to open and need, because this enemy has learned or been taught to believe that nothing good can come from it. So in the past, that part of me (the enemy) held me hostage and daily I fight the chains wrapped around me to ignore that voice that is threatened by my voyage to true discovery of self.

 

The winds of change are calling me, God is pulling me up from where I had decided to wallow because it was easier to ignore the truth begging to be acknowledged in me. It was easier to mute my heart, numb my feelings and walk dead, becoming a victim to the neglect of a little girl that only wanted to be loved and protected in a world that was so much bigger than her.  I began to exist in the perpetual hell that it was my job to make everyone and everything right at my own expense and from doing that I could buy my redemption from mental and sexual abuse and maybe some one would finally really love me.

 

In essence that is what we all strive to know. A hand that reaches down to pull you up. A voice that touches a worried soul with reassurance. A promise that you are not alone. A place to share your fears where you know there is safety. Yes, in God these things are found but He has placed in us a need for each other. A need to connect, share, and enlighten one another in love. This becomes less and less realized as bad experiences teach us to trust no one. We often fail to realize it has even taught us not to trust ourselves. It has nurtured us in a way where when hands do reach out we refuse them. When a promise does come we can not believe it. We get to a place where staying muted becomes the place of comfort while our soul silently dies and we let it.

 

This place of reflection and responsibility does not come without a heavy price. It does not come without tears or pain. It does not come without standing over the edge of my now and walking through some of my past. Many will say you must let the past go, it is true subjectively but it is not absolute, for without a true sense of past there is no way to escape its hold on your present and future. One must face the past in order to come to the proverbial release of it. So that one can use it as guide for how to and how not to repeat the actions that lead to either life or death. There is a time to find your way and that can’t be done until you understand how you lost it.

 

Here I am, facing it all as if yesterday is today and tomorrow depends on me changing course, because it does. I want to live, I always have. Even as a little girl and young woman watching death in many forms surround me and smother me, I wanted to live. I morphed into whatever I had to become to try to bring life in those situations that were often either beyond my control or hopeless in some cases both. I had given up on me but I thought if I could bring life and love to others then just maybe I would discover it for myself. Maybe it would come to me. Well it has, but only through my willingness to face me.

 

I can’t blame my past or those that didn’t fulfill their promises or obligations to me. I have only myself to blame if I don’t take those negative things and find a way to make them propel me further into positivity. I can not undo those things that were out of my control, those things that put large holes in my soul screaming to be filled, or this ache from lack of attention that begs to be heard and responded to and noticed, or the fear that comes from being unloved and neglected, taken for granted or abused, I can only change my actions that have been wrongly formed from those things and learn to know what is right and acceptable. And I deserve to.

 

I deserve to live. It is my right, without fear and angst and with the strength to walk through my fears until they pass. I deserve to know love from the inside out and I don’t have to be afraid of the way things end because if I truly give as God has designed me to what happens in the end is for my good. Someday love outside of me will find me and stick. I know this. I see it in the friends I know, though they may only be around for a season. How great it is when spring arrives but I have to let it go in order to know the long days of summer and though summer bring such joy, I have to let it go to be surrounded by the beauty of fall that leads to the crisp cold of still winters, where at times I get my best sleep. I can not let the falling away of certain people and things make me afraid to face the next additions to my life. Oh that God would change my mind that I can always remember this.

 

What is often birth in a kiss may end in tears but love comes alive again. I see it in the smiles of strangers so warm that my heart melts a bit, I find it in the laughter of child that moves me to the point that I ache to know life created from my own womb. I know love lives beyond goodbyes and hurt feelings. I know love in my own being that reaches out beyond crippling fear and pain to try to reach another even when they can’t reach back.

 

It is where we least look that we find what we most seek. I want to live, so for the past few months I have worked and worked on me. I have quit looking at what other won’t and can’t do and really looked at what I need to do. I am learning to love without exception and give without expectation. These are truly hard feats. I am learning that I can trust my own judgment and my voice doesn’t have to be crowded out by those I admire or look up to because there are words that God has placed inside of me that need to be set free. There is a story in me that is being written that must be told. It is not just for me that I make this journey. It is not just for me that I pay this price to know happiness, to create it when it is fleeting, to learn how to heal the places within me or soothe the aches within.  No it is not just for me, though it will benefit me greatly. It is in hopes that if I accomplish this and continue on paying the price that comes with it. Maybe those around me will see and travel on their own unique path to their healing and happiness, paying the price that comes with it to Live, fully and unapologetically free from the guilt and shame of a past that keeps them bound.

 

This is my prayer in these words, that through God we will know Life more abundantly and truly understand that we play a major and instrumental part in achieving that. It may mean leaving things behind that we want to hold on to, or holding on to things we want to let go of. It will most likely mean days of heaviness or anger that you have to work through to get pass. It may mean sleepless nights. It may mean being on your own for a while. But if we trust God and the God within us and learn to trust our hearts and minds and forgive our selves of past mistakes, We can know that life. The Life God intended for His children to experience a life that is fruitful and fulfilling and that knows love His way.

 

If you are reading this I appreciate you sharing in my journey. I lift you up in my prayers and thoughts always. I love you and encourage you to be your best always. To find your destiny and live it as if your Life depends on it, because it does. Be well in mind, body and  spirit always…