That unexpected drop we don’t see coming. It’s one thing when you are watching your footing, placing your soles carefully around the eggshells, having been conditioned, trained, skilled, at moving around in this on-guard, defensive way. It’s another when you’ve just started to have confidence in the spring in your step upon trusted ground. I was outdoors, in my favorite place, when it happened this last time.
A trap pre-set by a predator disguised as a friend. Another very unexpected fall. No problem. I’m used to it. I know what to do. It’s all very logical. Except when I go to grab onto the root to begin the climb, it opens another hole. I unexpectedly drop again. I reach, I lift myself, I lift myself, I reach for the wrong root again and another hole opens… I don’t understand these. They come from deep within my own self. These were not set by him. There is no logic; I’ve tried every pattern. Eventually, I make it out.
And then another pit sends me plummeting.
I’m thinking about these pitfalls today, sitting upon a rock in a favorite dress on a beautiful day, revisiting the scene, the trap pre-set especially for me. I find myself thinking the all-too-familiar question for each of us, so universal, so personal: why me?
I honestly do feel I should have been spared by my higher power. I’ve paid my dues. I’ve done my time. With Trauma. But what sense of entitlement and special treatment is that? Not to mention the whole free-will clause which others can use to interfere with my own hard work and desires.
So I do now reflect on the possible reasons. Does God have yet another lesson for me to learn, yet another trial to overcome? How strong does He want me to be?! And why?… When I think of this, I do not feel like a victim; there is very little woe is me. I actually get a bit excited that He is preparing me for big things. Like I am a chosen one. And if ever I were to be in training or to serve, I would definitely want it to be for Him! I feel empowered. I feel an ego I never thought I had. I always thought I was selfless to a fault.
I did it. I think. Again. I’ve lost, yet won. Are you proud of me, God?
I think, too, about how much I have control of and how much I don’t. I know how we react is everything, our miseries often self-induced, self-perpetuated, the way we keep ourselves trapped and prisoners; we look down sometimes and see the cuffs and chains are unlocked, and we scramble to re-secure them. Why?
Is it all fear?
If so, are we really trusting God is with us, sees what is ahead? We cannot get there if we keep re-locking ourselves when He keeps setting us free.
My past is my past. I have freed myself from it. I must shake the dungeon dust fully off. Perhaps that is the purpose of these new wings.
I feel the breeze of your and His love…
Thank you for always believing in me.
I suppose with wings, these pitfalls can no longer sink me; I’ll keep my eyes forward in these skies and focused on the portals to my dreams.
Rough week. Double red flags waving. The bay wilder than the ocean. It called me home. Here’s to the ones in the throes of it. Let’s relight ourselves. Again.
I give my light freely, but sometimes it is taken, emotional perpetrators breaching my innermost spaces.
They underestimated my strength and did again today,
for as long as there is the sea and my God, I will raise my arms in faith; you will never keep me down as long as there are waves and rays.
Still as silhouetted dragonfly wings is all that used to swirl restlessly in me. I hold my breath and so does the breeze; we both stop time for centuries.
The secrets from the ancient flier can only be imparted in complete silence; any ripple in the universe jeopardizes this which is rarely achievable in this life.
Perhaps this is my umpteenth time…
I recently had a supreme spiritual moment; not now, but when I was again freshly broke open, my soul exposed again to worldly poisons and decades-rotten ingested false notions.
It is only in these complete ruptures, it seems, can the bad get out and God restitch the seams. Perhaps it is true that the rock bottoms are needed to unclench the fist and open the palm for receiving.
I was mended with light again by His own loving hand. And inside me, this time, another something planted. I feel it in the silhouetted dragonfly wings suspended, except I think it is me that it and the breeze are sensing.
I feel our connectedness, the same serenity seeds inside of us. It’s hard to go back to the way it was when gratitude, which I’ve always had, are blooms in such surplus shooting up.
Overcasting the heart, the plagued cloud drew color and life; eruption ensued, torn from the burst deep inside. The salt rained on the open wounds. The gray swooped in, attempted final ruin.
But a survivor returned from his own near entombment, kissed petal lips to restore the hues,
and love rushed in again to ignite the blooms, imbued with goodness the only truth.
The excess overflowed, flooded the world, infused each connecting branch, bled the colors to combat all hopelessness.
The gray cloud retreated. Only depression was depleted.
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:7-8)
Little tree on the mountaintop beneath sun’s celestial reach, planted purposely at the very peak or actively advancing toward dreams from a seed, more mighty to me than the mountain itself and all of the tallest trees beneath looking up.
Little tree on the mountaintop Biblically reminiscent, perhaps a Jesus story never told, or the Lord’s seemingly futile reach to have us remember this precious given life’s goals.
Who is changed upon the descent from the mountain? Some things seem to remain as shocking as Moses’.