God and the Wounded Creature Within

My reaction to my father's email concerned me. He talked about being in God's favor, about God longing for me, about great things coming to me and being willing to have faith and take a risk. My first thought, my knee-jerk reaction, was that I was about to lose everything. Talk about irrational. When I hear I am being blessed with everything, I hear I am about to lose it all.

I opened my palm and let Him hold my hand today. I felt Him kiss my cheeks. Then He said something I had to ask Him to repeat. He told me that he would like to get to know me in the good times, we had been through enough bad.

Here's the thing, I know when I listen to him things turn out for the best, but I don't feel like I have been listening to anything lately. I have felt a bit odd, a bit disconnected. Perhaps it is just a matter of getting to know him outside of the proverbial warzone, perhaps now is the time to get reacquainted on domestic soil.

It's sad that the One who saved me reminds me so much of that which I needed to be saved from that I would flinch at His name. I am realizing that there is a wounded creature that still lurks inside of me, just under the surface.

I am haunted, in my dreams, by a lingering desire to be saved and by the knowledge that no one ever comes. He does though, He always is waiting. In my poor, damaged mind He designed it that way; a manipulative tactic to thrust me into His arms because there is no one else to cling to. Cognitively, I know this is not true. I know that He does not operate that way. That creature though, she looks at Him with wide-eyed mistrust. How did this happen? I have fought this creature my whole life. Seeing Him and realizing who he is, then forgetting all over again. How could I forget? I want to feel badly, but I don’t feel much of anything save a twinge of sadness.

The creature inside of me heard Him say that He is back, not to save me, but to reintroduce himself to me outside of the shadowy world of my despair. She took a step toward Him, still shaking, but intrigued. Could it be true?

I take it back, I do feel something. It isn’t guilt though; it is deep, deep sadness and shock that I am only now seeing this pathetic creature for the first time. Now that I see her, I realize she has been there all along.

Funny, she came out of the shadows again tonight. Someone got too close to my heart. I reeled back with a vicious growl. I keep her well hidden, but I hear her, barring her teeth at the mere idea of someone getting close enough to hurt me. What happened to me that this thing could live inside of me?

I have spent my entire life running headfirst into the heart of anything that frightens me. I loathe the idea of anything having that kind of grip on me. It is only my great faith in myself that allows for my hopeful views of the future. For someone who dreams fearlessly of conquests and mountains to climb, it is funny to see the cynic beneath it all. I am good at dreaming about that which I can control. Hoping for that which I cannot is terrifying. I do believe that is the risk He is asking me to take now.

Things have been so frighteningly beautiful lately. Seeing the life I have always dreamed of, even the pieces I cannot control, coming together; it is petrifying. How could I have all this? I have done nothing to earn it. It is a gift I cannot bring myself to accept.

He is holding his hand out to me, telling me to take a step into the darkness. Who knew the one thing I would fear would be happiness?

In my philosophical musings I have come to accept that nothing lasts forever, and that is shouldn’t. Life is an ever-changing landscape with wonders and beauties of all different kinds to see along the way. It is not meant to be lived standing still. I have also come to accept the fact that as long as my home is in my heart, each scene will be mine, I will not be alone. I suppose that the next step is living these ideals; believing in the beauty, the goodness and the joy of life.

Now is the time to stop waiting for the “other shoe to drop”. It is time to let go of the fear and accept fully the happiness that has been offered to me, even the happiness that I have not earned. It is time to take the biggest risk of my life; accept joy and all the dangers of loss and disappointment that comes along with it. It is time to heal the wounded creature in my heart. It is time to learn to be truly fearless. I suppose it is time to learn to be more like Him. An open heart is a courageous one.

I have tasted perfection. When I let go it feels more like flying than falling. I want to spread my wings. I want to trust Him to not let me crash to the ground. God gave me the gift and the responsibility of an open heart. Imagine the possibilities if I open it up all the way. Imagine what love like that could do. It could light up a city.

I hear him now whispering, "Trust Me"...

Bon Appetite!

I finally watched Julie and Julia tonight. It has been 8 months since I saw the first preview, 7 months since I read the book, 6 months since I started my life over; and I am so glad I waited.

I think the first step toward the life I always wanted, toward "The Experiment", was the moment I opened My Life In France, Julia Child's memoir. Julie Powell wrote, and was quoted in the movie as saying, that she was drowning and Julia Child reached out through her books and saved her. It seems dramatic, but I feel precisely the same way. Reading about that phenomenal woman who lived with joy and passion so infectious that she brightened every room she entered, reading about finding destiny so much later in life, reading about following your heart and being loved so completely for it; this brought me back to life, showed me the way home.

After reading Julia's story, I moved on to Julie's. As I flipped through the pages, learning about this lost woman finding her way, I saw only myself. My life has changed now too. I am no longer lost, I may not always know where I am going, but I trust in life and beauty and happiness as I have never dared to before. At the end of her book, her life looks to be coming together perfectly. Book deals, movie deals, leaving her horrible government job; but I know what comes next. Just when you think you have finally gotten things figured out, life throws you a curve ball.

I am currently reading Julie Powell's newest biography; Cleaving. Obviously, she has been published and is successful, but now her marriage is falling apart. When I saw the book jacket, read what it was about, my heart nearly jumped out of my chest. How can someone I have never met be living such a parallel life? Clearly there is a great deal of projection going on here! I know there are differences, she was having an affair whereas I was just fighting dissolution. But the death of a dream on the heels of a dream come true resonates with me.

I bought the book to try and look into my own future. I put it down only a day later. Not she, nor anyone else, could tell me what I already knew. It was already scorched into my tongue, the one thing I could not say: Goodbye. I said it without the benefit of reading my future, I said it because it seemed to be the only thing left in my mind to say. My lips are still singed from speaking it into existence, my heart still aches. I digress, I began writing about the women and stories that saved my life because no matter how hard it is right now, thanks to them, I know it will not always be so.

The most peculiar thing comforts me these days, brings the devious smile back to my lips; it is the knowledge that I am me. I am joyful and passionate and bravely myself! The life I created for myself was not a matter of dinner parties and career paths, it was finding that woman inside of me. She may have tears in her eyes, but the playful smile still lingers.

The universe aligns sometimes to affirm some of the harder decisions in my life. In one such cosmic turn, authors of the present and long ago whisper to my soul. I stumbled across one such whisper by Katherine Mansfield:

"Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act yourself. Face the truth."

I have faced the truth, done the hardest thing on earth for me, and I will be myself. Therein lies my comfort, therein lies my hope, therein lies the key to the life I have always dreamed of. Who knew that all this time it was simply a matter of throwing caution to the wind and accepting joy? Who knew that all this time I was enough?

Loss is part of life, but joy is a choice independent of pain and circumstance. Thank you Julia, for showing me the way. Thank you Julie, for showing me that happy endings are never quite what we imagine them to be. Thank you God, for giving me the strength to keep smiling and the tenacity to choose joy.

Happy

I have been bemused lately at my own state of happiness. It is not the overwhelming giddy feeling you get when something wonderful is happening, it is more solid, unencumbered by the usual dread of loss that usually accompanies these sensations. The happiness I currently possess is different, not a result of fate or good fortune, but something I attained, something I created.

I was unhappy, so I changed things. I took stock of those things that where missing in my life and rather than hoping or wishing they would magically appear, I went out and found them. So often we assume that the things we desire are out of our control, finding out how much actually is within our ambitious reach is a huge comfort for a control freak like me. Conversely, learning which things are not is my greatest sense of peace.

My life is not perfect, the turmoil in my heart and mind has not subsided, but it is thrashing under a soft blanket of happiness that seems to overpower the pain and anxiousness. The voice in my mind is whispering even now warnings, convinced that when happiness appears the storm is soon to follow. I can quiet this voice with the simple fact that the storm is already here, I have just found a way to rise above it.

Do I still get sad? Do I find myself in states of darkness? Of course. These annals of my life are proof of that. But somehow it doesn't matter so much anymore. The happiness is winning. For the first time in my life, it has the upper hand. I have the upper hand.

I chose to relish the joys and the pains until they both become mere threads woven together in the tapestry of my beautiful life.