By Nina B.
It helps sometimes for me to write my thoughts out and share them. I know, I am not alone and others don't write and don't share, but - reading my thoughts may make someone else's, more tangible to them... They've had them, but nailing them down was just out of reach... So, I write and share - for us both...
I used to think that the start of a new year was difficult... Then I thought holidays were just something that one had to get through - like a tepid shower when the hot water isn't hot enough... I've just passed another birthday - which I am grateful for - I have my health, I'm retired... I am in the stage of life that I used to, only imagine and never thought I'd be a participant.
I am blessed.
I have freedom like never before - with the exception of childhood...
...Then why do I kinda "feel" out of sorts?
(It is important to know I am of the mind that emotional feelings are not necessarily permanent - as in the case when someone feels like death... Feelings change like the wind in Chicago - blowing one way then another... Freezing cold in the mornings and balmy by noon)
It's all just complicated...
I have come to view life as a dance... and I have very limited dance moves. I can count the dances I've gone to on one hand. The dance moves I knew, don't quite flow well... At least not now and one might argue that they never really did. It's like hearing a familiar song and being out of step with the beat. My youngest son would say this has always been my norm - given that he has been described as having a near perfect ear. Once upon a time he used to say that, "...Jesus didn't want to hear me sing..." I laugh.
However, being able to recognize the beat of life and navigate the steps is not so easy when the music is constantly changing... With being out of step so much, it's easier to simply get off the dance floor.
Another birthday... the approaching holidays - Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year... a child's wedding... Family and friends include me... But it all "feels" out of sorts, because the music is the same but I am different... I hear in the background old familiar tunes from past birthdays, other Thanksgivings, Christmas' and there are the things I used to do but don't do now because the beat is off -
The tragedy, (an event causing great suffering, destruction, and distress...), the terrible, the traumatic the travesty, (a false, absurd, or distorted representation of something)-(this is an understatement), ...happened that caused the permanent
mis -
step
in life...
The beat that was so familiar became altered...
Hell...
...it was totally,
and just L o
s t...
...more accurately abandoned...
So...
Moving ------------------------------> FORWARD....
I have life,
other moments,
breathe,
ideas,
dared to dream NEW dreams,
hopes, ....
I have...
..... a God who knows all that I've been through and invites me to, "Come dance with Him"!
My Lord gets it... that, what was old and familiar to me, is messed up and causes pain every single time I am faced with what was... You can start fresh and over with tons of stuff, but some others you can't, because it's usually someone else's stuff, (like the van that looks just like the one you used to own together, because Chevrolet didn't just make one...)... Sometimes it's people you knew from the other life. The stuff and most importantly the people aren't the problem - its the connection to the tragedy.
Here's an analogy:
Once a upon a time I had a very serious accident - one where time slowed down and I had two distinct choices in front of me... I won't bore you with the details, what's important is that every time I drove pass that area I remembered the accident... For a while, 30 plus years ago I avoided that area like the plague... but with the extension of the hand of grace... from God, I moved forward. I still remember the accident, the choices I had - life or death... Rear-end the older lady stopped in front of me or turn into the lane of the speeding truck... Both sounded bad, but only one was sure death...
What's important - I moved forward, (pun totally not intentional).
Presently, the decision to move forward is not always easy - or comfortable... or even popular with family and friends. Sometimes I do want to avoid people - all people. I just want to be alone... but I think if I were alone for too long, I'd become bitter.
Think on that for a bit - BITTER - like quinine: a bitter crystalline compound present in cinchona bark, used as a tonic and formerly as an antimalarial drug .... (To this day I do not know WHY my mother used to give me quinine tablets! A tonic of death! I was already a sickly child... and she thought this would help... God takes care of babies... and fools).
Still, sometimes when I'm out and about and I see people and/or I interact with them... I think it would be better for me and them if I just go back to my rock and hide and not move... but not moving causes stagnation -stop flowing, become stagnant, become trapped; become foul, become stale; fester, putrefy - which is all bad!
Yes, moving forward at anytime can be painful - up to your eyeballs... BUT, even at a snails pace... some stuff gets better or at its least - different... Sometimes just shifting your eyes from the ground that you continuously see - to look up, once in a while - changes your perspective - you look up!
What do you see?
Sometimes you sit and stagnate... aka pity yourself... lick your wounds...but please don't feast on them... You will only be successful in consuming you - and you will taste bitter!
In the shoes I walk in..., cuz I don't walk in your shoes - our lives are different - sometimes - I am stuck... but it's a place I surely don't want to live in, (I choose not to remain stuck), ...
The world as it is - is indeed a whole lot of bad, ugly, sin... and my stuff/sin added to it, just makes it worse - not at all better - remember bitter...
But, Father says come dance with me... follow My beat and together the music we make, will be Heavenly as we move forward... always
Soli Deo Gloria
Nina
Beethoven's Five Secrets - One Republic -The Piano Guys
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