Sunday, December 15, 2019 – “A new creature awakens each morning transformed to beauty or ashes simmering in the soul. In the eyes of the beholder, transfixed in mirrored light, past and present merge. Reflection’s shadow, dependant on light’s intensity and direction, lengthen or shorten their lingering power while finding refuge on memory’s stage.”
Thursday, December 19 – “Let the curtain close on the wonders shaping the present. Even ashes have their purpose, beauty abounds in blessing of transformative living. Awaken the senses with or without the morning’s rays of sunlight. Bleak winter skies may persist at times for appreciative pause. All is good, the elements sweetly rest, a troubled heart, calms.”
Trees swiftly sway, each needled evergreen branch furiously waving under nature’s wind-driven fury while darkening, grey skies streaked with faint angry, reddish highlights, forecast the coming storm. Quickly falling barometric pressure readings within her head, alert precipitation’s proximity. Pounding drops suddenly descend with blinding fierceness. Thwarting vision, the massive deluge glazes windows like a thick frosting running down the sides of a much too hot, uncooled triple-layered cake. Smashing on shingles, shutters, eavestroughs, and bricks, the downpour pummels with explosive like velocity. The quickstep rain dance bubbles and pops, jumping backward upon slamming full force into static obstacles. Continual heavy slapping, reminiscent of the carpet’s flapping sound with each attack of a sturdy wooden beating instrument to remove unwanted dust, rhythmically plays in the night.
Wednesday, April 29, 2020 – “I am so very sad today, I just want the earth to swallow me whole so the pain will end. I can’t see clearly for the tears that won’t abate.”
Tuesday, May 19, 2020 – “Do you ever feel like a hypocrite? You know so much about God and his intimate awareness of your needs from his touch, the way your life has been enriched and blessed. You feel so deeply your faith, and yet the days come when you don’t know how to describe the turmoil racking you inside? A hurricane? tornado? avalanche? tsunami? which? or is it all?
You know the source of your faith and hope because you have held his hand, and countless times He has carried you upon his shoulders, his back, and close to his bosom in strong arms. Your strength is all spent, you can no longer reach, you are tired from many months of fighting and flight. The only surrender you feel is horrifying, for you love utterly intensely and don’t want to lose anything more. The pain is greater than you have ever known.
There is no joy, not even a glimmer of happiness. Sure, a minute or two, maybe even an hour, comes when you feel a stirring, a smile threatening the corners of your mouth that holds briefly on its own or with exertion. Then it fleetingly disappears into the cavernous depths, leaving monstrous shadows of darkness in its wake. You think of those you love. You don’t want them to feel what you do. Your life flashes with memories’ photographs in vibrant colours, and you wonder. What good have I done? Will anyone care or miss me when I’m gone? Then, quick as the flash from a brilliant white, perfectly aimed lightning bolt, you are electrified by the nakedness of your selfishness? It burns far below the surface, deeper than the third-degree, and you lay alone, nothing but ash and bone.
Gripped in paralysis? Unable to move? Unwilling to try? But fear…?”
I am the ‘you’ in my journal entry, mirror’s reflection, writing to myself in reprimanding, disapproving tone. I actively consider my weak and feeble knees daily bending in desperate pleadings, and at the same time, gratefully acknowledging the bounteous blessing of grace, forgiveness, breath, and love. How can I be drowning in the “Swamps of Sadness”1 when at the same time expressing true feelings of gratitude? I do not understand. Am I genuine or a hypocrite? Here is the raw unadulterated truth. A massive grief storm, within my heart and mind, slices through delicate tissues of faith and hope, like shards of glass. My hopes lie prone, caught in a whirlwind of despair’s buffetings, weathered under the powerful, burdensome gales. Swirling around in the perimeter of the storm with all the debris it collects leaves scarring remembrances, taking a toll. If I could only get to the eye, I could see clearly and identify myself. Crawling fingers of faith, I reach for Rafiki’s stick. Using it for balance and drawing upon a remnant of strength, I rise to my knees. Wielding a forceful blow bruises, awakening my senses, reminding me of my worth to others. That is what matters most, the people in my life. Like a hot branding iron scars with searing emblems deep in the flesh, thoughts of hurting or disappointing those I care about, etch themselves in my heart, and with it guilt. Standing tall, more easily achieved from kneeling than facedown in the gall of bitter herbs, becomes a real possibility. Everything has a purpose in its season of life.
I wonder about the purpose of this internal torrential downpouring. I understand my feeling of complete and utter loneliness. I remember how often a forward stretching hand grasp pulls me up from turbulent seas. Now it seems there is something I must do alone, knowing I will not drown, no matter how obscured and ugly the view becomes. Still, the storm rages, fueled deep within a pressurized subterranean reservoir of my heart. Like an erupting volcano, the sensitive tissues, weakening in their ability to contain its contents, succumb to exerting forces, letting loose crashing waves of tsunami-sized proportion, heartbroken. Dammed tear ducts burst, causing gigantic swells below the blurry blue-eyed windows to my soul. For many days and nights, there is no abating of it ferociousness, then . . .
Forcing my mind to obliterate the drenching pangs flowing in the bloodstream, I become one with another body of water. Preoccupied with maintaining balance, I soak up the sun and paddle away from sorrow for a few hours, seeking solace. My true self reveals herself in escapism, exuding peace-filled, grateful happiness.
Water becomes sand, and with the gradually deflating paddleboard, my soul feels the loss of air, sinking once more. No! Please, not now, let me see my ribs expand and chest rise with each deliberately slow inhalation, and breathe every particle of sweet-smelling air, nature’s subliminal gift for exalted yearnings. I want to be happy!
And then, I write.
Saturday, May 23, 2020 – “I apologize in advance. This is me reaching, me in pain, me in the raw. Guess it will be a post one day, when I get control, or not, or before. Three years, 5 months, 21 days. Yeah, I count. Not good I know. I take a long time to process things. I was well-trained to hide emotions. My heart and mind battle with each other. My heart is broken more than I ever imagined. Music hurts, couples holding hands hurts, everything hurts, even breathing. Sure, I do have happy moments once in a while. At least I can suppress the sadness to smile. Out on the water or hiking in the mountains brings peace. I don’t like myself when I bring sadness to others. Sorry!!! I probably should have just put this in my journal again. Sorry!!!”
The burning nakedness of my selfishness in sharing such raw emotion, perhaps causing others discomfort, releases guilt and shame in my ashen state. Slowly, ever so faintly, a light begins appearing far in the distance, pushing rays through clouds of blackened grey to blue hues. Atmospheric weight remains, but will pass. I remember an experience, alone and lonely . . .
Tuesday, August 7, 2018 – Well past the midnight hour with the odometer tracking distance, eyes blinded by sudden sharp, quick streaks of white splitting darkness at various angles signalling hazardous weather far distant yet, possibly within the realm of reachability, lightening brightens all for mere split-seconds. Alert to potential stormy driving, reduced visibility, rain-soaked winding roads, and hydroplaning hazards up ahead bring prayers for safety and even perhaps missing the storm. Kilometres and time bring driver and storm into a torrential collision course sooner than anticipated forcing much slower speeds. Wiper blades, unable to clear the windshield sufficiently, or quickly enough, necessitates identification of a safe resting place alongside the highway. Intensification and sudden urge to leave the resting place, prompt hesitation then gradual movement. Four-way flashing hazard signals alert other night travellers of the slow-moving vehicle. As suddenly as hard rain pounded the car, echoing metallic drumming, it quickly subsides several kilometres further down the road, improving driveability. A welcome reprieve causes sighs of thankfulness in the early morning hours with the sun burning off night’s residues on the moisture-laden highway just in time to round the rain-slicked downward, mist-enshrouded, curving road ahead.
Hazardous conditions seem to lessen in degrees with changing scenery and experience. Perspective and attitudinal steering permit this driver to take an observation break, assess, and then put her car into gear, even if it is downhill on this route for a time. Not all is bad at the bottom. You can’t look up if you are not down, and looking up is so wonderfully enlightening. Such beauty in hope and an awe-inspiring peace enliven me on my journey.
Almost six months ago, after returning from a metamorphic voyage I wrote the following, “Let the curtain close on the wonders shaping the present. Even ashes have their purpose, beauty abounds in blessings of transformative living. Awaken the senses with or without the morning’s rays of sunlight. Bleak winter skies may persist at times for appreciative pause. All is good, the elements sweetly rest, a troubled heart, calms.”
Now, I crave calming peace to wash over me again and again, to be my companion and stay, exhibiting the greater overcoming power. I know it is there, usually waiting for me.
I have always loved the smells and sounds of impending, and active, storms, the bigger, stronger, louder, the better. I do not appreciate the ones in my heart and mind that mimic hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, avalanches, or volcanic eruptions, but the more I contemplate my life’s happenings and voyage through turbulent weather, I look upward. I feel, I know, I hope and I understand that “this too shall pass” with beautiful vistas, unknown and unimaginable, gracing my trail’s legacy. The moments are torturous when collecting scarring debris, but they have a story, a memory, a purpose, and a love. I treasure, with mixed emotion, my scars, for they remind me of where I have been, but do not determine where I am going, that is yet unknown. For now, I am grateful, even with the brooding clouds threatening because I know I can survive and thrive from their most unwelcome timing and turbulence.
Life Happens . . . so do Storms.
What causes the storms in your life?
Where do you find shelter?
Music fills my soulful spirit just like nature. In the last several weeks, I have discovered some songs that, at first, I could not listen to, and now I find acceptance. Here is one called Just Let Me Cry. It was written and sung by Hilary Weeks.
I believe that everything happens for a reason
We’re not just tossed by the wind or left in the hands of fate
But sometimes life sends a storm that’s unexpected
And we’re forced to face our deepest pain.
When I feel the heartache begin to pull me under
I dig my heels in deep and I fight to keep my ground
Still at times the hurt inside grows stronger
And there’s nothing I can do but let it out.
CHORUS:
Just let me cry
I know it’s hard to see
But the pain I feel
Isn’t going away today
Just let me cry.
Till every tear has fallen
Don’t ask when and don’t ask why
Just let me cry.
When I agreed that God could put this heart inside me
I understood that there would be a chance that it would break
But I know He knows exactly how I’m feeling
And I know in time He’ll take the pain away.
But for now Just let me cry
Till every tear has fallen
Don’t ask when and don’t ask why
Just let me cry
I have felt joy, the kind that makes my heart want to sing
And so my tears are not a surrender
I know I will feel that way again.
But for now, for this moment, just let me cry
I know it’s hard to see
But the pain I feel
Isn’t going away today
Just let me cry
Till every tear has fallen
Don’t ask when and don’t ask why
Just let me cry
I believe that everything happens for a reason
© Hilary Weeks
Just let me cry, it is raw and real. You can’t ‘Cry Pretty’. Carrie Underwood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUUjtUP2CrE
1Ende, Michael. Die unendliche Geschichte. 1979 Translated by Ralph Manheim. The Neverending Story. 1983 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27712.The_Neverending_Story
Post-writing note: The day I finished, the claps of thunder reached my ears while out paddling. I returned to shore before the thunderstorm began. I thought it interesting how this post and the storm came together.
Life Happens. . . so do Storms, and Skeletons, Feet, Tents, Father/Daughter Memories, Missing Pieces, Waves, Gingerbread, What am I to do Now, and Choices.
Life Happens in Scriptural Musings. . . so do Prayers, What Lack I Yet, Swords and Shields, Rescues, the Shepherd, and Faith and Wholeness.
