To write more means to become more vulnerable. Lately it seems I’ve been doing a lot of things that leave me susceptible to hurt and rejection. But unless I do that, I am depriving myself of joy, and excitement, and laughter and happiness too. I spent a lot of my time building up defenses against the bleakness of life without realizing those defenses were suddenly getting so strong, that the happiness of life was being blocked too. In turn, by attempting to protect myself all I did was inevitably make things worse. It was a cycle I could not see until I was literally broken free of it. I remember reading a book as a kid at my grandparent’s house in Illinois, about a person who built up walls, brick by brick, until there was space for just one more brick. Just when it all seemed hopeless, someone walking by handed the person behind the wall a flower through the hole that was left. I wish I knew the book, I wish I could find the image. Words don’t capture the feeling the same way.
Anyway, I think as we grow, we start to build that wall, brick by brick, without even realizing it. As we get older, and lose the childhood innocence we don’t know we have until it is gone, the world starts to seep in, and slowly we throw up a defense. Against pain. Lies. Fear. Doubt. Betrayal. Jealousy. Rejection. Grief. As we start to experience and acknowledge what those feelings are, we put up defenses against them. The problem, as I see it, is as those bricks go up, we start to suffocate our emotional growth and spiritual vulnerability. I imagine God as that person from my picture, handing the flower through the teeny space left. Because sometimes that’s all that’s there. Sometimes, there’s less room, or no room, and the whole wall has to be knocked aside, figuratively or literally. How can we grow if we refuse to move from where we are? How can we have hope to grow if we squeeze faith out of our lives entirely?
Imagine a pond in the middle of the summer on a hot still day…water stagnant, with bugs skimming the surface. The heat hangs above the water in a haze, everything is still. Humid. Unmoving. I don’t want my life to be that way. I want my life to be like white-water rafting. Beautiful, slightly unpredictable, both exciting and tranquil, an adventure, one worth telling. And there’s no way I’ll live a life that way if I refuse to move.
Faith, hope, trust, those things lead to an adventurous life. Because where are we without faith? And what is faith? Belief and trust that something out there is bigger than us. Sure, of course, life is not always sunshine and daises. Things happen. It is how we handle those things…how we conduct ourselves in the midst of the sludge and come out on the other side that help us grow, and be an example for someone else who may have to go through the same thing. I am not a model of perfection. I have been on the merry-go-round of life moving way too fast. That white-knuckle experience lasted long enough for me to relish in the simplicity of my life today. I’ve broken down walls, brick by brick, and I have a short list of things that occupy my time. As that starts to grow I want to be sure that the list grows with things I can be proud of. I’m grateful today, that I get a second chance. It’s pleasing to think that some of my best days are ahead of me. There’s that hope thing again.
I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!
