There is nothing better than a hot bowel of soup on a rainy day. Outside the sky is dripping chilly drops of water onto my driveway. Inside I feel safe and snug. Our workers are busy putting out today’s orders. The sound of tape guns and bubble wrap penetrate the glass divider between my office and the packing area. All the good stuff being packed up and shipped out.
The normal sounds of life are reassuring as I try to write out the confusion I have been feeling. Where is my strength that inner something I have learned to rely on. The Father seems so silent at times. The fate of four little children has plagued by mind and weighed heavily on my heart. Sometimes the evil seems overwhelming. What situation or event in a life creates evil that can find sexual pleasure while causing an innocent child pain? A man, a father, a husband, destroys the lives of his four children, for what? His lust demanded satisfaction. His children were handy, easily accessible. As a society we should be outraged, instead this man’s trial ended in a hung jury. Where is justice? Justice for the children struggling to make sense of hurt and shame they cannot begin to understand. Justice for the community forced to watch their children flounder while the seeds of injustice grow a fresh crop of useless, angry young adults.
My mind is tired; the few words I have written have taken hours to form. My thoughts on this subject do not flow easily. There is a wall in my heart, something blocking the flow of light and love. Am I again the little girl without a voice, reconciled to the evil I must endure? Or, am I a woman with a voice and heart able to rise above whatever life sends my way.
In our lives, most of us will have our circumstances turned around many times. The downturns may be beyond our control and independent of our personal actions. Life’s lessons must be learned. If we fail to learn them during the good times, the Father will take us over the same track again and again, until we learn what He is trying to teach us.
The decision has been made, you want to make a difference in the world. Choosing to expand yourself beyond the small circle of family and friends who make up your community. How does it feel? What does it mean to stand up? It means to recognize and answer the call when it comes. Often the appeal is first heard as a quiet thought or conviction of heart. These are easily ignored or blown off as a passing whim for many, but to those who have chosen over and again to “Rise & Shine” when called, the passing whisper of thought is enough. They take hold of the good to be done charting the road for others to follow in their wake.
Exploring the depths of our inner world is the most important journey we can take. The study of myself has been the most important I have ever pursued. I have gotten to know myself through examining the early experiences in my life and reconciling the emotional fallout. An understanding of the damage done to the child I was has allowed me to let go of some long held misunderstandings about my responsibility for the abuse I endured. The contempt I held toward myself has been replaced with knowledge and forgiveness. Compassion for the teenager I was has replaced the shame and contempt I had felt toward myself. Throughout the years, as my teachers have passed through my life, they have each endeavored to lift me above my shame. Each was holding a piece of my personal puzzle, and answers to questions I had not even known to ask.
Clearing our emotional pain is as important in the process of healing the body as clearing the toxins. Our emotional life has everything to do with our physical health. Every day the news is full of the awful thing man does to himself and others when the twisting of a soul has reached its limit and finds release as it lashes out on society.
“Whatever Good May Come”
