i caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror just moments ago. when did i grow up and become who i am today? who and what got me here? i can tell you it was not by choice, design or conscientious effort. it just happened . . . really it did! surely i would have remembered making the decision. not that i wish to be a certain age younger than i am right now. in fact, i do not. but what i do wish is i could remember the method.
as i sit here in the safe, warm cocoon i have created for myself and reflect on the path that got me here i have a difficult time being able to remember or articulate or feel the movement from infant to child, child to teen and teen to adult. i can however, recall very specific moments. and each of the moments have one common thread --- pain.
for it is in the pain that the lessons are learned.
do not rush through the pain. not because it is good to be a martyr or living with your heart on your sleeve is noble or attractive. but rather, it is in slow, even contemplation of the situations, relationships and events that have been weathered, experienced, stumbled through, botched royally and burnt to a crisp that you learn to not traipse down that path again. or, if you choose to, choose to go with your eyes wide open.
Staci,
ReplyDeleteThis is something I have yet to understand. To fully accept: that pain can be a good and useful thing. Pain is ever the point at which my faith flounders. When I review my life and the pain I've encountered I ask why must I have lived through that? Why could not God deposit wisdom full blown upon me? It is what I would do for my children if ever given the chance. This is the point at which God is either cruel in the extreme or something I do not understand.
It would seem to me that women, in particular women who are mothers, are given a special grace to understand this without the need for complicated metaphysical maunderings. They simply understand that the pain is part of the joy and the latter cannot be without the other.
This is an understanding I only encounter in the most pious men I know. Yet women of almost no piety seem to "get" this without effort. And those women of great piety seem to view the world in a way that frightens me. My fear is that I will never know that understanding and not knowing will be lost.
Your understanding is sublime and I pray earnestly to be able to come to that understanding one day by the grace of God. You are truly blessed Staci.
Ad Astra Per Aspera,
Kevin