It’s Just a Slingshot

I believe the decades of our lives are filled with thresholds. Moments where we realize the skin we are in no longer fits and we are standing in the doorway to a new life. Step forward, step back, it’s truly up to us. But the wind is blowing and its time to move. I love these moments. A chance to explore what else lives inside of me, a chance to dig deeper into my physical and emotional health, find deeper levels of God’s grace. This reinvention is complete Freedom.

I was dancing in the doorway when I ran into the dogs of my past… and I mean many thresholds past. I knew it was coming but face to face with my story’s evil, was like running 60 mph into a wall…. I crashed. I took my current self, my current heart, into a past life and I realize that my skin was too soft and the oxygen too hot for me to breathe. It only took moments to burn up, for my heart to be re-broken with an unkind word, and every healing undone. I wanted to step back and close the door. I wanted to run, leave the victories ahead and behind right there in a heap favoring strongly a lock, a bolt, a fetal position, and a corner.

I admit I did give that its moment…… but get up girl. You underestimated evil, big deal. Remember that each door you walk through creates the you that you are today, and although she is tender, she is properly human.

The threshold of this decade has revealed the darkest corners of my life and in doing so I have released so much of the burden living in my bones. It is no coincidence that I was then put in a position to really stand in front of my Hydra. But here’s the thing, I can be more than merely human. I can be the me that God made. I can trust the unseen. I can rise and be hopeful, loving, free and generous .

We were made for giving, to family, neighbors, friends, children, lovers. Ultimately we are going to give it all back to God. So rise now, this pain is not for you. Your humanity has a different agenda than this.

I may not be wise, but I feel we come into the world and quickly face the indignities of evil and inadequacy. We are not prepared and we make messes of ourselves and others. But… each door we walk through, every threshold crossed, we have a chance to see those things and clean them up, to rise, take something more reflective of glory forward. We almost need evil to catapult us to a greater level of being. It is just a slingshot. It is you that takes aim. So back on my feet and out of a corner I take aim for the reflection of myself in God’s eyes. I reignite my temporarily broken heart with my present joy. I will step forward, and forward, and forward closing the door behind to a world no longer made for me, let it fall away. Out of that skin I am truly so brand new, vulnerable and a bit beautifully raw. This could be the beauty of aging. So, I say to myself with childlike hope, “This could be the beginning of my masterpiece.”

We step forward, we step back…are you coming? If so, I’ll wait for you.