The Strength to Begin Again

I'm coming to learn that things happen in life that I have absolutely no control over.  Things that break your heart.  Things that tear your soul into a million pieces.  I am learning that in moments of great pain, I forget to breathe.  Maybe it's because, behind our masks of strength, we discover just how fragile we really are.

In this life, I've found myself in situation after situation, where I am required to be strong.  Not because I'm good at it and most certainly not because I want to, but only because I have no other alternative.  What would happen if I don't keep my "stuff" together?  What would happen if I allowed the pain to overcome me?  It makes me angry really how much strength is required of me.  In the midst of a recent break down, someone close to me said, "you have to be strong...too many people are depending on you."  Well...isn't that just GREAT!!!  Thank you universe for the broken heart then...I'll just put my mask back on and pretend life is cotton candy and rainbows.

That's bull.  I don't have to be strong right now.  I don't have to lie and tell people I'm okay.  I don't have to pretend what's happening is fair, or right, or just.  I have to accept what is.  I have to let go.  I have to move forward.  But strength is not to be found in me.  Rather, the Lord is indeed my strength.  The Lord goes before me to defend and protect me.  The Lord is working out great things on my behalf.  I just have to trust God.

I guess what I have come to learn the hard way, is just how vulnerable I can be when I let myself trust in other people.  I errored in trusting others more than I trusted God and now I've got skinned knees, a broken heart and a bruised soul.  Am a bit better?  Yup.  Am I miffed?  Yup.  Can I live there...no.  God is the parent picking me up, dusting me off, drying my tears and telling me not to quit trying.

No matter the heartache, never quit trying to love others.  It's going to bite you sometimes.  It's going to break you sometimes.  People you love will hurt you, abandon you and let you down.  But they are not your rock.

I posted the photo above because it's a smile in the storm.  That girl is hurting more than anyone will ever know.  But...God loves that girl more than anyone ever will and that's worth smiling about.  One day someone is going to love me the way God intends for me to be loved.  And someday, someone is going to want me to love them right back.  For now, I hold on to the truth that there is no man worth my heart or my tears aside from Christ and my son.

God willing...this heart will heal, I'll forget this pain, I'll forgive who caused it, and I'll love again.  Lord, help me to not be overcome with bitterness and a hardened heart.  Help me to be a woman who loves whether that love is accepted or rejected.  Help me to love myself enough to walk away from those who cannot love me as you have called them to.  Help me to love others better and to remember this pain so that I am never the cause of it to anyone else.  Amen.

Goodbye Alice

Jewel hits my soul spot on with these lyrics.  Sometimes you just have to realize the difference between dreaming and pretending.  My eyes are now open.  Goodbye yellow brick road.

[Verse 1:]
It's four in the afternoon
I'm on a flight leaving L.A.
Trying to think about my life
My youth scattered along the highway

Hotel rooms and headlights
I've made a living with a song
Guitar as my companion
Wanting desperately to belong

Fame is filled with spoiled children
We grow fat on fantasy
I guess that's why I'm leaving
I crave reality

[Chorus 1:]
So goodbye Alice in Wonderland
Goodbye yellow brick road
There is a difference between dreaming and pretending
I did not find paradise
It was only a reflection of my lonely mind wanting
What's been missing in my life

[Verse 2:]
I'm embarrassed to say the rest is a rock and roll cliche
I hit the bottom when I reached the top
But I never knew it was you who was breaking my heart
I thought you had to love me
But you did not

Yes a heart can hallucinate
If it's completely starved for love
It can even turn monsters into
Angels from above

You forged my love just like a weapon
And you turned it against me like a knife
You broke my last heart string
You opened up my eyes

[Chorus 2:]
So goodbye Alice in Wonderland
Goodbye yellow brick road
There is a difference between dreaming and pretending
That was not love in your eyes
It was only a reflection of my lonely mind searching
what was missing in my life

[Bridge:]
Growing up is not an absence of dreaming
It's being able to understand the difference between the ones you can hold
And the ones that you've been sold
And Dreaming is a good thing cause it brings new things to life
But pretending is an ending that perpetuates a lie
Forgetting what you are
Seeing for what you've been told

[Verse 3:]
Ohh truth is stranger than fiction
This is my chance to get it right
And life is much better without all of those pretty lies

[Chorus 3:]
Ohh So Goodbye Alice in Wonderland
And you can keep your yellow brick road
There is a difference between dreaming and pretending
These are not tears in my eyes
They are only a reflection of my lonely mind finding
They are only a reflection of my lonely mind finding
I found what's missing in my life

Creativity

How have you used your creativity to enhance your spiritual walk?