Trusting the Healing Process
My Dear Lovelians,
I am sure many of you realize getting back up after life knocks you down is much easier said than done. For the first time in my life, relentless optimism failed me. I never realized how much I have relied on it in the past to pick me up. It is part of who I am to dream of a brighter future despite my current circumstances. Call it a defiant streak. Or pride. My darker side loves to boast that life can knock everyone else down except me, and if it tries, I’ll come back stronger than before. You could also call this attitude determination or spite. Take your pick.
Call it what you will; it still won’t change the fact that I fell and didn’t feel like getting back up again. The closest parallel I can equate this to that seems the most accurate, I think, is the one where I know I’ve been in bed too long and need to start my day. It’s the one where my body wins most of the time, and I end up snoozing my alarm until close to noon on Saturday. I don’t really fall back asleep, just doze, because my brain keeps kicking me but my heart’s not in it, so I do nothing. When I finally get up, I’m tired the rest of the day. It feels like that. And no, thankfully, I don’t find myself in this situation as often anymore. I’m quite proud of myself in this regard, but that’s beside the point.
Lying on the ground where I’d fallen a month earlier, too lethargic to rise, I stared up at the heavens and saw my reflection in the stars. For so long, I have relied upon my own inner fire to make me strong. As a result, I became quite the resilient fighter. You may be asking yourself at this moment What’s so wrong with that? In essence, nothing. Faith in a bright future because I believe in a father-like God who loves me is a beautiful mindset and does provide a strength of its own. The problem occurs when this beauty is paired with self-sufficiency, the belief that I will make it because I alone am strong. Jesus is a backup plan. While, yes, I am strong, there’s no denying that, claiming to be a friend of Jesus equates to screaming out loud that I will ultimately “make it” because He is stronger than I ever could be.
Think of it this way. If I rely purely on myself as my source for inner strength and resilience, what happens when circumstances try to drown me and my fire is quenched? Will I survive? Yes, and thank God for that, but the wave will still snuff out the flame, my will to rise and live fully once more, because my strength does not come from a source outside myself.
I won’t sell myself short. I have not purely relied on my own strength all these years; I can, however, confidently admit that there remains in me a streak of stubborn, self-sufficient pride a mile wide I buried so deep I think I forgot it existed. What my current circumstances are proving to me right now is that without Him, I’m left playing with smoke. No amount of optimism, no matter how relentless, will ever be stable or strong enough on an infinite basis to reignite my passion for life on its own.
Now, I could leave myself here and raise my white flag, surrendering to unbelief, that this is what life will look like from now on, or, even scarier, this is how it’s always been while I chased ignorance, purposefully blinding myself to the “truth.” But, somehow, this feels wrong, not slightly off, seriously wrong. My motivation may be taking a leave of absence, but this does not mean I am left to finish the race alone in this condition.
This is the nature of faith-----it, like love, is a choice, not an emotion. If I wait to get back up until I feel like it, I’ll be sprawled out on the side of the road forever. Emotions are often like whiny toddlers who don’t want to walk anymore; they’ll catch up eventually. I just need to trust the healing process, even if it doesn’t look the way I think it should. It is pretty obvious to me some old mindsets need to take a permanent vacation first. I guess I need to play with smoke for a bit in order for my stubborn heart to finally understand where the true source of fire for life comes from.
In the meantime, while I wait for my heart to catch up, I will keep doing the next right thing I know to do. I will purpose to be with family and friends, even when I don’t feel like it, because isolation is dangerous and, frankly, they make me smile; I will keep cycling in the morning, writing scenes for my book, and thanking my Jesus for what He is doing and will do, even though what I want hasn’t happened yet. This is how I trust the healing process and keep hope alive because though this weathering feels like eternity, it too shall pass.
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