Journey Twenty-Twelve

Journey Twenty-Twelve

Yes, I do realize that 2012 isn't quite over and this post sounds like it would be more appropriate for an end-of-year reflection.  But the truth is, I embarked on a journey that I thought would only begin in 2012.  As it turns out, 2012 also marks the end. 

Isn't true that sometimes this is the way things work out?  That at the beginning of our journey, our dream, really, we cannot foresee or even fathom that it would end?  Sure, we have goals along the way that we may reach, even an end goal of what the epitome of our greatest dream and desire would be, but when you dream, does it have an end?  For me, this journey, this dream did not have an end. 

So what do you do when you literally see your dream, your journey end?  What if the end is ultimately out of your control?  Does it really end?  I think the answer is yes and no.

The journey, the dream as it was worked out, plotted and trekked may have been ended, but I figure I can make the decision to jump off of that dead end path and begin to clear a new one.  I can dream a new dream.  I can journey another journey.  It will look different.  Different people will accompany me on this new journey.  People like-minded and with similar goals will grab the plow, don the work gloves and go.  We will begin, on the hardened ground, to plow.  We will shed blood, sweat and tears.  We will put forth the effort for the hope of fulfilling our greatest dreams and desires.  We will get dirty, we will get tired, we will question ourselves and each other, we may even want to give up, but even knowing this, I want to go.  Even if that next journey ends, even if it ends by another's hand as this one did, I can't stop.

The end hurts.  Clearly, I'd be a fool to say it doesn't hurt - that my heart isn't broken.  The moments of hope come when I think I'll be able to move on. But as quickly as those moments come, the memory of the words that ended it jump back into my mind like a demented jack-in-the-box to torture me and suck me back into another's choice that I cannot change.  Hurt, disappointed, devastated.  Adjectives that haunt me.  Adjectives that bring me back to the past, the very distant past that conjure up feelings I thought were long gone.  Memories of hurtful words and actions that have been buried by time but longing to be freed from the grave.  

Just as the fool doesn't feel the pain or admit to it, I'd be a fool to remain in my hurt.  Pain is a close friend of mine.  He visits me often, and over the years I've allowed him to stay with me longer than I'd like to admit.  I've allowed him to move into my heart, settle in and stay for years at a time.  He's invited anger and bitterness to join him and I've welcomed them in as our companions.  We've included envy and jealousy, pride and hate to join us.  I know pain.  As easy as it is to let them all in and stay, it takes an army to make them get out.  An army and time.  

So, I've let God be my army.  He does, however, require us to do work and He does give us the option to allow pain and its friends back in.  God and time have been my greatest allies against pain.  Even when I've asked God to back off, He has allowed time to continue to heal me.  So, foolish, I will try not to be.  I am hurt.  I am heart-broken, but I have the ability to move in a new direction and I will.  I just need my army to surround my heart and begin rebuilding that fortress - and in case there is a breach, I always can depend on our ally, time.