I look in the mirror, yet who do I see? My mask is down and my is truth out.
I write and write and write on the page, the flurry of my hand cannot keep pace with the fears and feelings set free. The little girl who kept it all in, who put on a brave face, is standing up to say It’s now my time. It’s my time to be angry and my time to be sad. It’s my time to feel loss and betrayal. It’s my time to feel insecure and small.
I write the words I would have said. I scream the cries I once silenced. I gather the memories and sift them through with a new lens. This lens makes it ok, healthy even, to question and defy. There is nobody to please. No one to judge. I can rage why? why? why? I fall to my knees, tears finally pooling at my feet.
I give it to God and give it to God, and give it to God, again. I let Him give me new eyes to look back and see. New ears to look back and hear. At times I feel Him close, other times I beg Him to draw near.
The pieces of my life surround me. On every side, I see them. I think the whole of me is there, shattered. In the beginning I clutch the pieces close. I hold them so tight that they pierce me with their jagged edge. I turn them over, one by one, and pray to see their truth. I no longer deny. I know. I see it now. There is both dark and light within me. I let it sink in. Dark and light. Lies and truth. My mask, my memories, and me.
I begin to understand that I cannot put these pieces back together. I try. I really try. I research and read. I bury myself with techniques and tools, but the pieces remain. I remain broken. My own hands, my own will, are unable to fit the pieces back. The old Laura is gone and the new Laura awaits somewhere beyond the horizon. I am in between the dreaming and coming true.
This place is not wasteland, it is sacred space. It is waiting. It is learning I must let her go. The stages of grief work as I bury the old me, and turn. I turn my face toward the new. In surrender, I know the miracle waits. It unfolds before me.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with the God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. – John 1:1-5
Did you hear it? The miracle? I was there in the beginning. You were there in the beginning. The real Laura existed before this body was made and will exist when this earthly shell is no more. That is the miracle. I had it all backwards. I thought this life was the point and it almost broke me because I am broken. As a human, I have light and dark within me. But the truth is beauty…read these words until they rest upon your soul.
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Do you even know what this means? It means the pain and the struggle are temporary. The pressure is off. It means I can live this life in freedom from my past and with glorious hope toward the future. And in between I have today. His mercies are new every morning. This life. This gift. One day at a time. Me and the divine. Yesterday. Today. Forever.
