Warning Signs Posted by Sarah on Sep 9, 2013 When I moved to Virginia I met a couple that I have remained friends with to this day. My neighbor, Monica, came over a few days after I had Makenzie. She sat with my mother and I for a long while getting acquainted. Her husband was deployed so she understood what it was like to feel a little lonely. We became fast friends. She brought me breakfast in the mornings after both our sons were on the bus to school. Malachi and Griffin ran between our yards while we sat on the patio chatting. She became a safe place for me. The days before my mother had to leave to return home for good, she made Monica promise to check in on me and make sure I was okay. Monica took this job pretty seriously. If I didn’t answer she came over. She was determined to make sure I knew I had support even though I was far from home. Our nights on the patio, random phone calls, and dinners together became something I truly looked forward to. I was one of the first people she called when she learned that TJ was coming home early. I was beyond excited. I knew how badly she missed having him home. She told me that she’d mentioned our budding friendship to him so he was really looking forward to meeting me too. One of the very first interactions we had centered on the amount of deer in our suburbia neighborhood. Whether prancing around the front yard, scattering across the street, or monuments in the backyard, the deer randomly appeared everywhere. Evidently there’s a certain time of the year when there are several accidents because of the sporadic nature of deer. I asked him if he knew the areas we should avoid. I certainly didn’t want to have an accident with the kids. He said that the city’s animal control was pretty thorough about removing the bodies, but they post warning signs. “They’re pretty committed to leaving the city clean.” He said. What if we were as thorough with our hearts as we are with the other areas of our lives? The moment a casualty interrupts the beauty of our external existence we do whatever we can to fix it. When our hearts have been scarred we keep the pain in our minds. Insisting on engraining trauma so deeply that we lose the ability to see who we were created to be. The pain overwhelms us and we bleed. Underneath our beautiful smiles, impressive clothes, and perfect life we lose ourselves completely. If there was a reminder on the outside of all the pain we keep on the inside the world would see just how many accidents we’ve had. They’d see how many times we lied. He’d know exactly when you stopped being able to love. They could tell that you’re biting your lip begging the tears to stay in. She’d know all about the secrets you held as a little boy. In the depths of our heart we hold the secrets that stopped us. We don’t care to clean up the remains of our tarnished hopes and dreams. We build a memorial in our heart to the things that threatened to kill us, then ask the world to tell us we’re beautiful. Choosing to let the remnants of our pain block what used to be beauty rather than risk being scarred again. It’s so easy to be afraid. Sure we may not gain anything by not trying, but it beats losing. Again. …and again…and again Right? I guess the city knows something that we’re still trying to infuse into our souls. You never know when or where the trauma will occur, but refusing to clean it up doesn’t keep it from happening again. We can learn to be more careful next time. Why do we insist on making our agony a shrine when it was just meant to be a warning sign? Our mistakes are servants to our destiny, yet we make them our masters. That situation brought you a piece of you, you never knew you had. Yet, you can’t stop focusing on the delivery long enough to get the lesson. In the long run one thing takes precedent: the potential for beauty. If we are to maintain our joy and hope of becoming new through Him we must choose to live purely again. We have to ignore the fears that dare to become our god and dare to believe. His picture for our lives is so much bigger than the memories of what we should have done differently. Each day is an opportunity to decide how we can right our wrongs and become better. When the shock has settled and time has moved on we must decide. Will we move on or live trapped in the four walls of a dream we were denied? You will never get back the time you’re wasting lamenting your sorrow. God, help us to no longer be bound. We have too long tasted the bitterness of our loss. It’s so easy for others to say move on, but God if I could I would. Order my steps. I no longer want to be trapped in the painful recollections of my history. I may have been the victim, but God I survived. Now, please, show me how to live again. Show me how to remove the root of this depression. I want to find my joy again. Teach me how to process the heartaches of life and turn them into my warning signs..
Posted on: Mon, 09 Sep 2013 14:26:48 +0000
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