A Road Little Traveled - A New Trail on the Journey

This journey is rarely easy, always requires faith, guts, and God. This particular meander requires love, many jolts of reminders from God, lots of faces, vulnerability, courage, and a mustard seed of faith. My part of this journey is actually really easy. It's just being willing to be faithful to a calling and be a voice, a shoulder, a prayer warrior.

So, I need to write about what I don't want to write about. I need to tackle the hard subjects. Yes, I've covered hard subjects - abuse, violation, relationships, self-confidence issues. But the whole reason I started this blog was because I was struggling with accepting the fact that an unexpected dragon had managed to creep and then rear it's ugly head into my safe, beautiful world. The dragon's name was...

Pornography

There, I actually typed the word. Typing the very word is so difficult it took me months.

Hide in the fairy tale... 
The old man dying...
Jekyll and Hyde in the fairy tale...
This is much more frightening...
See the new man and tear the veil
See the old man dying...
- "Hide in the Fairy Tale" by Theocracy

I lived in a fairy tale. It was gorgeous. I was an innocent child with big wide opened eyes. I hadn't learned that sometimes it's better to look through mere slits of eyes with tunnel vision (albeit now that I do know that, I rarely do it). I had a great family. A mom and dad that loved each other. Friends that talked about the Lord freely with me. A couple of times I was even promised a fairy tale ending.

Two kids in a fairy tale out to prove the world all wrong armed with trust, honesty, belief and love. It was blissful.

Then along came a dragon.

A dragon we couldn't flail.

I saw my hero fall. And another hero. And a couple heroines. And another hero. And another.

I got tired of sitting on the sidelines. So I went on a hunt for a balm, a remedy, a sword. Even an old rusty broad sword would do in my desperation. I wasn't even sure what a weapon capable of stabbing this monster would look like. But stumbling in the dark seemed better than sitting idle on the sidelines.

I'm done with mediocrity. I'm done with running. I'm done with being told there's nothing I can do. I'm done with the sweet but condescending idea that I'm too small, too sweet, too innocent that I've been fed, as much if not more by myself than anyone else.

So here's to a little girl without much of what resembles the usual type of sword. But she's got God and a passion and a few battered heroes. Here's to David and Goliath. Here's to impossibility. Here's to sending out a few words into the big broad unknown of the internet. Here's to the less glorious sounding trenches where the fighting actually takes place. Here's to late night searching and good days. And after the good days have turned into nights when the curtain closes and the actors crash with tears streaming down their faces. Here's to broken dreams being remade.

Someone once explained it thus - there is a vase and it's gorgeous but if you put a candle into it the light would not be very visible. However, once the vase is broken and glued back together with some cracks and holes in it the light is extremely visible. It's even beautiful in a unique way.

So here I am. "Lord, use me." I will be more faithful to face this particular growing pain in this blog along with the others. My prayer - that some sort of balm and a few answers may be stumbled on. This strand of the journey needs to be explored as much as the others. So here goes... it will be slow and painful. I may lack the courage to talk about it on here often, but I pray and I research and I stay ready for the next chapter in the journey.

Here's to finding comfort, healing, courage, faith, and answers. Here's to standing strong and never giving up. Here's to finding the beautiful in the broken. Here's to beautiful vases crashing on the pavement, being bathed with glistening tears, resurrecting into very different but vastly more impacting beautiful things.

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time... from the journal circa one August seemingly long ago.

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See once upon a time, there was a little girl and a little boy.  And they went dancing in the minefields. They were very young... very young... but when you are in love what does it matter?

Love like crazy... said it wouldn't work out... but they don't know love like this... - "Love like Crazy"

No skeleton was too terrifying. No mountain of past too insurmountable. No fear, she had a lot of them but then so did he... only they didn't know it, no fear was so terrifying while they were together. She had him being open and honest and dare I even say? (almost) in love with her - quite a feat considering how nothing had ever gone right in his young life's record. They talked "dependents" and "money" and "21" and "purpose."

Never thought we'd have a last kiss...- "Last Kiss"

But the boy got a look at reality, it's a horrendous beast, no?and said he was scared of it. The girl got a look at a dragon and expressed her fear.

She said she wanted to fight it... but alas too late! The boy said he'd kill it himself... maybe...And for the first time she saw doom etched on those tender features. White. White. White. Hopeless yet determined. Like someone facing a guillotine.

What is the end you ask? Well, our characters walked into the mist like at the end of a Disney movie... only this isn't a movie... this is a fairy tale... only without a fairy. Just a a few dragons.

The boy walked into oblivion and what became of him we do not know. Perhaps he killed his dragon. Perhaps he settled for something easier but less satisfying. Perhaps the dragon slew him instead.

I watch your life in pictures like I used to watch you think... 
I hope it's a beautiful day wherever you are... 
I hope you change your mind... 
Until you do, I go walk through life wearing that blue dress...
All I know is I don't know how to be something you miss. - "We Died Young"

She's on the sidelines still wearing that blue dress she last felt him squeeze her in the last embrace.She holds her head high and smiles often in that signature pink lipstick. They say she's very sweet and a social butterfly. But hidden well is a scar that may never heal. A scar they said she'd get when she danced through the minefields, but she tossed her head and said she didn't care. To this day she'd not undo it although it bleeds constantly, hiddenly. But sometimes there's a gleam in her eye uncharacteristic of one so "sweet" and a clinching of the fist at the mention of certain words and sentiments that would make an observer shudder at the amount of sheer anger. Nothing perhaps is so painfully terrifying as hopeless anger. It hints at our own destructibility. At midnight watches their life in pictures like she used to watch them dance.

And she still hopes - almost wholeheartedly believes - with that seemingly unconquerable optimism he loved about her that someday there'll be a man who'll dare to go dancing in the minefields with her. She hardly dares even admit the ultimate hope... but sometimes when the day's been long and the furnace's heat's been sweltering and the ice monster has blasted her with one too many breaths of freezing, she'll give into dreams of a certain boy coming back again...

But forgive my mistake earlier when I said there was nothing but dragons in this story. There is more to this story than dragons even if there's no fairies. There is a GOD. An Omnipotent, Supreme, King, Majestic, Great I AM.

That is why if you listen closely you may hear a little voice in the night shakily still humming "It just might be hope."

---- end of story