this fight is so real.
even though i believe it’s really all one giant collective dream we are participating in, the ‘realness’ couldn’t be any more tangible at times, so much so that i can all but grasp and taste it on my bittered lips.
this morning has been a “where is god?” kind of day.
although i still feel seeped in the warrior, pilgrim, fighter essences, it has all but taken my will to keep putting one foot in front of the other at this particular moment in time. it challenges all of my ways of perceiving, knocking me back wave after giant tidal wave, leaving me reeling from the blows, until i feel reduced to a crumbled pile of ashes.
it seems as if the thoughts and experiences i have and write about get challenged right around the very next corner. it almost makes me want to shrink back and cower, as if my thinking them is altering my reality, requiring me to step up my game and learn these lesson i have just written about in new and deeper ways.
this flat out scares the hell out of me.
i spoke of the 11th hour love and saving grace that floods at the darkest hour and right before the dawn, is pulled back and a mighty hand reaches in to my despair and lifts me higher and elevates, if not completely removes the blockage altogether.this eleventh hour love today seems to have packed a bag and hitch hiked to another dimension, for i am left feeling isolated, lonely and on the verge of despair.
financial woes, where i can’t see how ends are going to be met. best friend lost a dear 13 year old girl in her immediate circle to suicide over the weekend. three friends with the cancer diagnosis.
where do you go sometimes god?
i am in my heart of hearts still believing, although i am down to my last inch of thread on this rope i have been sliding down for many, many moons now. this is very vulnerable for me to voice out loud, so this is the reason i am doing it! it is so uncomfortable to me that i feel compelled to dive head first into this discomfort and dread, so that it might have it’s power lifted, to be dismantled humiliating piece by ugly piece.
in one of my sacred books i cling to every morning, it was written that god is stronger than our circumstances and can turn each situation to our good. exactly how he will do that is beyond me, but i refuse to give up and be defeated in this belief. it then goes on to write what is my most favorite line in the entire book, which states:
“in god’s strength we can make them pay tribute to our soul.”
the heaviness of that statement is almost too much for me to bear. to stand up under the weight of such words is a lifelong challenge it seems. what a loaded sentence! what huge shoes for god to fill!
even in my personal dark nights of the soul, i have always had at least this. I may not have anything else, but i do have this.
what does this look like? i envision it as a battlefield war, the enemy and darkness closing in on all sides, suffocating the very breath from our lungs. we are failing. we see no possible way out of this one. it’s too intense. too overwhelming. blocked at all angles.
and then…
somehow a giant army out of nowhere rushes up behind us, troops we didn’t even imagine that we had access to. not only do they assist us in our battle, but all of the opposition is slain right before our eyes, pools of blood all around our feet. our boots are soiled, our bodies beat and bruised beyond recognition…but we are alive! We are still standing! and it gets even better- the power that this evil once held us in is not only taken down, but it turn we gain it’s power source!!!!! we take what was fashioned to be used against it and it actually makes us even stronger, even more resilient than before!
they are literally forced to ‘pay tribute to our souls!”
what is tribute? in definition it is an act, statement, or gift that is intended to show gratitude, respect, or admiration.
tribute!
honor!
respect!
we gain all of those in replacement from those who were attacking us!
this is too good to be true!
and maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.
all i know, is that i have to rely upon these words daily or else i would not have the courage, power or strength to make it through. life is a bloody battle. i choose to stand up to whatever comes my way, and with complete authority make it bow to my soul in honor.
the broken, the ugly, the doubts.
this is the way of the warrior.
image: redeeminggod.com