When a Puddle is All That Remains.....

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I remember what it was like when my little girl eyes were full of wonder at the water pouring in from everywhere. I can hear the slap and chop of waves against the car as the remnants of the storm clutched and clawed threatening to carry us away. That same feeling threatens to sweep me away today even tho' the ocean is hundreds of miles away.

All day, the shadows have loomed with the unspoken threat that they will overwhelm me once I slow down. Shadows build in waves waiting to break when the storm has built to its frenzied height. Doing what I do, I kept doing the next thing. There is always so much to do, isn't there, for you and me?

If we can just keep moving, that 'thing' will not catch up with us. No matter who we are, the fraidy cat keeps us on the run...even if we haven't figured out who/what our fraidy cat is. Then, I guess we run without knowing why we can't slow down?

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I realized that the all too familiar uneasiness was overwhelming me. There was simply too much to do and not enough time in which to do it. If I were blissfully unaware, I could blame my jitters on my inability to do all I need to do. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. Not today. I can hear the waves echoing with a slap and chop in my innermost soul.

No matter what was pressing in around me crying out to be done, the shadows loomed. And, I knew it. It was there. Waiting. Waiting for me to be still. I couldn't run forever. The shadows were waiting for me no matter how far I ran.

I am still now. Reality settles in around my shoulders like a prickly cape of sandspurs. Their hooked barbs make the cape wrap more snugly around me. The more I shrug and squirm to escape, the more entrapped I become. Resistance if futile sometimes. Like tonight.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

The steady hum of busy people waxes and wanes. Crescendos rise as newcomers burst through the door. Their excitement doesn't resonate with me. Rather, it reminds me of what I'm trying to forget. 

The loneliness is back and, with it, my anger for all that has been taken from us. I'm trying to forget that we will never be all that we could have been. There is a pain deeper than anything I can imagine which has overshadowed every day we've lived. I cannot forget our reality no matter how hard I try. I'm wondering if and when the thief will answer for the thievery. From where I sit tonight, it looks like never.

I look back at how hard we've fought and how much we've over come. Some would call it a miracle. I call it doing the next thing because there is nothing else to do. I am broken that the battle has been ours alone to fight. Many times I wonder what it would be like if others decided to enter into the battle with us rather than denying the reality of our pain. Because denying isn't enough, they add ostracism to our pain.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

In an odd juxtaposition, the truth made us free but isolated us in our freedom. It was the loneliest choice we ever made...the one to walk away instead of going back to play the games people play. Maybe it would have been easier to keep on playing those games played when the truth is too painful to acknowledge. I guess I'll never know.

I see the toll on other lives. Even the ones who cling to denial are marked by the truth we have acknowledged. The sins of the past echo into the present destroying happiness and fulfillment and doing it with abandon. Destruction goes on unabated. The pain of that destruction reaches out from the shadows to claw and clutch at at me tonight...trying to drag me under.

And yet, I remember the storm. Daddy kept walking and waving us on. Mamma kept following every moment thinking the car engine would cough and die never to be revived. Even the 2 of us, too young to know how close we were to destruction, knew we would slip away if the engine died. We prayed baby prayers while pur parents prayed the ones parents pray when they know destruction is at hand.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

So, tonight, I decide, again, to keep walking through the storm that threatens to overwhelm. It would be so easy to walk away....to reach for an easier life. To turn off the engine and be swept away by the storm. Walk away from all this pain. Yet, I remember. I remember the day when all that remained of the storm was a puddle. A puddle not even big enough for toddlers to splash.

I see that puddle and remember the storm. I keep moving and waiting for the storm in my soul to subside again. I hope for the day when all that remains of the storm is a puddle. A puddle not even big enough to splash. 

Nahum 1:3 (Bible in Basic English)

The Lord is slow to get angry and great in power, and will not let the sinner go without punishment: the way of the Lord is in the wind and the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.