When the wheel comes around full circle, it suffers a hit from the jagged rock that is embedded deeply since the road far behind. The shock to the wagon is so great that it knocks its baggage down, sending cases and cases full of useless junk into the path. The horses struggle to keep their balance as the reigns pull on their necks and scrape their backs while their driver tries to maintain control of the wagon. The driver fails to predict this same disaster even though she has seen it happen at every turn. Yet, she picks everything up once again, the same way she has been doing for as long as she can remember. The scene is all too familiar, but because her belongings fall differently each time, she can't determine this time from the last from the first. As she starts packing the dirty, ragged, and otherwise unrecognizable things back into their carriers and back onto the wagon's bed, the fog that was hanging overhead now descends and seemingly paralyzes her. Her knees buckle underneath her, and she drops to the ground still holding an armful of cracked picture frames and torn clothes.
What are these things I am carrying?
How do I keep ending up here,
when I thought I was headed in the other direction?
When can I leave this behind,
and stop falling at every road I take?
She wants the desire to purposefully lift her head in hope and walk away from the burdens to overshadow the darkness that clouds her memory, saps her spirit, and leaves her for dead. She knows her loosening grip on reality has everything to do with her stubborn instinct to try to uphold her false sense of self-righteousness and perfection. Masking her failures seems easier than suffering the pain of rejection, but the guilt that follows her mistakes causes more isolation and separation than she has ever known. She knows she cannot continue in this way, and at times imagines the strength and confidence she has always had as more powerful than the confusion and dependence that also makes a home inside her. She finds it easy to have an attitude of independence and courage during the calm, but still cannot hold on to them when the inevitable storms reach her. Her fear renders her unable to see past, present, or future, and immobilizes her body and mind. Once the fear plants its first seed, the roots grow until they have consumed everything inside her and blackened both her day and night.
The only thing that posesses the ability to counteract is Faith. Faith in God, faith in yourself, faith in a positive outcome. And the only way to have faith is to trust that something more powerful than others, situations, and ourselves has a divine plan to prosper us, change us for better, and deliver us from the darkness that can so easily deceive and destroy.
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Today I demand fear to fall and ask God's faith to plant seeds in my life. I do not have to fear anything or anyone. Today I will place faith in each situation, encounter, and person, including myself where fear used to claim rights. I will be faithful to God in my thoughts, words, and actions. And I will expect this faith to grow faster and stronger than the fear did, and eventually faith, not fear, will become my first choice in all areas of my life.
