The Journey

Imagine for a moment being wrapped in total darkness. The smell of smoke  from all that has been reduced to ashes  lingers in the air.  Simultaneously, you feel the heat of your surroundings and the coldness of isolation .  Everything that once was is no longer. Imagine rummaging through the darkness trying to salvage anything of value.  Frantically searching for something to cling to, anything with an inkling of security, you lose your footing as your very foundation crumbles under your feet. Life has spontaneously combusted. Suddenly, you have lost the sense of safety because everything that was secure and steady has now gone sideways.   When complete devastation has become your reality, you s it head in hands with no audible words but crying out from the depths of your inner being. "God, help me!" How can something beautiful emerge from these gray, smoldering ashes? God often gives us answers in the natural to things that occur in us either physically,...

If you had to choose one word to describe yourself, what would it be? Only a few months ago, my word would have been gray. The same word used to describe ashes or overcast skies. I woke up with the new year realizing I had taken up residence in a perpetual state of nothingness. Merely existing. Barely walking, barely talking, barely breathing, no identity. I was melting into the gray walls of life.  Going through the motions, but dying from the inside out. Two failed marriages and a brief, yet destructive relationship later, my prayer was to not become entangled in another relationship, romantic or otherwise, that was not a divine connection. I prayed,  do not let anyone cross my path lest you send them.  For years, it seemed as though that prayer had been answered until I found myself at the end of another it-wasn't-what-it-seemed and how-could-I-be-so-blind misadventure. The shiny apple with a rotten core. This time instead of shouldering all ...