He always says, lay your problems at my feet. I don’t know how to do that… I’ve tried. I don’t understand how to let go. But I’m bleeding now and I have to do something. The ugliness of the world has me surrounded and I can’t get away. Then out of nowhere there appeared a rope ladder. I didn’t think, I just climbed. The blood dripped out of my wounds with every flex of my muscles, climbing each rung, one by one. It didn’t matter how slow the progress was as long as I was making some. The higher I ascended the less I bled. Below me now I could see the chaos and confusion I had come from… but I was finally out of reach. I climbed higher and higher until I was surrounded by the soft fluffy clouds I had always longed to touch as a child. I stopped to savor the moment. I just wasn’t ready for the freedom of the clear blue sky yet. It is was just too big of a leap from my old life of confinement & limitations. The clouds surrounded me, offering a new & comforting way to experience freedom without being overwhelmed by its vast possibilities. I still clung to the rope ladder, I wasn’t yet ready to fly. But I knew one thing for certain. I would never go back to where I came from.

She walked out of the department store, wondering if anybody was noticing the stuffed animal pig head protruding from her shopping bag. “Surely they would think it was for my kid,” she thought to herself. When she finally reached the safe confines of her car, she pulled it close and began to hug it softly. But the longer she held on the tighter her embrace became. As she sat there hugging the toy so tightly she thought…. What a relief to be able unleash all of your love without fear or worry of it being too much for the other person. She used to imagine what it would be like to allow herself to finally love freely. After 29 years of locking it all away in her heart like lightening bugs in a jar, when she finally unscrewed the lid with her mind she imagined all her love bursting forth like a Jackson pollock painting of colored light, alive in the night sky. A firework display of her most protected & loved feelings rushing in all directions until each one hit something that needed its power. She just knew she could light up the world with what she held within.

You recognize her don’t you? We’ve all met her at least once. That girl you can count on. The one that will put on those muddy boots, show up to work & actually get things done. The one who’s always there when you need her most. The shoulder to cry on… the giver of advice.. and the one that accepts you exactly as you are. You often wonder where she gets the strength and resilience to offer so much beauty to such a rainy, overcast world. I mean, even the flowers are hanging their heads. The truth is she knows the world is ugly. It tricked her into being the strong one so she would always feel the weight of it. But she will never tell you that. She’ll just say, “If you cant find beauty, make it.”

She went to the top of the mountain to let all her dreams go. Because hope seemed like a cruel trick of the devil now to her meant only to give her heart a greater height to fall from. But as she was about to let the last one go drifting off into the clouds, God fused her hand to it and that dream gently lifted her away from her pain…. High enough to see things from a new perspective.