“I’m not letting you go, I’m not letting you down.”
“Just believe.” - Aria Sharp
Life is a journey. A beautiful, heartbreaking journey of faith, love, pain and betrayal…destruction, anger and forgiveness. We are set out on this road, with the intent that we are not alone if we are to look for help.
I did not always have faith. There are times when I looked to God to answer my own pain and found nothing that had changed, nor did I have the answers that I wanted…
but there were answers to be found; it’s just sometimes, we aren’t listening.
When I was scared of nothing, he taught me fear. When pride taught me to hide my pain, he exposed it for the world to see. When Anger led me to destroy what I was afraid of, he gave me someone I could not find anger towards, and when lonliness threatened to destroy me, I found those who would love me for who I am, despite the flaws.
we are so beautifully flawed, and most days we embrace this…understanding that to heal others, you must first understand the pain. There is a gift of empathy of which many carry, some stronger than others…in which you can suffer the emotions of an event, even if you have never experienced it.
…So if you do not understand why our lives are so great, simply close your eyes and know this.
Somewhere, as you read this, as I write this…a mother watches her child suffer, and despairs from not being able to comfort them, for she has no food to give to the hungry child and they do not even have the strength to cry.
Somewhere, as I write this, as you read this…a young child, man or woman is being sexually assulted against their will. It will not be the first time, or the last, for they do not have the same freedom that many of us do.
They have been sold, stolen and enslaved, and to those who would do this terrible thing, they are nothing more than something to be bought and sold, traded or destroyed.
Somewhere, as you read this, and as I write this…a group of homeless huddle for warmth, sharing the meager offerings begged from the corner of a street, and eating less than what they need to be comforted so that the children won’t feel the hunger quite as badly as they do.
And somewhere, as I write this, an innocent man or woman is being tortured, their fingernails pulled out, their skin burned off slowly and a little child who would call them mother or father, given a chance to end that suffering by being forced to hold a gun and pull the trigger, just to be executed a moment later, with no regard to the soul within.
So while we suffer, and while we hold a great pain. Abusive fathers, neglectful mothers, perverted uncles and vindictive aunts…Cruel classmates, the betrayal of a best friend, or the dirty clothes that were someone else’s before they were yours. The next-door neighbor who is prettier than you, smarter than you, has better class than you. For those who have money, but are ignored by those who should love them, for every child who has been hit, instead of given hugs, and for every person who was ever hurt by another’s careless words.
I’m going to say what you should already have the humility of knowing.
That we are not alone, that we are not unknown…and our pain is not as great as the person that we could find if we but opened our eyes and looked.
So stop feeling sorry for yourself…because you’re not the only one who has something to cry about, but if you can do one thing, even one thing to help someone else who is hurting, you’ve already done something to heal yourself.
And that’s something real.
