Of Faith and Fear: An Ending of Sorts, a Beginning of Sorts (A Conclusion to the Conclusion)
When my sister was very little, maybe three or four-years-old, she was sitting on my mom's bathroom counter as my mom got ready for church. Curious about the shiny object my mom was using to curl her hair, my sister wrapped her tiny, perfect, toddler fingers around the barrel of a fully heated curling iron. Shocked by the intensity of the heat, her fingers tightened into a vice grip as she screamed. My mom desperately tried to pry her baby's fingers from the 250 to 300-degree (Fahrenheit) metal rod.
The more my mom tried to pull my sister's fingers away, the more my sister tightened her grip. Eventually, mom succeeded and my sister's hand was freed, but not before she sustained deep, scarring burns that can still be detected on her fingers today, over 20 years later.
Nearly three years ago, I began a three-part blog series on my understanding (or lack thereof) on the relationship between fear and faith as the ruling factors in my decisions and thus my life. Mostly, I was just throwing pained questions into the Ether, hoping for an answer or some guidance. But, for the most part, I came up short (if you're curious here's Part One, Part Two, and Part Three, though, I'm not sure they're worth the time it takes to read them.)
Part Three was called "Faith and Fear: A Conclusion" and the primary feedback I got was that it wasn't really a conclusion at all. For a few weeks afterward, I received messages from family, friends, and strangers, asking if I had more to say. If I had a real conclusion.
Most of what I was ruminating about, back in 2015, was my unemployment and how dangerously close I was to actually, literally, not figuratively having nothing and nowhere to go. No money can quickly become no food and no house.
Part Three was written on September 6, 2015. On September 21, 2015, I got the job that keeps me presently in shelter and food. For months after getting my job, I tried to write something new, a better conclusion to the faith and fear discussion that I had begun with the Ether. But, I couldn't. It's been nearly three years and I'm just now figuring out what happened.
This blog was started in my 20s. And I think in a big way, that's where it belongs.
I am now 31 and haven't written much of anything in quite some time. I couldn't pinpoint exactly what was keeping my fingers from constructing something useful. My hand felt stayed.
I am one of those people who doesn't know what I know until I've written it. So, the last three years have felt hallow and confusing. I've had moments of great clarity, but they were mere moments. Fleeting. Leaving me feeling more empty than before.
The last few years have taught me how perceptive JK Rowling was in her description of Dementors in the Harry Potter series. Depression isn't sadness. Sadness is too constructive. Depression is a giant black hole in the soul. Vacuous.
And thus I come to my Ending of Sorts/Beginning of Sorts.
I have learned that the Faith versus Fear battle is a lifelong one. One in which we cannot fully understand the depths and lengths and breadths it reaches.
Julia Cameron said that boredom is just fear in disguise and fear is just despair in disguise. When I read that I felt the truth of it wash over me. The great conversation I've been having with the Ether about Faith and Fear has been misdirected. I haven't been overrun with fear, per se, more filled with despair and that despair led the fingers of my heart to wrap tightly around the burning rod of fear living in my soul for the last three years.
So, I choose to make that the end of it.
Recognizing that this was never really a battle between Faith and Fear, but instead between Hope and Despair. Now I recognize the root of it. Three years of digging, giving up, digging some more, getting bored with the digging (what would I find? what was this for anyway? digging is stupid!), then digging some more. And there, after all this time, I see them. The roots of my fear. My despair.
And that is where I leave this blog behind and begin anew, someplace else. Someplace more constructive, where I can recognize myself. Where I can hope and dream and build and create. My heart and soul may feel the deep burns and scars from their time wrapped tightly around fear and despair, but the lessons were there. And now, now it's time to hand it all to Jesus and let my Father pull the burning fear and despair from my soul.
For more on my life as a 30-something, as a builder, as a healer, as a creative soul, visit me here:
The more my mom tried to pull my sister's fingers away, the more my sister tightened her grip. Eventually, mom succeeded and my sister's hand was freed, but not before she sustained deep, scarring burns that can still be detected on her fingers today, over 20 years later.
Nearly three years ago, I began a three-part blog series on my understanding (or lack thereof) on the relationship between fear and faith as the ruling factors in my decisions and thus my life. Mostly, I was just throwing pained questions into the Ether, hoping for an answer or some guidance. But, for the most part, I came up short (if you're curious here's Part One, Part Two, and Part Three, though, I'm not sure they're worth the time it takes to read them.)
Part Three was called "Faith and Fear: A Conclusion" and the primary feedback I got was that it wasn't really a conclusion at all. For a few weeks afterward, I received messages from family, friends, and strangers, asking if I had more to say. If I had a real conclusion.
Most of what I was ruminating about, back in 2015, was my unemployment and how dangerously close I was to actually, literally, not figuratively having nothing and nowhere to go. No money can quickly become no food and no house.
Part Three was written on September 6, 2015. On September 21, 2015, I got the job that keeps me presently in shelter and food. For months after getting my job, I tried to write something new, a better conclusion to the faith and fear discussion that I had begun with the Ether. But, I couldn't. It's been nearly three years and I'm just now figuring out what happened.
This blog was started in my 20s. And I think in a big way, that's where it belongs.
I am now 31 and haven't written much of anything in quite some time. I couldn't pinpoint exactly what was keeping my fingers from constructing something useful. My hand felt stayed.
I am one of those people who doesn't know what I know until I've written it. So, the last three years have felt hallow and confusing. I've had moments of great clarity, but they were mere moments. Fleeting. Leaving me feeling more empty than before.
The last few years have taught me how perceptive JK Rowling was in her description of Dementors in the Harry Potter series. Depression isn't sadness. Sadness is too constructive. Depression is a giant black hole in the soul. Vacuous.
And thus I come to my Ending of Sorts/Beginning of Sorts.
I have learned that the Faith versus Fear battle is a lifelong one. One in which we cannot fully understand the depths and lengths and breadths it reaches.
Julia Cameron said that boredom is just fear in disguise and fear is just despair in disguise. When I read that I felt the truth of it wash over me. The great conversation I've been having with the Ether about Faith and Fear has been misdirected. I haven't been overrun with fear, per se, more filled with despair and that despair led the fingers of my heart to wrap tightly around the burning rod of fear living in my soul for the last three years.
So, I choose to make that the end of it.
Recognizing that this was never really a battle between Faith and Fear, but instead between Hope and Despair. Now I recognize the root of it. Three years of digging, giving up, digging some more, getting bored with the digging (what would I find? what was this for anyway? digging is stupid!), then digging some more. And there, after all this time, I see them. The roots of my fear. My despair.
And that is where I leave this blog behind and begin anew, someplace else. Someplace more constructive, where I can recognize myself. Where I can hope and dream and build and create. My heart and soul may feel the deep burns and scars from their time wrapped tightly around fear and despair, but the lessons were there. And now, now it's time to hand it all to Jesus and let my Father pull the burning fear and despair from my soul.
For more on my life as a 30-something, as a builder, as a healer, as a creative soul, visit me here:
The Reconstructed Life
(though, at this moment, July 6, 2018, there isn't much to visit)
(though, at this moment, July 6, 2018, there isn't much to visit)
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