I think one of the hard things about recovery work is that life doesn’t stop while you are in the process. It keeps on giving us new challenges, new heartaches, new windows into our souls, no matter how hard we try to protect ourselves from it all.
I want to protest this. I want to rebel. I want to hide. But that is my pattern. And this is the very thing that I need to face when life sends all these new things my way, that I have a pattern that I need to address and try to work through; another thing, yet another thing to work through.
What I have wanted for myself is some space to do my recovery work and not have to deal with present things. I have tried to organize my life in such a way that I keep life at a safe distance, I don’t want to deal with fresh wounds while working on old ones. I have tried and have failed. But this ‘failure’ was bound to happen, because life doesn’t stop for us while we are dealing with the past. I was trying to use an old coping method of withdrawing in order to facilitate my healing process, and have come to find out that my healing needs to include this very same coping method that is dysfunctional. I hate this stuff sometimes!
I am at a crossroad. I know the path I want to take, the one that seems familiar and safe. I know this path will only lead me into a circle and bring me right back to this same crossroad. I have been in this circle for years. I know I need to choose the other path if I am going to move forward. Fear grips me. The new path, the one that is so unfamiliar to me seems dark and dangerous, and yet I know this is only an illusion of my own making. I am seeing what I expect to see instead of what is really there.
Last week I was praying for courage. This week I am praying for courage and a new pair of eyes.
I want eyes that can see the possibilities instead of just darkness and danger. My prayer.
