Cardboard Walls

(*A journal entry from the loss of my home in the Thomas Fire)

I woke up this morning with a heart wracked in pain. The loss I’ve experienced this past year seemed to be unbearable. The loss of a marriage, the loss of my dad, and the loss of my home all happening within a 7-month window. As the smoke cleared from The Thomas Fire, the biggest wildfire in California’s history at the time, seemed to choke the air from my lungs as the cardboard walls of my transitional space felt more like prison walls. Most mornings I would slowly wake, roll on my back, and allow the vision of my destiny to dance in my mind. But not today, not this morning, no matter how hard I tried to refocus my thoughts, the pain of so much loss seemed to push my mind up against a wall like a bully refusing to let me go. I could feel my body beginning to respond, following my mind into a mist of despair.

I had a choice, I could either stay in a place of hopelessness or I could go to the only person who really understood what I was experiencing. I opened my journal, opened my heart, turned on some worship music and we began to write. As I transparently shared how I was feeling, God listened attentively (*He’s a really good listener). Then I heard the still small voice whisper, “The past is called the past for a reason, it’s in the past.” Without judgment or criticism, but with love and grace He helped me to refocus, to put everything back in perspective when I realized that it’s not what happens “To” you that is the problem, it’s the “Meaning” we give it that creates the pain or an opportunity for promise.

For the rest of the morning, He reminded me of my dream, something I endearingly call, “Our Dream,” because it was His dream for my life before He offered it to me. I began to peel away the fingers of the “bully” from my mind. The only power the bully ever has is the power we give him, so I was taking my power back (*you may be excused now bully). Nietzsche wrote, “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” In other words our dreams and visions for our destiny have the power to carry us through almost anything we encounter. As I sat in God’s presence my focus shifted. The cardboard walls that surround my bed no longer looked like prison walls but rather a cocoon, a place of metamorphosis and rebirth.