A ROAD CALLED FORGIVENESS. Letting Go. Hitting Bottom. Getting Back Up.
Healing. It seemed a very small word to encompass the mountain of wounds that she had scabbed over, bandaged, reopened, bled, and wept in her lifetime. She was aware of her pain. The tears had dried up long ago and had morphed into frustration. Bliss was no more. Joy and thoughtless laughter seemed so far away. Healing felt impossible.
She flopped on her bed. Too tired to take off her shoes, her feet dangled off the mattress as she stared through the ceiling. She had made too many mistakes. She had been hurt too deep. The list was long and the years even longer. From her perspective the road to healing was infinite…indefinite. Why self-inflict a pity party that would likely end in vomit and regret, only to replay over and over? She was coping. As long as she kept moving, kept smiling, life would improve. It had too.
She had friends, thank God. She was a loner, but skillful at social disguise. She could make conversation, even look interested, as her mind simmered in despair. Her observant friends checked in on her, offered advice, she wouldn’t hear any of it. If she was going to take the road less traveled, she was going to take it alone and on her own timetable. She stubbornly admitted to herself that she was drowning in her wallow, and her wallowing had turned to depression. She hugged her pillow and allowed her frustration to return to tears. She had hit bottom.
If only she had bounced. She half-heartedly laughed, imagining herself tucking into a tight ball as she hit the concrete and bounced back up. She would have appreciated the jump start. Instead she lay helpless, bruised, and vulnerably open. Her heartache and emotional battery had taken its physical toll as well. Stress had led to sleeplessness…headaches…anxiety. She took a long, over-due deep breath. She was at the end of her rope, and she had made the agonizing decision to let go.
Once she was down, she realized that staying down was not an option. She was stubborn and hard to break, but now that she had…she was ready to walk through fire to get her life back. She dug through her bedside-table drawer and found her journal. The book smelled of weathered, old leather, yet the spine had never been creased. She fanned through an unwritten path of blank pages…boy was she stubborn. She closed her eyes and breathed in the worn cover. The clean, white pages gave her hope. New beginnings, unlimited direction, and endless possibilities lay before her. She boldly wrote one word on the first page…FORGIVENESS. Was she ready? She prayed she was.
