So it has been with the pain in my heart. Focusing on it has brought a sense of satisfaction. I have felt justified in allowing myself to experience this pain because I know that what happened was undeniably wrong. And so I - unconsciously or not - have chosen to hone in on the pain again and again.
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I was brought back to two places I don’t really wish to return to while my thoughts swirled; two places that changed the trajectory of my life, two places that have left many scars and wounds, two places that impact my daily life more than I wish they would.
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In the past, I’ve wondered why it is that a few dozen leaves remained while hundreds more rode the wind to a place of rest for the winter.
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I wonder why it is that God designed our forests to showcase such rich variances in color before stripping them bare for months. I wonder why it is that He calls our attention to the woodlands just before they lay their beauty to rest and stand disrobed before us.
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I was speechless. The very things I had been struggling with from my past had been used to develop traits that I quite literally need in my daily life as a teacher by day and a single mother by night.
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Once I began to walk, my mind became fixated on that word: backward. I had been spending so much time thinking about all the ways various people had failed to care for me, projecting those negative circumstances, situations, and traits onto God.
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Most of my days, I am on a mission. With two young daughters, a demanding career in education, a house to care for, and a persistent attempt to care for myself, I best accomplish things with efficiency.
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The God of Noah, the God of Abraham, the God of Moses, the God of Jacob, the God of David, does not invite His beloved children into things that they are prepared for by their own accord. He invites them into things that require risk, that require courage, that require vulnerability, and that require them to ask Him to do what He needs to do.
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My physical surroundings barely qualified as a distraction; the cyclone of thoughts reeling in my mind held that prize. I hiked with a vengeance, frustrated that I was experiencing a swirling frenzy of thoughts instead of the very thing I came for.
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My words wouldn’t stop the rain, nor would they change the material underneath my feet, nor turn back the clock. Neither would they remove any of the always-present obstacles along my route: the contents of the sheer pandemonium. I still had to navigate that.
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A few blocks away from where I stayed with my host family in Buenos Aires, Argentina sits the widest avenue in the world: Avenida 9 de Julio. Countless times during my months of studying there, I crossed its sixteen lanes on foot. An incredibly wide thoroughfare, it was utterly chaotic.
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