Shadow Dwelling
“I want to tell you…” I say not out loud but in my head. “I want to tell you what I’m feeling, how I’m truly doing and so much more…” but, I can’t so I won’t. Instead, I’ll keep these thoughts, emotions, feelings safely tucked away, hidden from all eyes; even though I’m sure people can see right through me. I bet they can see behind the visad of that I’m trying to hold onto with every last ounce within me. It’s a shame really that I can’t expose myself to you, not with the risk that is involved. Not with the questions looming. So here again I’ll just sit in the shadows watching life pass me by, content for the moment, yet I know soon I won’t be. For soon, I’ll be hungry again. Hungry for something better, something great, something more than this measly shadow can give which is nothing.
That’s right nothing. For even though it feels very safe to me right now, its not. Its really a trap meant to keep me there, where I won’t be able to step out into the place I was meant to. To keep me battling the fears, anxieties, and doubts that I’ll never be good enough, always be second best, never worth it, always meant to dwell hidden away. I want to move, but I can’t. I want to take a step forward but I’m stuck. A fight and a battle rage within me creating a tension that I have never felt before. For here I stand in the muck and the mire. Yet I’m willing to stay here. Why? Why do I want to stand in the sinking sand beneath my feet? Why would I want to stay put when all it will take is a single step to gain my freedom?
I’m fearful, I’m terrified, wanting to run in the opposite direction then the way that the voice inside of me is telling me to go. It’s gently whispering “just move forward.” But is the risk of exposure worth it? For when I step out of this shadow everything will be seen, not hidden from anymore, even though it never was in the first place. I am being called forward one step at a time. So here I go into the unknown.
Onto the path with raging water rushing above me, yet here I know somehow that I’m safe. Safer than the one I was previously on even though it gives the false facade that it is. I take the first step, hesitantly, unsure, unbalanced. As I continue a different voice starts to say “turn back” I look back to where I first started and don’t see where my feet once had been, washed out by the water around me. I take a deep breath deciding what to do. I’m going to go ahead and start the uncharted exploration of what is ahead, even in my uncertain, unbalanced footsteps, my eyes fixed on what is on the path before me.
For even though the way before me looks daunting and the situation frightening, He takes away my fear. He will continue to keep the Red Sea parted for me, but I still need to choose to walk through it, with the teeming, rushing, roaring water towering all around. Fear is not a deciding factor and I can trust in that promise even when it feels like I can’t. And as I continue to take each step I hear these words echo in my ears “thy strength indeed is small, child of weakness watch and pray, find in me thine all in all.” I start to attain my grounding as the more I let go rather than cling to with all my strength. I can relax in the midst of the storm, for there right beside me is the Prince of Peace himself asleep on a cushion. Even though it seems strange I know I don’t have to ask “do you not care?” and wake him for I know where my foundation lies, in the intimacy with the almighty.
