Life from the Inside Out

Writing helps me unravel the chaos in my head and form it into something discernable. This is a challenging venture, since my mind is like a congested amusement park, crowded with booths of memories and worries and hurts and disappointments and lectures and plans and ideas and dreams. Every booth I pass has a vendor waving and yelling at me to come into this space and spend my time. But when my thoughts get to escape through my fingers, then I can look at them, sort and order them, mold them and redeem them into a space worth dwelling.

Redeeming my thoughts is an issue of survival at this point in my life. All those jokes about women in mid-life were not just made up out of thin air! Every unhealthy thinking-pattern that has steered me thus far is worn out and needs replacing. Baggage that I have carried since childhood has gotten too heavy to lug around anymore. Mirrors through which I have seen myself are cracked. Facts that I “knew” are no longer true. (What do you mean…Pluto is no longer a planet?)

Now I am on a quest, a cleaning-binge of sorts, to dismantle every false notion that I have held, and replace them with authentic, compassionate and life-giving realities. I am hunting down any persona that has built up residence in my soul because someone else planted her there. Me and God are the only ones allowed to define who I am. I am also going after the garbage that I’ve consumed that devalues human beings for any reason, or esteems one person above another. We are ALL beloved screw-ups, so let’s just give everyone some grace!

I think anyone who's walked this earth for a few years has sad stories to tell. It's called the human condition, fallen man (and woman), sinful nature--we've all hurt and been hurt. When I consider that every person is carrying around private pain while trying to make the best out of life, I do wonder why we are so hard on each other. This is a compassionate, life-giving reality that I will remember…we all share the human condition. Let us not think that we have been hurt worse, or we have hurt others less than someone else. This perspective helps me view mankind charitably.

I don’t know why all this pain and suffering has to exist; there is obviously something I have not understood about God. But as a beloved screw-up in this race of humans, I cannot endure the thought of my hurt, both inflicted and received, without believing in the forgiving grace of God. I cannot bear the moments in-between the frenetic pace of life without the knowledge of his presence, which he promises will always be there. I could not go through the mundane tasks of daily life without the hope of an eternal dimension giving meaning to monotony.

When I was young, I didn’t spend as much time thinking about life, but rather reacting to the feeling of the moment. Now I realize the great value in being connected to the divine, living life from the inside out.