my pink toes

People used to say I was the happiest person they knew (some, amazingly, still do). I find that so interesting. I am a very optimistic, glass-half-full-make-the-best-of-it person, but I had a tough emotional climate in my home and was unclear about a lot. Yet, I seemed to have a sense of purpose and joy.

I credit all of this to God and the faith and hope he gave me. Yet I wonder how I got it. How did I feel so called to Him, in the midst of all the bad examples and pain and wrong images? Why did God reach into my life and help pull me bit by bit out of misery? Why did I not succumb to the pain and adopt one of my family’s long litany of unhealthy coping mechanism? (Well, you may argue that I have adopted some…but that’s another entry.) Sometimes this question drives me crazy. I can’t see eye-to-eye with Calvin on the whole predestination thing, so I have to stop looking for answers to this question pretty fast. I believe in the amazing, redemptive love of Jesus. Why is it for me? Why do others take a different path?

I think the answer is that there are lots of answers. I’m getting more comfortable with this, the lack of black and white in the world. I think the world is less black and white than I was told to believe. But instead of this leaving me in a world of grey, it leaves me in a world of a rainbow. There is more room for color, for expression, for beautiful paradox. I am in the middle of a long journey.

Underneath this “happiest” person is a lifetime of real thoughts, desires, heartaches and struggles that I’ve never effectively dealt with. I have deep wounds in places that will be difficult to heal. I’ve been on this real journey for about 5 years now. In a way, I feel that I’m getting to really know myself for the first time.

I know many have written about their journey before, and many will after me. Sometimes this realization paralyzes me – makes me think I have nothing to say that hasn’t been said before. Maybe this is true. But it is enough that I am saying it for the first time for myself. Hopefully someone will find bits of Truth and Hope in my journey, like I have found through the journey of many others.

Thanks for joining me.