Picture of me

It's one of his songs that I haven't listened to intently enough, or maybe I've avoiided the meaning.  But it is how I need to open this particular writing.  So please take a minute and read words by a true master at the craft.... then you can undure my mutterings! LOL

Rich Mullins - Growing Young

I've gone so far from my home

I've seen the world and I have known

So many secrets, I wish now I did not know

'Cause they have crept into my heart

They have left it cold and dark

And bleeding,

Bleeding and falling apart

And everybody used to tell me

Big boys don't cry

Well I've been around enough to know

That that was the lie

That held back the tears in the eyes 

Of a thousand prodigal sons

Well we are children no more,

We have sinned and grown old

And our father still waits

And he watches down the road

To see the crying boys come running back

To his arms

And be growing young

Growing young....

(If you have time, look it up.  There's so much more there)

So here I am.  April of 2017. Below are the words I wrote the morning of one of the hardest days in my history.  A day I thought I would endure with peace and some empathy, and then move on from, but now haunts more than any I can recollect in the last several years.

"This is where I'm at.

I'm not in 5 years ago or 10. Definitely not 20 years ago.  I don't still live in the terror of my childhood or the sins of my youth.  I've been broken, beaten and still I get up.  I fucking get up.

So don't keep me in the shadows of a life I did not live.  Do not keep telling me how I'm not as good.  How I don't measure up to the past.  The past is dead. A memory.  A place where we can go and dwell to remember, to grieve and to correct our own paths, but it is not where I will dwell.

I am living.  Breathing.  Alive.  And I'm hard.  I've lost a lot and still  struggling with how this all works; kids, marriage, work, faith, hope...

I don't see my past as the shadow that used to cover me and keep me so in the dark.  It's now just a moment, a glimpse, a tear, a smile... but the terrors are gone.  They don't come every night, every day.  The fears have subsided, though they try to rear their devilish heads when I'm not aware.  Replaced by hope.  By thoughts of tomorrow. But more by living in today.
Now.

I am here.  I am me.

Chad"

9:46 am, Tuesday, April 11, 2017

So I've spent the morning reflecting on the man I am, flaws and all.  And how I need to proceed.  It's a journey, life.  And I'm still along for the ride.

Peace.