REFLECTIONS + INTENTIONS, PART I
:: looking back ::
I met 2020 from the cliff-edge of a single-minded aim: to live in trust; to learn to live in trust, no matter what the lesson cost me in the end. I could see how all the best intentions I had held up to that point had been like training for the fundamental lessons of my life. And I could feel how Trust was calling me to meet it: this First + Greatest Lesson of my life.
Standing at the gate of that decision: I said yes. Whatever it required of me, I would learn to trust in something greater than my conscious understanding. I would practice patience. I’d revisit faith: not as a concept or ideal, but as a way of meeting every day - each moment of my life.
I knew that I was being called to train up an impeccable devotion to surrender + that this required Valor: a commitment of my courage + my love, a willingness to embrace my darkest fears without exception.
I faced the rising sun of that New Year with clarity + confidence, RESOLVE. I knew what I was called to do. It had a name. The calling had a name: its name was Trust.
I knew what I was called to do. And then, in March, the world turned upside-down.
CONTINUED…
My commitment was to stand + face my fears: to trust + trust + trust, no matter what. And 2020 tested that commitment in unprecedented style, requiring the best of me in ways I never-in-a-lifetime could have guessed.
The very foundations of my life + self-identity were tested across every sector of experience. Personally, professionally, relationally, financially (even residentially!), I was tested.
In many, many cases, I met these important opportunities to learn less graciously than I’d have hoped; and yet, in every case, I met the work head-on.
I did as I’d intended. Standing tall or cowering, I turned toward every specter that arose. I did not avert my eyes.
I chose to feel (and feel + feel + feel), I waited, I remembered, I returned.
CONTINUED…
During 2020, I learned that my being is elastic: that the boundaries of perceived capacity expand to meet the pressures of each moment if I really choose to trust (and learn to let them).
I learned how to be “broken down to nothing,” and survive. I learned how to open to my feelings, how to love, and how to cry. (I learned that there’s a ground beneath the storm.)
During 2020, I learned about patience. Oh, how I have learned about patience… I learned about timing + the way perfection is built in if we will only learn to trust it.
I learned that I am held, supported - taken care of - in more ways than I could ever know or count (or even notice).
I learned how to ask for help, and found that help was always waiting when I did.
I learned that I am never destitute, forgotten, or alone. I learned that I am loved.
And most of all, I learned that it is safe to wait on faith + love: to trust.
I learned that it is safe to trust. It is safe to trust.
It is safe to trust.
CONTINUED…
There’s a ground beneath the storms of circumstance, beyond the hopes + dreams of our most promising ideals. It exists. It’s real. I’ve touched it.
We can fall + hurt + lose our way + do our best (and fail) - and we can trust.
We can pause the rush, let go, surrender. We can trust.
I know because I’ve proven it. I’ve lived it.
We can trust.