THE MONSTER IN THE MIRROR

k7274728I’m not much of a sailor, except for that one time in junior high school I stole that sailboat, but I savvy the sailing lingo fairly well. Sometimes a few words can sum up what a picture or a thousand words can’t, no matter the time spent trying. It’s remarkable how well a simple adage can describe perfectly what we’re trying to express, like the lucky folks who buy the right vowel on Wheel Of Fortune.

“You nailed it”, or “You hit the nail on the head”, are carpentry terms that have come to mean far more than the accurate swing of a hammer. No one needs to be a fisherman to savvy the phrase, “There’s plenty of fish in the sea”. You get the idea.

Back to my seafaring thoughts: For the better part of six years I’ve been writing, pushing, learning, and have written hundreds of thousands of words in the form of this blog, writing assignments, and three and a half manuscripts. But sometimes life… get ready for it… “Knocks the wind out of your sails”…

I’ve come up empty. And while that isn’t entirely new, the desire that always seems to summon a fresh breeze has gone missing. That is new for me. My desire must have fallen in the deep waters when I blinked at the emotional strike delivered to the core of my soul…

This life is full of surprises and not all of them have the intentions or effect of a surprise birthday party. All of us know that people will let you down in this fallen world, yet we all get “Blindsided” once in awhile. Yeah, another overused analogy. No wonder it’s so popular; it describes the synopsis perfectly.

Sooner or later every one of us gets crushed by another that has a soul cage wrapped around them and we respond typically in our flesh – What we know instinctively.

Our first reaction is grief, but it doesn’t take too long for the wicked desire of revenge to explode from our heart like a snarling and fire breathing dragon. We retaliate sometimes and the fire used to pay back those that hurt us blown with vengeance from our hurting and twisted mouths, leaves us singed by our own poison.

Betrayal is grisly. As repulsive as it is, and we’re all quick to condemn the trespassers, we rarely stop to consider the monster in the mirror…

There’s another old saying that has some merit, “I’ve seen the enemy, and it is us…” While the quote isn’t fully accurate in that we’re duped by the real enemy of our souls, it makes the razor sharp point that we’re all fallen, even if that wasn’t the intent when that famous southern fella’ wrote it the first time.

We betray our Father daily with each sin. Maybe they’re not all out lies or deceit, but we’re deceiving ourselves if we think we’re above anybody else or our righteousness earns us a seat on a different boat… we’re all in the same one.

As our Father forgives betrayal, we too are called to forgive. If He forgives us, how can we not extend that trait that points to and proves we have His true love in us?

I don’t know when, but one of these days I believe the wind will return… and my sail and heart will be filled again. I pray yours will too…