Finding Lost Miracles

Four months into the struggle to find a job to support my family and this happened...

Today I prayed for a miracle.  The miracle never came. I pleaded at the start of this new day, a day that pushed out an old one of broken dreams, that the failures of yesterday would be overcome by the success of today. 

The miracle never came and when the sun set, so did my faith. 

Laying on the stone bed of sorrow and resting my head on my pillow of frozen tears, I gaze up into the winters night. Like so many nights before I ponder my choices. All of them seemingly guided and well designed. Yet they seemed to fail. Failures falling all around like a blanket of frost, covering the ground of my soul in ice born sadness. Brittle and hardened, I lay still. In the darkness of night, even sleep fails me. 

Stiff and calloused, another day dawns. In it, in this new day, a scene plays forth. A man of many years, worn by time and unaware of life around him, stumbles in the foggy mist of mind bending age. His wife and his daughter take him by the hands. Sacred hands, hands that once played with tender children and grandchildren. Hands that taught and hands that often were clasped in mighty prayer to God. Hands, now weak and unaware, are now held to guide and steady him. A shell of who he once was, stumbling as the women in his life struggle to help him to rest in his bed. With tears in their eyes they plead with him to convey an understanding that will not come. 

Witnessing this solemn moment, a moment when realization descends on those you love that mortality is at its end, is a scene that breaks through the veil of a new understanding. A miracle was found this day and it was in these women. 

Miracles do not exist in the temporal needs of our earthen struggles.  For what is a miracle? Employment or money? Those things that buy more things that potentially lead us into lives that lead us away from what matters? Today I have enough, enough for my family and me, that is all I need. Work will come and go but miracles are found in the lives around me, not in my temporal desires. True miracles exist in the lives of those who serve. Those who love with pure desire become the miracle. In that miracle of giving, that sacrifice of all, breathes forth new life. A life that will never die but will live in serenity through eternity. 

As one life comes to a close, mine is renewed with faith in the service I see. The miracles of all who serve and give their all to those they love. In my life, I see this in these women I love. A wife, willing to give up her golden years to nurse an ailing husband. A daughter, willing to move on, away from a life she knew to help her fading father.

Today I prayed for a miracle that never came. It never came so that I could see. So that I could see the true miracle, the miracle that is the love in the hearts of those who serve.  

 -The Feeble Soul

© 2013

5 Minute Fit on the Floor

A 4 year old, lost in time, sitting on the floor. Afraid and unaware of what was going on. A shackling forced upon the tenderly young body. Tears of misunderstanding rolled down his lightly freckled face as he stared into the carpet, forever changed.

It all began with a limp and an inquisitive farmer of a father. A quick measurement of the uneven legs confirmed a problem, a battle of body within. Legg-Perthes disease, a hip disorder, a disease cured with leg braces.

Returning home from the doctor’s office in this body binding and seemingly limiting device produced a fit that only a 4 year old is skilled enough to enact. The tantrum was not long in its duration but after five minutes of crying on the floor the flood of fury and dejection ended. Getting up off the floor, life began. This was not so much a display of courage on the boy’s part but more of a reflection of the determination and deep love on the part of the two parents. Hearts aching with sorrow and doubt, they looked on. They encouraged the boy with gentleness but treated him like the others. Bicycles were ridden, soccer was played, ice skates used and a seemingly hobbled boy pretended not to notice the braces. Braces with a 14 inch bar between the knees to keep the legs at an angle to allow the hip to repair. There was never any physical pain, just a squeak when the metal needed greased that served as a relentless reminder.

When there was any walking, standing or anything else involving mobility, the braces had to be worn. Treated as a lifeline, the lesson from the doctor was that healing would only come if the braces were always used. Save for one time, a quick jog across a private bedroom when he was alone, did the young boy always wear the braces when upright and moving.

A soccer game played and a father looked on. The ball passed right between the boy’s spread out legs. He ran on, without any concern but for winning the game. All the while his father wept with anguish. His mother also looked on from time to time, questioning her actions and the unknown possibility of being the cause of the disease herself. 

Two years of restriction and success was around the corner until a doctor returned with discouragement and troubling x-rays. The disease had spread to the other hip. Another 3 years passed, 5 total before liberation finally occurred. The healing completed at the age of 9, after most of the boy’s childhood had faded away.

               

In the Idaho countryside one does not sit around, especially with brothers, sisters, horses, dogs, cats, and thousands of acres for a back yard. Living life was not up for debate or discussion, it simply happened. No choice was made, except on that one day, the first day, after the five minute fit on the floor.

Life hits us so hard sometimes that we feel as if we have been shackled and slammed to the floor. It hurts, we are confused, and often we cry. Our hearts are frozen, cracking, aching, on the verge of shattering. Shattering into a billion pieces, only to melt into a dark puddle of pain.

Rising up out of the ashes of our aching soul, crying out with anguish, we must choose the life that has been given freely. We must choose to embrace our eternal exaltation. We must live our life, hand in hand with our Savior. Looking into our past, into the trials we have faced, we must look further. We must look back far enough to glimpse the Master. Once we can see past our pain and suffering and into His life of long ago, we then are freed. Liberated and released from whatever it is we face.

In the present we often cry out for understanding and for help with our new limitations or ones that have lingered for what seems eons. Once thought conquered we often find they have only shifted to another part of us. Pushing us on to endure when we feel we can no longer. After the tears are shed and the sounds of sorrow exhausted we have one of two choices. Once we have finished our ‘five minute fit on the floor’ we have a decision to make. Do we continue in debilitating despondency? Do we throw our hands up in confusion and lay down to dissolve into despair, never to rise again? The only other choice we have then is to live. To get up, to choose to live with Him.

 -The Feeble Soul

© 2013

Wrong Roads - Questioning God When Starting Over

I often wonder about the “wrong roads” in my life. Especially during times of struggle when I feel I am starting all over again. As I now turn around and make the long walk back to the fork in the road, the place I stood almost a decade ago, I slouch in shame. I look down the long traveled path I spent so long on and see it fade into the distance, a mirage as it were, disappearing into my past. With worn and tired feet I turn my dust crusted eyes to gaze down other paths not yet traveled.

When guidance was sought, the same decision of which path to go to be made, I thought I received divine guidance. I thought I knew the way. 

An incredible amount of energy is required to begin the path down a new trail of life. To do so when you realize the previous path came to an end can be insurmountable. I want my life to be one grand path. One that climbs ever upward, like climbing a mountain.  

Most climb worthy mountains begin steep and difficult. Until you reach the ridge line it is usually a muscle burning experience that leaves you shaking with exertion. Once you reach the main ridge of a peak the wind usually picks up and cools, the will to continue the climb renewed, exhilarating hope is imbued as the goal is within sight. New sights are seen and the way, though still steep, seems easier. We look back and see the progress. Every step of strength brings us closer to the goal. To be thrust back down the mountain once you have reached this point, to do this frequently as the years roll by, this can leave one questioning God. To walk back down the mountain of struggle and to begin anew makes one want to sit in their sorrow, never to gaze upward again. 

If all paths I take lead back to where I started then what is the point?
I question my ability to be guided. I question my ability to be led by the Spirit of God. 

I have had small glimpses of possible answers to the agony but none as profound as this:

<<<<Click on this link or the video below, if it shows up, before you continue reading>>>>

So here I stand, back where I began so many times before. With strengthened purpose I hope to begin anew. On the way back down a literal mountain this past summer, almost at the end of an amazing backpacking trip, I gazed upward and saw this tree. 

I had to take the picture. This is not a black and white. The lighting and approaching storm give off the monochrome coloring. What made this tree become what it is now? Why so many branches sprawled outward, seemingly going nowhere? The tree, now dead, provides some silent answers. A straight lodge pole trunk with no branches would make for a useless tree. With its only purpose being that of lumber, no use while it is alive.

It is in the branches that nests are made, new life springing forth, shelter is taken from approaching storms, and seeds are sprung. It is from the branches that the sun is absorbed and the roots are strengthened. My favorite sound as a child was that of the wind rustling through the mighty mountain pine trees. The needles provided a music that warmed my soul. The branches, the forks in the tree’s growth, bring strength, life, and joy. It is impossible for us to grow straight without branching off. The forks in our lives are where we truly grow and as we grow outward in seemingly pointless spurts we will finally one day look below. We will see that with the outward growth into what we believe to be dead ends, we find that we have also grown upwards.

So to journey anew I begin, a path untraveled to tread.  I believe I have finally understood that the inspiration is not so much which fork in the path to go, but the inspiration is that I GO, onward. Onward and upward.

 -The Feeble Soul

© 2014