Make me.......don't break me!

When it rains (and thunders) on your parade, you start to get the feeling that life, the universe, God, fate have singled you out for an abnormally large dose of trials.  In fact, there are more than a few days, when I start to believe that life is nothing but a trial and I’m doing a sentence even though no verdict has been passed.

Innocent until proven guilty just doesn’t cut it in our spiritual life. We are guilty but we have no recollection of the crime and so we’re doing time. The picture perfect lifestyle that’s sold to us on TV and in magazines is apparently not yours or mine……..nothing is constant least of all…peace.  Our homes and jobs are organised but inside of us we’re a mess.

We love others but we don’t love ourselves. Mostly because we don’t know what love is though we have plenty of experience of what love is not. Love is not damaging yourself with harmful thoughts like: “why can’t he love me when I’m so lovable?”. Love is not hoping against hope that he’ll change. Love is not crying into your glass of wine every night. Love is not having a tantrum and taking pleasure in another’s strife.

But most people, the unwoken, will live their lives with that belief system and draw the hapless bystander into this web of falsehood. We get caught and trapped in the rigidities and oddities of this sinister cult. Trouble is, the followers of this cult are none other than our family and friends, each with their own private mantra…….I will obey…..the TV, the minister, colleague, friend and the foe (who has a remarkable resemblance to a friend!).

Life is challenging, no doubt about it. But we have added free will into the pot of destiny and mixed it with vigour until it seems as if the gods wear a permanent frown when our name comes up. In to each life the sun has to shine but why does to have to be a heatwave? Is it our undeveloped minds that reacts so negatively?

An easy life and fortunate life is not what I seek. I am seeking the meaning in misfortune. I’m led to believe that adversity is a teacher or even a potter that fashions a lump of clay into an elegant vase. Yes, I’m learning and I want to but could tribulation not teach me something too?

I don’t want to swing on my hammock when there’s a field to be ploughed. I don’t want to be comfortable when others struggle. I don’t want to exist in the world of one – me. I want to improve and better myself. I want to be made into something worthwhile. I want to believe that peace and harmony exists though it may be in short supply at the moment.

I have developed resilience but when do I rest? An indomitable spirit never gets tired but flesh and bones do. We’re tired of the seeing and doing. We want to rest our senses as much as our heads. An onslaught of to do’s and eking out an existence takes its toll.

We forget that we are greater than our challenges. We have a reserve of untapped potential and sometimes it’s never tapped if we end up broken by life and our fellow man. Mind strengthening exercises come in the form of saying “no” when weak reflexes want to say “yes”. Leaving our cares behind is a good thing so that we can run barefoot in tall grasses.

I’m tired of the trials yet I want to be refined. I want to be an urn of knowledge and  not an empty vessel. It takes effort, it takes sweat, it takes back breaking persistence to just keep on keeping on.

Bright spark

I know I can…and I will and I must. I want to be a newer and improved version of myself. I have more to give so I need to stretch and be wrung dry in the mangle of life. I want to be polished into something of substance and share my sparkles of wit and wisdom.

Failures can turn into pillars of success and I’ve tasted more of the latter than the former. We all want a break, a chink of light through the dark clouds. If I break into little pieces, then I have found through strength of character, then I can put the puzzle together in the right order. When I make mistakes, I must learn to think in a new way. Every problem has a solution and, in finding it, I want it to be the making of me.