Fractured Wisdom in the Wild Unknown

The Burden and Breakthrough of Betrayal

I recently came across this journaling from a particularly difficult period of my life. I wrote it sixteen months after the discovery of the first unspeakable betrayal that caused what I can only describe as a psychic rupturing. As much as I would like to say this clarity helped me grow out of bitterness, it would still be a long, spiraling journey before I would be able to stand and say, NO MORE. My no more only came after I finally betrayed myself… Something I still struggle to understand and hope I find clarity for one day. I share it in humility and compassion for the shame and darkness abuse produces… I believe breaking down the walls of shame is where we find freedom to know we deserve to be known and loved well, leaving behind isolation and stepping into the light of truth, which comes surprisingly wrapped in His perfect, unconditional love.

Two Grounding Truths in the Midst of Chaos

September 2020

Two (of many) guarantees I know life holds:

We cannot change the past.

We have no idea what tomorrow will bring, except certain death.

There is something strangely grounding in those two truths. I cannot reach backward and change what was, and I cannot reach forward and control what will be. I am left here, in the wild unknown of what could be, with the permanence of what has already happened behind me and the promise of what will eventually come before me.

Finding Freedom in the Present Moment

In His wisdom, God allowed me the gift of knowing both of these truths despite my sin, our sins, his... I know what has already happened cannot be undone. I know my life will end. Yet between those two certainties, He has given me the freedom to choose what I do with the moment I am actually standing in.

Two Questions to Guide Wise Choices

I keep coming back to two questions I grew up always asking myself—and teach my children to ask themselves:

What has my personal or observed experience taught me about the choice I am about to make?

And:

How will I feel about this choice on my deathbed and when I face the Lord?

Looking Backward to Learn and Forward to Gain Perspective

The first forces me to look backward honestly. What did those choices produce? What did they cost? What have I learned that I cannot honestly say I do not know anymore?

The second forces me to look beyond the intensity of right now.

Because right now can become enormous.

Pain can become enormous. Fear can become enormous. Anger, grief, self-pity, self-hate—the chaos of a moment I cannot escape can become so consuming that I begin circling its drain, unable or unwilling to let go long enough to see beyond it.

And when I live from there, my world becomes very small.

Breaking Free from Emotional Consumption

I can become so consumed by what I feel in a moment that I lose sight of what my own experience has already taught me. I can make choices from pain that hurt me and hurt people I do not truly hope to harm. I can become so absorbed in my own suffering that I stop asking what I am building with the choices I am making inside of it.

I cannot dwell here.

I cannot change what happened yesterday. I cannot know what will happen tomorrow. But I can ask what yesterday has taught me before I decide what I will do today.

And I can ask whether the choice that feels justified in this moment will still feel right when this moment is long gone.

Living Accurately in Light of Eternity

Whether someone believes in a higher entity or not, there is something profoundly clarifying about bringing a choice before the end of our own life. So much of what feels consuming now suddenly has to answer to a much larger perspective.

For me, I believe I will face the Lord. And when I do, I don't want to discover that I spent the wild unknown He gave me circling the drain of what I could never change, completely disregarding the greatest gifts He had already given me through the Torah and Christ to teach me how to live within it.

I am responsible for what I choose to do here.