What happened to the once innocent child
who bravely chose to enter a world with eyes blindfolded…
A racing heart & lungs that make it difficult to breathe… feeling cold and alone.
“This world wasn’t designed for people like you…” she’s been since told.
Who designed this world? What did they have in mind by sending me to a world – not designed for me?
“Be the change you wish to see in the world,” Gandhi says. Could that be why people like me came into this world filled with misunderstandings, pain, and confusion?
It hurts to be the change.
It’s confusing to understand how to change… what is good change & what is bad change… and who decides what those rules are if we were all born blind and innocent?
Pain brought me back to the beginning when moving forward grew hopeless in what felt like defeat.
With the loud voices calling my name from all directions, my body grew too weak. I fell to my knees and prayed, “No more. Please. I’m tired, the world is too big and the list of people I care about is too long. I don’t want to carry on if it always feels like I’m failing…
“…How do I reconcile what my heart desires with the demands of others that conflict…
“…God, how did you foresee my worth in coming to this earth if my true feelings don’t fit in as acceptable with everyone… if this world wasn’t designed for people like me? Why do I always feel unsafe?
“…If I am to be the change, how do I succeed at that and also escape disappointing others? How do I survive the pain from that bitter cup? Am I to also bleed from every pore as Jesus did, because I don’t understand how to survive the path ahead of me. How did you survive that level of pain, because that information is missing from the notes you left behind for us to follow…”
I arrived into this world blind, and I feel like I am finding my way out of this world blind – as the information we have collectively discovered keeps changing, adding to the confusion and division.
The pain has brought me back to the beginning, and as I look upon the pure innocence of my tiny body and naive mind curious about the simple wonders of the world… I wonder if the unknown before us is both the blessing and the curse of what it means to be human.
What if the answer is also the question?
We choose to move forward because we have hope of greater clarity yet to be discovered, of discovering more about the world, who we are, and the meaning to all things about life. We sometimes get it right, and we sometimes get it wrong… but we can only understand the truth when we also become aware of what wasn’t true.
The conflict and pain we feel is when we conclude that we know everything there is to know – presuming we know more than others… and what we feel we know doesn’t match what others feel they know with absolute certainty. When we say we “know”, we in essence remove the hope, the child-like innocence, the wonder & curiosity from our view.
If pain is inevitable in this life, am I to tell this innocent tiny child within me that while we’re alive in this world, we will never be able to escape pain if we are to fulfill the purpose we were born to discover? If we are to be the change we are designed to be… pain will be part of making that change?
That perhaps by following what we feel we were designed to become, that we will create a change in this world that makes existing in this world a little less painful for those who have yet to arrive in this world. Is that what it means to follow Jesus?
The world saw You as a change that was uncomfortable when You walked this earth long before us. Those who were convinced they had the only truth, fought against the change You were designed to be as You followed what was true to the design of Your Spirit, Your True Self, as You remained hopeful, faithful to your connection to clarity— to The Source from where we were created from.
I feel I understand a little better now that the blind cannot lead the blind and presume that either of us can see it all with confidence. I understand now that we are no more aware of the fullness of all things than when we began, if anything we are further away from clarity when we lose sight that its the innocence of our tiny self that gives us the greatest opportunity of reconnecting to the One Source who can lead us, with clarity, in the direction of fulfilling the purpose we were designed to be in this world.
