or has it been weeks?
I haven’t posted anything new.
No blog posts.
No photographs.
Nothing.
I have been in a holding pattern of sleepwalking, nightmares and erotic dreams that leave me confused, wondering and bewildered …
and all the while, trying my very best to make it, without losing my cool, through the seemingly endless days and eventful nights.
I have had patients cry on me, their families strike me, people pulling at my heartstrings which are linked directly to my tear ducts and during all of this, trying to find out if I am to blame for something I had no control over.
I wonder if I have severed a crucial friendship and have already began to mourn the loss of it.
I have a way of ruining beautiful things because I rarely feel worthy of them.
I have slept outside, sent messages I wasn’t aware of and tried desperately to hold it together.
A difficult few days, indeed.
But tonight changed all that.
It came a storm.
A big one, with lots of lightning and torrential rain.
Normally, during such an event, I would be set up on the porch with my tripod and camera, but this time was different.
This one wasn’t to be documented and photographed.
It was to set my spirit free.
And it did.
I stood on the porch with my jeans and t-shirt, getting soaked.
But as time passed, I wanted no earthly barriers between me and the blessing that God was giving me.
A cleansing.
A fresh beginning.
Letting the past be past and bygones be bygones and memories no more than a blip on my radar.
One piece of clothing after another was discarded until I found myself standing nude and vulnerable under the rain, with the lightning flashing, the thunder bellowing, echoing between the mountains and valleys …
tears running down my face.
I prayed to a God that I had decided had forgotten me.
He hadn’t.
I think He was just waiting for me to remember Him.
It was frightening.
It was freeing.
I was liberated from the hold this world had on me.
I was, for that span of time, one with nature and the God who created it.
I still struggle with the emotions and thoughts in my head, but He designed my brain and is well acquainted with my mindless and sometimes senseless ramblings.
He doesn’t hold them against me and so I won’t hold them against myself.
Not everyone believes in my God. I don’t find fault with them. I know what I know, they know what they know.
I can only be who I am and, despite all my faults, and they are many, I feel at peace.
And despite that, my friends who don’t believe in my God like me anyway.
I am humbled by that.
Just as I accept them, they accept me.
With our differences of opinions and thoughts.
It is irrelevant.
Isn’t that what it was supposed to be like?
Love one another?
Are my thoughts still burning through my head? Yes.
Do I still sometimes feel out of control? Yes.
Do I have someone to share the thoughts and emotions with? Yes, and I am thankful for them.
Do I wonder if I am making the right choices? Yes.
Following Christ doesn’t mean that everything is just peachy. In all honesty, it is the opposite.
I don’t do it right, I never have, but I hope to at least encourage somebody along the way.
And selfishly, I hope to be encouraged.
I wonder sometimes if I am nothing more than the punching bag of the universe. I don’t mind it if it keeps someone else from suffering, but every now and then, it wears on the soul.
And then, an incredible storm comes, I stand in the rain, and all is right again.
The circle of life.
It is what it is what it is what it is.
It is what we make of it that counts.
So make it count.
a beautiful human, inside and out.
A Photographer's Heart 