Let me set the scene for you. This weekend I headed to NYC on the Megabus for an unscripted weekend. I didn’t know how long I was staying, or what I was doing, so I packed for two nights.
I get a text message from the fella telling me where to meet him. I googled the address and discovered that it was a walkable distance from where I was sitting, so I set forth on my journey.
As I’m walking, I am heading in a familiar direction. I’m feeling really good. Then I walk over 5th Avenue. Cool. I’ve read about 5th Avenue, and I’ve been in a Uber on that street.
Then I walk over Madison Avenue. I’m starting to get butterflies in my stomach, feeling slightly uncomfortable.
Then I walk over Park Avenue, and part of me is grinning like a crazy woman while another part of me is starting to feel out of place, like I don’t belong here, that I’m not enough.
Coincidentally, I’ve been participating in a workshop that has to do with intimacy, success and abundance. I was challenged to dig deep within, to determine my needs when it comes to different areas of intimacy in my life; to look at the masks that I wear, and what benefits I am receiving from NOT having the intimacy, success and abundance I desire.
I have a lot of wounds in my past that I have allowed to keep me from the things that I need in my life. Sticking my hands in those wounds is the scariest, the most painful and most freeing thing that I am doing right now. It is amazing how many masks one wears…and how exhausting it is to maintain them.
My walk to the hotel is much like the journey to healing deep wounds.
At first, you are on a familiar path…either you’ve experienced it or read about others who have taken the journey, and their results were magical.
The deeper you go, you start to feel a bit uncomfortable, question whether this is something you actually need to do.
Then, when you cross the last road to your destination, you get frightened. You don’t think that you deserve this freedom, this healing. Your shitty, festering wounds are comforting. Yeah, they smell and are painful…but they’re familiar…they’ve convinced you that they are your friends and that they are helping you.
Ultimately, you must choose. You can cross Park Avenue, enter the hotel and live the life that you were meant to live, or you can head back to the Megabus stop and head home, missing out on the blessed healing, the beautiful room and the sweet view.
This weekend changed a lot of things for me. Between the workshop and the conversations that I had, I came home a different person. I was reminding, on a epic level, that God has better and bigger plans for me than I can even conceive of right now.
The same is true for you. What would your life look like if you took the time to examine your wounds, work through them and walk out on the other side, clean, fresh and renewed? Would you be interested in learning how to do these things?
Deneen White 