I was in church this morning when I heard a beautiful sermon given by my pastor. It talked about the idea of true comfort- or consolation and how it comes from Christ. For the sermon to really take its toll I needed to chew on it for a bit of time. Hours later I find myself amazed at the enlightenment that comes with figuring out the meaning of that idea: consolation.
The arrival of the one year anniversary of my continuous dilemma is approaching fast and as I reflect on the implications that it has left, I almost feel like laughing. I have had this silent mantra for the last year of, “someday” and while I haven’t neglected the current, I have failed to understand the past for what it really was. I don’t mean to be vague or nonsensical but the truth is that when I examine my actions and wishes I realize that they don’t even make sense. This elephant on my chest has been invited for no reason and I have been foolish to let it overstay a welcome it never should have received.
There are people at my school who can drive me up the wall with their answer to every struggle saying, “it’s life,” but when I take a few steps back and see things for what they really are I agree. We don’t always know why life seems inadequate, confusing, anguishing, or even trite but we can find hope knowing that it’s supposed to be that way because at the end of climb we reach the pinnacle and there we can see the valley we have trudged through. When we see that struggle it often times seems ridiculous or perhaps easier than we made it out to be, but by examining it we learn.
I guess what I have taken out of this long due epiphany is exactly what Oscar Wilde once wrote, “I am not young enough to know everything.” For this last year I have been so overwhelmed but I realize now that it wasn’t the situation that made me confused, but rather myself. Instead of trusting that things were going to change for the better I held the cards in my hand thinking that if I could just persevere a bit more I could win the game.
I didn’t win anything, but rather I lost precious time over something that doesn’t even matter anymore.
Today I want to begin living again. I want to stop dreaming for something to happen. I want to stop trying to be in control of situations that I could never dictate. I want this peace to continue that I feel right now in this instant, and I know that it only comes with succumbing to something bigger. In the future I am going to doubt and cry juts like have doubted and have cried. I am going to want to make it happen myself, and I wont make “it” happen. But if I let someone greater take the reigns, and I understand that the struggle will produce exactly what it needs to then I will jump with happiness at the top of that mountain.
In three weeks I am going to step onto pavement at a place filled with memories, but I am going to be alright. I will be able to qualify Wilde’s statement, I can agree with Tolstoy’s philosophy on the source of wisdom, and for the first time, in a long time, I will be able to feel something glorious, comfort.
