"We are not born all at once, but by bits. The body first, and the spirit later. Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth"
The above quote comes from a book written back in 1912 called the Promised Land. The Promised Land is Mary Antin’s mature autobiography. In it, she tells the story of what she considers her escape from bondage in Eastern Europe and her finding of freedom in America. Early in the book, she compares herself to a treadmill horse who can only go round and round in the same circle. She sees herself in Polotzk in what was then Russia as imprisoned by her religion (Jews were allowed to live only in certain places in Czarist Russia and only to work at certain trades) and her sex (among Orthodox Jews in Eastern Europe, women were not permitted education beyond learning to read the Psalms in Hebrew).
Simone de Beauvoir, the French existentialist, philosopher, writer and essayist, who wrote the book Women as other put this belief in another way "One is not born a woman, one becomes one"... and at the age of 55 I have come to learn how very right these two very different women were and are.
I am just now beginning to make peace with myself as I realize I, too, have lived in my own "prison" The return of cancer into my life back in 2006 and the ongoing battles that have ensued since as well as great family turmoil which unglued my family at the seams six months ago have let me realize that I do not need to "guild the lilly" per-se... that I can drop those aritifical trappings of my life which I clung to in fear of not being "liked", "loved", or accepted or having people leave me and allow the real me to be revealed. I can live and breathe free loving and enjoying life with the blessings of God as ME
Very few of us are blessed with this type of real growth at a young age. Growth of maturity and spirit takes time. We need time to consider, time to reflect, time to make creative choices, time to emerge from the cocoon, time to clean out the skeletons from our closets, time to clear away the psychic and spiritual cobwebs so that we can then pare down our "essence" and become REAL. It is also not a painless process... as our mothers once gave birth to us in pain so too giving birth to ourselves causes pain. A. W. Tozer once wrote, "It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply." God has a mission for your life and mine. But before we can carry out that mission, we will often go through the boot camp of adversity. If this is where you find yourself today, ask God to give you His grace to walk through this time with you. He promised He would never leave or forsake us.
The main problem I see, not just for women but for men as well, is that most of us have remained dormant for years -- drugged senseless and beaten down by our own numbing disapproval, nagging self doubts, and absolute benign neglect. Coping strategies that once brought a sense of reief suddenly only fill us with regret.
Therefore, to undo this damage (and in my case that damage was massive) and reconnect with our own true natures, we need to take the plunge, that all important but so difficult leap of faith, confident that God will hold the net. Then too, we need to treat ourselves gently with the very same kindness we would bestow on someone with a traumatic brain injury who need the patient reassurance of their own identities and capabilities.
The truth of the matter is until you make peace with who you are, you will never be content with what you have... nor can you truly be grateful.
blessed be.
No comments:
Post a Comment