Fight Another Day

Divorce, death, cancer, broken relationships, disturbing events. I have grown up hearing about such things. My parents did not shelter us. They educated us at the right times when we needed to be rightfully educated. I was no stranger to the things that cause the world to be a sad, angry, confused place.

But I never thought they would ever come close to me.

It wasn’t so bad when my grandparents died. I was only 14, and although it hurt, it still was far from me.

I crept nearer to me when my aunt got divorced and slightly closer when the same aunt was diagnosed with cancer a few years later.

I didn’t realize how close it had gotten when I went through a couple friendships (potential romances) that ended with me losing friends, when an organization I thought was the most wonderful thing on earth turned sour, and when a childhood friend died in a car accident at the age of 18.

But the closest hits came when a very dear friend went through a terrible divorce only 6 months after her wedding which left her heartbroken and pregnant, and then when I learned of a friend who was engaged to marry a man 30 years her senior, of whom I have known to be a rather dishonorable man.

I don’t really know why those two particular things have hit me so hard. Perhaps it is akin to what General Jackson felt when, after hearing that a little girl whom he’d befriended died, wept bitterly, causing a nearby soldier to ask, “Why is he crying now? After so many battles and so many lives lost…he never cried then” and another to reply “I think he is crying for them now”.

I feel like I am being tested in my faith, or maybe prepared for something worse. Perhaps Satan is trying to derail me from the happiness surging through my heart and from the God-honoring venture I’ve been pouring myself into. I feel like I don’t know what to say or think, except that there is something mysterious going with me. Someone is playing chess with my heart.

It makes me want to just never move. Things are simpler that way. Things are easier if I never feel, never think, never sing, never love, never try. But that defeats the whole purpose of my being here. It goes against my grain. I can’t sit still.

You never realize how hot the fire is until you are standing right next to it. Yet that is when it all matters the most.

"Will you spend a lifetime running?
Cause you could spend a lifetime running...
Do you feel the fire when the flame gets hot?
Are you living every day like it's the last you've got?
Will you step aside when it all falls down
And watch it burn away?
Have a little faith when the walls cave in
Pray for strength to fly against the wind
Will you walk away when the fire gets hot
Or fight another day?"
-Addison Road

CONVERSATION

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