Now, a note about crying:
When I cry, and I will only talk about myself because I don’t know if it’s the same for everyone, it allows me to break down enough walls to let the Savior in. He comes and wraps me in His arms, takes my sorrow and consecrates it for my benefit, and I understand that sorrow and joy are two sides of the same coin. We can’t feel joy without feeling sorrow, but we won’t feel anything if we fear being sad. Satan knows this, and he uses our fear to manipulate us into eternal forgetfulness.
Sorrow is nothing to be afraid of, as I think I have said before. Just as happiness, joy, belonging, and companionship have a place in our lives, so, too, do loneliness, emptiness, and sorrow. We can’t recognize the good without the bad, and as long as we see that we are on the winning side simply by choosing to come to this earth, then we remember who we are. And when we remember who we are, evil has no power over us.
As I ponder this, I stop sinking and the blackness that has nearly incapacitated me stops squeezing so hard. I look up to see a slender rope above me — dropped from Heaven it seems, and it’s made of pure light — like burning magnesium. It occurs to me that God is giving me a way out, a hand up, and if I reach out and grab this rope sent to save me, then everything will be all right. If I remember who I am and embrace myself and my Father, I will live.
I lift my hand to grasp it and as soon as my skin makes contact with that blinding brilliance the snakes that have constricted me shriek and recoil and disappear almost instantly. I am astounded at how quickly evil disperses when real goodness is present, and while the bonds that I had let nearly kill me have left me feeling weak and shaky, each time I grip one hand over the other on Father’s rescue line I am infused with eternal strength. Slowly upward I climb, steadily and faithfully, and I watch in amazement as the napalm I thought would stick to me forever begins to slide off. It’s as though there is nothing left for it to cling to, and I begin to really understand what a massive force love is — indeed, it is the stuff the universe is made of.
If you have ever had an experience where you feel a profound connection to the eternal, then you know what I’m talking about. Love is where it’s at. It is so pure, and it traverses softly, gently, and completely into our hearts — with a sort of ethereal quiet and absolute finality. It permeates and illuminates the dark places we don’t show anyone and it heals with such tender sweetness that it almost hurts when it happens.
I don’t think I ever told you why I love knives so much. They represent Truth to me. Truth travels into our spirit’s the same way Love does, and I have to smile at the conclusion that of course it does — Truth and Love are the same thing. Never thought I would equate a dagger with Love, but it seems to fit somehow — which leads me to my next observation about you — you fill your life with meaning.
If you have ever had an experience where you feel a profound connection to the eternal, then you know what I’m talking about. Love is where it’s at. It is so pure, and it traverses softly, gently, and completely into our hearts — with a sort of ethereal quiet and absolute finality. It permeates and illuminates the dark places we don’t show anyone and it heals with such tender sweetness that it almost hurts when it happens. I don’t think I ever told you why I love knives so much. They represent Truth to me. Truth travels into our spirit’s the same way Love does, and I have to smile at the conclusion that of course it does — Truth and Love are the same thing. Never thought I would equate a dagger with Love, but it seems to fit somehow — which leads me to my next observation about you — you fill your life with meaning.
Case in point:The reason you decided to fly was to honor your late father.
You spoke of memories you had flying model airplanes together, how he worked for NASA putting O-rings on their rockets and how he always wanted to fly but never got the chance to. You gave meaning to a personal tragedy — a way to cope with it perhaps, to take the sting out of something that I am sure left you devastated, and you turned it into something beautiful. I recognize the need to do that, almost a compulsion to find a way to deal with things that make us break down, and when we apply meaning to a loss, the bitterness of it slowly fades.
Then, we can pick ourselves up, the paradigm shifts and pieces start clicking into place and we find we can carry on somehow. That’s what I’m doing with this letter. I feel immense loss in my life recently, and in order to pick myself up and carry on, in order to live with my personal tragedies, I must make them meaningful — beautiful — and tender so I can learn from them, and so I don’t just remember the devastation of this time. Instead, I create in my mind a reason to be thankful for the crushing blows I have been dealt. And so, with (sometimes reluctant) gratitude, I praise Father for my weaknesses and use my God-given smarts to figure out how to make them strengths.
© 2010
