The Demons Past

To know where you want to go, at times means, you have to know where you have been.

I used to think that facing your demons meant facing all that made you a victim. Those incidents that forced you to overcome. A perpetual place of martyrdom. As the theme song of triumph plays in the background as you turn to face that which is necessary for me to overcome. My personal sound track would play as I learned in a three minute sound bite what it meant to be a survivor verses a thriver. Not that any of us really know.

In reality, facing your demons may mean something completely different.  What if, just for laughs, what if, facing your demons didn’t mean facing all that made you a victim, but all the ways that you had victimized others?

What if your demons where not that which you had to overcome, but what others have to overcome because of you? What if you were someone’s tragic story?

 It’s ten times harder for me to conceive of myself as the villain than the victim, but in the recesses of my mind, in the soul of whom I am, in the Spirit that has been born through someone else, there is a skin that has to be shed. An outer layer that looks much like a snakeskin of one who was condemned to the ground; a layer of insecurity that had breached the line of authenticity and maliciousness.

As I have prayed for an ever-increasing love, fountains of my misdemeanors and felony’s have poured in. Memories of ghosts past have circles in a non-Hollywood sense of security. Sleepless nights of guilt and condemnation have meant exhausted days of ever increasing raw emotion. Like nerves having been grated by the dullest instrument, security cannot be found in sanctuary of routine and cocoons of comfort. 

Only facing that which I have ran from for too long can bring the peace that a broken soul needs. The humility of admittance has never been more necessary.

Surrender comes in the moments of understanding that He who calls for the fall of pride promises to heal instead.

As soon as the soul of the evil confronts itself grace is received. Only in the surrender of the fear is compassion possible.

Why is it so hard to cross that line? Why is it so hard to cross the line from denial to admittance?

Just that. Admittance of what I am is not easy. The battle between the spirit and the soul is strong, and somewhere in the middle my mind lands. Like a crossroads between wanting to believe in the betterment of my soul, and the purity of my spirit, the only choice I can make is the purity of my spirit.

The soul will leave me, but the spirit, it is the only thing that is true. The only thing that will exist past tomorrow, it is the only thing that expresses the truest form of what and who I am.

Ironically enough, accepting the demons of my past brings me to the realist part and the most beautiful part of me. The humanness that meets the supernatural and truth occurs. The phenomenon of truth is just what He said it was: it will set me free. The hard part is, the choice is mine. As I face the step of acknowledgement is in front with the opposing voice of denial and circumspection just as attractive.

My spirit moves and a breath of fresh air enters. I have chosen acceptance. What that means I don’t know, but peace is what I breathe, and so for a moment, chains of demons release and I exhale a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding. An exhale of released tension I didn’t know I had been holding falls from my lips.

Be still and know.

Okay. Enough… enough.