Five weeks into a 6 weeks stay in Paris, I am just getting my feet wet. My fears have kept me exploring what could have been an experience of real development, instead I spent it wrapped in the warm comfort of the known... whether I liked it or not. And to my own detriment, too little, too late I have discovered it.
There is a whole world out there I have feared. Feared for what reason I am not sure of yet, but I have. Failure has never stopped me, I do it often enough. Looking stupid usually does not frighten me, I own my own stupidity usually. The problem is, the fear of the unknown... I guess.
Somewhere in the in between of hating commitment, but not wanting to escape what I know, I have found myself in too many ruts. Ruts of the seen before. The enemy you know is less frightful than the enemy you don't, right? Or wrong?
Walking the streets of Paris tonight with a new friend and one I should have paid much more attention to a few weeks ago, I regret the mistakes immaturity still produce. The whole world at my finger tips, and I choose what I can understand... still. Years after finding that at the end of a rainbow I painted, was a fake pot of gold and Kansas, I still fear the paranormal for myself.
How sad that is to say... how many wasted days, weeks, years... opportunities?
Conquered fears have come, I have to say. Fears of loneliness, loss, hurt... and others I can't page at the moment, but now, now comes the one that I can't fully grasp. Like a slippery bar of soap, as soon as I grab ahold too tight, it escapes me again. I lose the comprehension.
Everyday my teachers look me straight in the face and say "Tu compris?" Half the time I have to say "Je ne compri pas." (Or however you conjugate it.) Right now I feel like God is staring me in the face asking "Tu compris?" and I have to say "Je ne compri pas... help."
But as I am grasping what fear can steal, be it weeks in Paris, years to a bad relationship, a heart to the unworthy... I have to ask the question, is it too little, too late?
What has been wasted is gone. I can't get it back. As much as I would pray, the clock on the wall mocks me with it's indignation, refusing to turn back for a second try. There are no do-overs and I feel every minute that I have wasted on fear like a thick cloth of muslin stealing my fresh air.
But... but, there is something in me that wonders, just slightly wonders, if the purpose that is preached every Sunday has fingers that reach into reality of the here and now. A fledgling hope rebirths as I think about what has been redeemed and I let my mind wander down the path of possible redemption to come.
Too good to be true are the blessings having been returned to me in the last few brief years of my life, and the collision of what could be combined with the lessons learned bring a fragile yet real sense of anticipation for the future. Could it be?
Maybe the clocks can't be turned back, but in a Kingdom of another world, where efficiency comes in the form of double, triple and quadruple lessons, purposes and effects, I wonder if though it took me a fanciful trip to another country to start to understand, where ever I return to may have just as much promise if I can harness the lessons and realizations I have reveled in. Can it be that there is so much purpose, that though I did not make every moment of this trip what it can be, redemption can come in a different form, just as grand and just as promising?
Only in a place where there is goodness and hope and everything lovely is that possible... but lucky me, I know the Owner of that place.
All the passage that claim a hope in Him I begin to understand. Redemption from the cross can be redemption in the reality of this moment. Wasted days and moments and opportunities to the false idols of fear and anxiety can be turned to a golden hue of a full and abundant life. the lesson I guess is that my life isn't just dependent on me, but on the path He has for me.
Now the job is not to condemn myself for the past, but to hope in His future. And yet that is what is in direct conflict to my fear of the unknown... stepping into the black only to hope in a path you can't see. Lessons plus promises equal a need to trust.
I believe Lord, help my unbelief... and thank you for a redemption that got off the cross and rose from the grave.
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