Ghosts of Christmas past...true love ...and a modern day Christmas Carol.

Sun Dec 25 2011



Once, in a different space and time, there was a woman. A woman, who had fought most her life to keep the heart of the girl she vaguely remembered to be.

 

Years would pass...Christmas’s would come and go. Every year she anticipated...less and less. Until one year, she did not get up to look out the window. Cars parking outside her home...she gave no thought to. She knew they were not for her. She did not check her post...the shrill ring of the phone awakened no excitement within her. For she knew it would not be who she wanted it to be.

 

You see, all her life she had given. She had given more than most ever would be capable of giving. Where some people instantly gave way to revenge and grudges...forgiveness was her natural state of being.

 

Where she would love, others would judge. And when she loved...many it would frighten. Loss had become a general expectation. And as each year passed...her light weakened. There were moments of brilliance...only to be weighed down and covered up by moments of shortcomings and disappointments.

 

One year...on the eve of a day where most are merry and light...she drifted off to sleep. Her pillow case damp from tears slowly streaming from eyes now heavy and closed in defeat.

 

As she began to enter realms and places only we know of in our sleep...she felt a benevolent being...a gentle and kind presence...asking her of where do her tears derive from?

 

Without feeling silly about answering into the air around her...not a human to be seen...she poured out her heart honestly...as she always did...by answering, “Because I fear no matter how long I give...no matter how much I love...I, myself, am unloveable.”

 

Drifting what seemed like in a vast space of nothingness, the benevolent being asked her, “Why? Why do you feel you are unloveable”. And with that she began to spill her hearts heaviness out into the vast nothingness...her words dissipating the moment they left her lips...as if nothing that was not of absolute truth could exist...

 

Those words were explanations of how many rejections...how many people saw bad in her when she was only trying to do good...how many people stuck around...took from her...even acted as if they liked her...only to in the end, leave her...talk negatively of her...betray her...use her...and never truly understand or know her.

 

The benevolent being asked her if she would be willing to remember three instances where this seemed true to her. She quickly agreed, knowing she would be able to recount in complete detail at least three of them...they were her daily companions...these instances of injustice and hurt.

 

She began to tell her stories...of how this person said she was this...after all she did was give that...and this person took so much and turned their back...and how this person whom she truly trusted and was nothing but kind to... spoke untruths of her based on what, she could never fully understand.

 

The benevolent being did not interrupt...and waited until there was nothing more she had to say about the three examples he had asked her to give.

 

He then gently and with the utmost compassion said, “ My dear, I would have to completely disagree with you. It seems to me you are loved the most anyone can be loved. For you have been given the greatest gift a human can be given. The chance to learn self- love. And not only have you been given that gift once but you have just shared three times you have received this. There is no greater love than what you have just shared with me in your experiences.”

 

In what seemed like an instant, the woman felt her heart break all over again. How could this being...in which she knew was good and filled with love...hurt her once again after she had just shared her most vulnerable wounds with him?

 

In what could only be heard as a whisper, simply because her gut was so tight...as if she had just received a most powerful blow...she replied, “I am confused. How could I learn self -love through more than three people choosing not to love me. It is just one rejection after the other to carry. And it would only make sense that it would be a deeper whole dug each time...one that becomes impossible to climb out of. Would it not make sense that if I were to learn self- love...it would come through people actually loving me?”

 

Again, the benevolent being answered in the most gentle and kind way possible, “ It would seem that way, yes. But that is the lie you tell yourselves and believe whole heartedly. With each rejection, you have been given a choice. Self -love is deeper than someone choosing not to love you. Self -love is not dependent on a person choosing that you are approved. Look at how fickle and in fear everyone is. If self-love were dependent on that...it would have the foundation of a house of cards. And humans have not come to the place to understand self-love, much less love. Most of them choose to love someone based off false projections, to fulfill their own needs...that is why love comes and it goes with you all.

Self love is the river that flows underneath the ground. If you can get to that, underneath the rejection, you have truly found it. But you have to choose this. If you find it above the ground...on the surface...you have only found its replica. Only the lucky few know to look beneath and when they do, they find a current that is a most powerful current. And every time from that time forward whenever they are met with rejection, betrayal, judgement, gossip and lies, they know to look beneath these things. To fall into that current in surrender...baptized in this holy water...they will come up born again. Renewed. As long as you are breathing,  you will never be able to control another person’s fear. And it is fear that causes people to choose rejection, betrayal, all the things you have encountered. When someone is not willing to give another chance, or mercy, or compassion, this is them alone...their story...not yours. What is yours is the gift you have been given...to from this point forward...when you are faced with that which hurts you...you have a choice...will you stay on the surface and feel the pain like hot coals thrown on you from another, burning your flesh and heart...or will you go beneath...to the river that flows...will you wade into it...gently fall back in surrender...and let it wash away the burning coals in the form of another’s judgments? Will you let it carry you along...to peaceful shores...where you can once again set your feet on ground and go on...to love again?”

 

The woman, though she could not fully grasp the magnitude of what she had just been told, knew it to be true. She could feel it in the deepest parts of her being...

 

And just as her human, doubtful heart began to form another response on her lips...he was gone. She was left in the vast space of nothingness...drifting...silent...letting the words spoken to her sink in...she knew she would wake up a different person...if she could truly accept this to be true. She began to pray...that what she had just felt and heard would rise up within her...beneath the rejection and the pain...enough to help her push off the many coats of shame...placed on her from others...or coats she had willingly taken and placed upon herself. One by one...she began to remove the heavy layers, until her heart began to feel light again...like that of a child. The heart of the girl she was starting to be able to remember with each moment passing.

 

Slowly she began to let go...let go and drift into a deeper place...where dreams are conceived...knowing that this Christmas...she had truly received the greatest gift all...

True Love.

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

• Profound and beautifully written.

  Michael 2 months ago flg

• I have tears. Thank you for this beautiful piece of writing.

  Leslie 2 months ago flg

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