It Takes Heart

Has there ever been a website that you just don't log on to, or a book or closet door you don't open, because you already know you don't want to face what would pop up if you did? Well, www.blogspot... has certainly not been typed into my URL bar for quite some time-purposefully. And, like a typical miracle, a crazy circumstance of random events came along that persuaded me to end my 6 month hiatus and set another milemarker. The location of the miracle: Gainesville, Florida. I know- not exactly the Holy Land, right? But with the on-going battle I've had with that city it may as well have been the Gaza Strip itself. Gainesville has gone from a place I'd never visited, to a place I visited every month, to a place I avoided by any and all costs. The sight of orange and blue together literally made me sick to my stomach.

See the problem with avoiding things is that, just like trying not to open that door, or not logging on to that website, eventually there will be something you MUST find in the spot you were trying to run away from. I was blessed with a final interview for the Teach for America corps and of course, what was the closest interview location I could attend? Gator Nation. They say God has a sense of humor - His award from me would be Most Outstanding Stand-up Comic. So try as I did to avoid that place of fond memories turned to flashing nightmares, I found myself passing the 75 North Williston exit at around 5:10pm Sunday afternoon. It turns out, there was some enCOURAGEment waiting for me in Gainesville. Had I avoided that trip, I would have never been inspired by the brilliant mind of Hill Harper. He told the audience in his dynamic address not to let F.alse E.vidence A.ppearing R.eal allow us to stop planning, achieving or stop dreaming. My FEAR was of a memory, and of circumstances that may happen, or conversations I might have to have if a certain topic popped up. Like a career xenophobic, I imagined the worst case scenarios in my mind and tried to avoid the unknown at all costs. And thankfully, I was proven wrong. It turns out, Gainesville is a great place for me to be. Surrounded by friends and phamily, I couldn't help but smile. I hadn't felt that relaxed and at ease in so long. Imagine!- it took so much courage for me to just be happy.

I learned from Mr. Harper last night that 'courage' comes from the Latin word cor- meaning 'heart.' It's funny that matters of the heart were my source of fear-and yet the very place that I tried to avoid was where I would need to go and find my courage. I guess the moral of the story is to face your FEARs, as they don't really exist anyway. And one day, sooner more likely than later, you'll have to go back to that place of heartache or pain and in it, you WILL find joy. If a challenge or situation doesn't kill you, it will stay on your mind for months until you have rationalized, analyzed, discussed with friends and your inner voice, prayed over, sung about, written about, and acted like you forgot about it and don't care until one day- you're over it. And you will have a milemarker on your roadmap of life. If you had a heart to get broken, in it you have the COURAGE to heal.

In every loss there's a gain/there's a heal for every pain/sometimes it comes in a friend/or even just trying again/I've felt the struggle with trying to forget all of the smiling/ that turned quickly to frowns and tissue boxes for crying/but don't despair or lose hope/for there is always a rope/ or helping hand to pull you out of the slump onto a slope/head for victory please/and start with prayer on your knees/I promise myself and to you that eventually we'll pull through/and we'll look back at the date and wonder how time ran away/wonder when we moved on and got over/whatever struggle we faced/I assure me and my reader/there is nothing to fear/we have the Word and our courage/a friend and their listening ear/we have hope for the future/and blessings to face a new day/there is always resistance/but t'ward progress, that's the only way