Dear God, I fell.
It wouldn't have been so bad I suppose except it was the second time in as many days. I sat with Grace nursing my wounded knee and shoulder lamenting on the condition of the world in general.
In a moment of silence a thought came to me - "It's not the first time you've fallen, and perhaps not the last time either." I got to thinking about falling. Grace is so good to me to point out things like that.
At first the thoughts didn't progress too well. But I was determined to think it out until it was exhausted. That's another thing that Grace allows me... the time to let all the ideas flow and come to fruition. She nudges me and then just lets me be.
But as most ideas go, the thoughts began to fall into a rhythm of their own and before I knew it myriad ideas of falling crept in upon my consciousness. Only a few held any positive aspects to them. But as I dug deeper I found that most terms weren't all that great.
Of course the first one I would think of was that glorious feeling of falling in love. I fell for you... OMG what a fall to take! Especially when you fall head over heels. It's the only way to do it if you want to do it right.
Day breaks but for some reason night falls. I thought that was odd. Nature has a lot of falling. The tides fall, snow and rain falls, leaves and stars fall. There are, of course, waterfalls. And let's not forget the air pressure and how we hate to see it fall. All the rain it brings falls short of any hope of sunshine for a while.
My thoughts shifted to people after the nature trail. That's where the troubles began to fall into line. All this thought provoking exercise was showing me was that it wasn't as easy as falling off a log to delve into the falling experience.
I always say that people are strange birds. When that came to mind I was reminded of falling in dreams and how you never want to get to the Splat point. On the other hand there was the freedom one could feel in free falling like in skydiving. I always wished I had done that.
But then things started to get ugly as I probed further into the falling realm. If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything. I could have fallen over backwards the first time I ever heard that! But then I had to count the times I had fallen for all manner of stupidity. I felt the redness fill my cheeks as the memories came rushing in.
Yes, I had fallen prey to schemes from many people in my younger days. I had believed the poison that fell from insincere lips. More times than I care to count I took the fall for someone else's behaviour. And I had believed those people who fell all over themselves to make an impression on me. I wasn't too smart back then. At that moment I wished all the falling thoughts would fall away, but to no avail.
Back in the day when I was more resilient I had fallen flat on my face more times than I could count. But every time I fell down, I picked myself up and got on with life. I had my youth to fall back on. And the more that things fell through and I fell behind, the more determined I would be to press onward.
My thinking was that sooner or later things would fall into place. I didn't know how, why or when, but it just seemed that the odds would dictate a better outcome SOMEday. But the fates would fall upon me and I would not know true happiness for a very long time.
I felt my face fall when that thought entered my mind. So I asked myself, "What was your greatest fall?" The answer didn't come soon. But I had been with Grace long enough to know I had to be patient. And so I just sat for a while.
I had lead a truly imperfect life filled with doubts and demons. I fell in with a bad group of people and nearly destroyed myself in the process. To the victor falls the spoils. But I would never know that feeling. My fall from power was of a personal nature. It was the willing relinquishment of any choice I had over my own life that was the hardest part to own up to. I believed I had fallen through the cracks. Happiness just wasn't in the cards I had been dealt.
I had pointed the finger at the world, at You, God. My whining fell on deaf ears most times. I had a falling out with just about every person I ever knew. I couldn't (or wouldn't) believe the things a lot of them had to say to me. Many times they were right. I can see that in all clarity now.
In the end, the responsibility would fall on me for the choices I had made or refused to make. It was as if I were living in a non-waking state, like that feeling you get as you're falling asleep. It was a nowhere land. I had fallen ill so many years before. It was an illness of the soul. The lies I told myself ripped a hole in my soul and at the same time built a wall around it. Nothing could get in, nothing could get out. My darkest hope was that I would just fall off the face of the earth and that would take care of that problem.
But in Your Infinite Compassion You saw fit to help me to change. A flicker of a light fell upon the corner of my eye and I began to hope again for the first time in a very long time. Perhaps I wasn't falling apart after all. My fall into the ways of the world had to be seen for what it was, a mistake. But in the end I would have to come to know my greatest fall of all. That was the hardest one to accept.
These little scrapes will heal. The soreness will go away. But when I look back now, I know I had to do all those things to get to You. I had to take every fall and come out the other end of it. I'm no Icarus. My wings didn't melt because of the sun. But much the same as he, my fall was of my own doing. All along You were there, but I was blind and could not see. From where I sit now I know I have survived the greatest fall of all - my fall from Grace, Your Grace. What else could I possibly fear now? Thank you for believing in me when I couldn't or wouldn't myself.
