Best Friends (1)
Madison and adison grew up together. In their younger years you would never see one without the other. Exploring life, discovering new concepts, supporting each other during hardships, observing nature, unpacking relationships, all the while experiencing the innocence of youth fade away.
Madison and adison began to drift apart. The separation began slowly. Madison began to think that adison wasn’t all that. Conflicts came about and Madison decided she should move on without her best friend. It wasn’t a conscious decision but a necessary one. Madison needed to find out who she was. What was inside her? What was her purpose? She left the safe landscape of her simple childhood.
Adison waited. Her life felt incomplete, but she had all hope that Madison someday would return.
Madison explored this world with joyful expectation. In the beginning she felt free, independent, unstoppable at times. She became a teacher, a wife, and a mother, in that order. And then something seemed to shift.
Before becoming a mother, Madison had some small setbacks, some minor storms with a little flooding, some downed power lines, and uprooted trees. This new weather pattern of parenting felt unsettling. Responsibility of a beautiful baby was a whole new adventure. Madison stayed resilient, buying raingear and sandbags to help weather the storms. There was no reason to believe she didn’t have the skills, training, and love to succeed in this new season of storms.
With each additional tidal wave, Madison recognized she was losing strength. Depression, physical pain, and strained relations became consuming. When the darkness settled deep, she began crying out. In her despair, a powerful voice calmed the seas with this message…” You are my beloved… I know you can’t feel it right now but stick with Me and I promise someday you will be able to accept this Truth”.
Along with the message, that powerful Entity gave Madison a Boat.
The Boat began to help Madison regain strength. The hurricanes and tsunamis remained in the waters, but the Boat provided assurance that she was protected and that there is always a way to safety. Sometimes the Boat could stay afloat in the storm, sometimes the Boat moved away from the tornado and waited patiently for the winds to settle, sometimes the Boat changed gulf streams and avoided the 100 mph winds. The Boat couldn’t stop the storms, but it did allow Madison the stability to stay afloat.
As Madison grew in age, so did her gratitude for the Boat. Without the security of the Boat, storms would cause fear. Madison’s mind would sit in worry, denial, blame or shame. Since the Boat arrived those defense mechanisms were revealed for the frauds they were. They created more difficulties, more chaos, more pain. The Boat showed Madison that she could weather any storm if she trusted the Boat and calmly remained steady in the Boat.
One beautiful fall day, the blue sky and green grass reflected off the calm water like a mirror. Madison was relaxing in her Boat and her heart was filled with joy, gratitude, and hope. Out of the corner of her eye on the shore she noticed a little girl looking her way. Adison hadn’t aged, she looked the same. She was playing just like she was the day Madison left. The only difference in adison was her body language carried a sadness, a longing.
Madison felt an intense urge to share all that she had learned with adison. Initially Madison wanted to swim to her, but she was concerned about how this conversation would go. How will Adison respond? Will she be mad that she was left behind? Will she experience jealousy because it appears her life may have never developed? What will she think of all my mistakes? Do I owe her an apology? Has she remained alone this whole time?
Madison remembered the Boat! She fervently paddled over to shore and greeted adison as she waited with curiosity. Their embrace was one like no other hug ever felt. The joy of the reunion brought tears of happiness. Madison never understood the void that occurred in her when she left adison all those years ago. A piece of Madison’s heart began to heal. She never even knew it was wounded.
When Madison left the shore on that day, she was the only person in the Boat. Madison, adison, and the Boat would never be separated again. Storms will continue, but the 3 of them are united in a bond of Love that no human can separate.
Have you embraced a return to your child self?
At some point during our life, our ego, our false self takes control, and we leave our innocent true self behind. When life gets to the point when our ego can go no further, if invited, God will come in and help us return to our true self. When we can reach back to our younger self without judgement… embracing all our brokenness, letting go of any guilt, shame or blame and deeply love our true self, we can then truly love others as we love ourselves.