The Road to Recovery...

I've always heard that saying, "The road to recovery." I never understood it because I really never had anything to recover from. Or I always thought it was meant in reference to addiction or injury, not to life's valleys.

I think I have finally understood this saying. When a trauma happens or anything in life that permanently alters who you are, there is a "road" that we all must travel down. I am not sure what the destination is. I don't think it is meant to be getting us back to being the same as we were before because if that were true then all we go through in life would be meaningless and just a cruel joke by a higher power. No, I think the destination is to become more than we were. The destination is to take the hurts, the pains, the injuries and to allow them to heal and make us stronger than we ever have been. Well, at least that is what I imagine at the end of my "road to recovery."

I think the hardest part about the road is that often we travel it alone. From the outside, we can look all put back together but on the inside we are still reeling from the damage. No one else can share our exact experience because we all experience things differently. So, while a tragedy may affect many people, each person will have their own road that they must travel. I think part of our humanity yearns so much to just know that someone else has shared in our pain or has known what we have gone through. And God tells us that this is part of the reason we go through tough times. It is alot like the epitome of trickle down economics (not the reality because well, let's face it, in practice, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, but I am not going to digress into a socio-political discussion :) ). You see God comforts us in our times of need so that when we encounter those with hurts and pains, we can be a comfort to them and they can feel God's comfort through us. It is a brilliant idea that we hopefully all realize our part in the great comfort economy.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows." 2 Corinithians 1:3-5

It is so easy to get sucked into the "woe is me" rut and feed ourselves dramatic lies of how our pain is perhaps the worst pain ever endured. It is easy to forget the blessings we encounter every day. It is hard to view the difficulties as blessings to be discovered.

Here's to safe travels down your road...

Until next time,
-C.