Forces of Nature

People have to do hard things all the time. 

We have to make choices and change,

All while greeting challenges head on, unwavering.  

 

When we’re not going through challenges,

It’s easy to recline and think, “Wow, I did that”. 

It’s easy to think that people in those hard times 

Don’t want to be happy,

Or aren’t trying hard enough. 

It is easy to become nearsighted and entitled. 

I’m guilty of that. 

 

Sometimes, for me, it takes my foundation shaking,

Or my entire home crumbling to the ground for me to realize that I am not a cornerstone. 

I am not the axis. 

I am not a center beam. 

 

That the security I thought I had wasn’t secure after all, 

Because my trust was not placed in something secure. 

The identity that I created melted away in its first contact with fire. 

 

Gold is purified with fire. 

Made more beautiful and true. 

Facades disappear.  

 

I had lost what had defined me. 

Disillusioned my purpose.

 

It is in these moments of raw loneliness

When I realize my insignificance. 

Realize how minute and replaceable I am. 

The catch is that no one is replaceable, so if my definition could be stripped away that quickly, then it was never who I was. 

 

I am guilty of defining myself based on my career, 

Of defining myself based on my accomplishments and my chapter in life,

Of pushing and clawing until I get what I want just to find out it’s not what I need,

Of building this skyscraper of an identity and trying to hold it all up without faltering. 

 

When in reality, I’m not strong enough. 

What I am working so hard to build is not sustainable. 

 

If this skyscraper I'm building is meant to crumble it will crumble, Regardless of the panicking patron floundering beneath it. 

If my identity can melt away like wax when fires blaze, then it was not truly who I was. 

 

Maybe these earthquakes and wildfires of the soul are meant to create that sense of urgency in us. 

Maybe they’re meant to make us get goosebumps, breathe faster, and run. 

Run away from the demolition and smoke of tumbling egos and burning facades. 

Straight into the light. 

 

Where we’re confronted. 

Where we learn that the skyscraper we thought we built was never actually ours. 

That we were never holding it up. 

That it was never what we really needed. 

 

And here, even though we escaped the earthquakes and wildfires, and demolition,

perhaps this disaster of illumination is even more terrifying, 

because it admits a lack of control. 

It admits weakness, 

Powerlessness. 

Vulnerability.

Dependence. 

 

It’s just you. 

Raw and weary. 

Clinging to whoever or whatever will stabilize you. 

 

And that’s the beauty of the chaos. 

It’s that eye of the hurricane. 

The peace in the midst of the storm.

 

When you realize that your purpose is not to orchestrate,

To sprint,

To run,

Or to crawl.

 

It’s to hold on. 

 

It’s where you find that peace and rejuvenation so that you can face the next part of the storm head on. 

 

It's when you look upon the demolition of a dream

And when you realize that your world can crash 

And burn to ashes and turn to rubble,

But you can still stand. 

 

In this moment you realize how all of this

and all we can build will never define us. 

It can never define me. 

 

Earthquakes will come. 

Wildfires will rage. 

Nature will always take its course.  

But I will not crumble. 

 

Because this time, 

I won’t prematurely build. 

I won’t run myself ragged toward an ever extending finish line. 

I will hold on

To the hand of the one who directs my path,

Knows my dreams,

Shelters me through disasters, 

And rebuilds with me after the storm. 

 

So no, 

I will not crumble, 

Because my foundation

And my identity

Comes from God and God alone.