No looking back in the rear view mirror

 Wow, I haven't written in quite a long time. My how life changes so quickly, yet so slowly at the same time.  I'm somewhere no longer recognizable from where I was before. A completely different person through the hardships and struggles I have been through since.  But that's okay, albeit hard circumstances left me in a different place it has helped me grow.  Sometimes that growth looked different in stages and sometimes like the wilted flower post was barely survived at all...or maybe even a death to be reborn.  I've often come back to the idea of the phoenix bird.  It rises from the ashes and is reborn, never knocking it completely down. Getting stronger in not only body but mind and soul depending on what it's been through.  Would I go through it all over again?  I'm at a point of saying yes because looking at where I was then and now...is drastically different.  But look how far I've come.  Maybe instead of focusing on how broken I was or am I need to be focusing on looking forward to what now.  I definitely don't want to be stuck where I was, nor do I want to any longer take my mind back only to spiral down.  No looking in the rear view mirror! Only looking ahead to what now.  

Wilted Flower

Isaiah 58

11 The Lord will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought, And strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. 12 Those from among you Shall build the old waste places; You shall raise up the foundations of many generations; And you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, The Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.

Your flower has wilted;
dry, parched and weighted under pressure.
All alone and vulnerable;
scared, unprotected and persecuted.

Trying to draw on the strength in the Son;

being crushed, tired, and broken.

Surroundings just keep surmounting as a high mountain;

desperately trying to hold on, losing the battle.

Drowning, struggling to breath;

coughing, choking, sputtering, and trying to find the surface.

Still wanting to rise with the Glory of the Son;

not knowing how to get back to that place that seems so far away.

Still I hope in You;

I know Your ways are higher, Your will is best.

Then in the perfect timing You show Your grace;

Better than I would’ve perceived or imagined.

That is how You work, O lord;

I only need to be patient and believe.