May = Hope

I headed out to the countryside over the weekend to take a break from London.  To get some fresh air.  To clear my head and to have some space to make some decisions.  And to enjoy signs of spring – even though it hasn’t felt spring like that clearly has not stopped the flowers!

I also took a half day off of work on Friday to get my haircut.  I’ve often thought that getting a hair cut when you have a lot of personal things going on is a dangerous prospect – I have done some radical things like shave my hair off when I have felt in turmoil!  That said, it had been since November since I had seen Charlie or Lea – my fantastic stylists.  I think I’ve been avoiding them because with all the triathlon training I sometimes think “what is the point” – I mean my hair is usually up in a ponytail, including at work (I head to the office straight from the gym).  Anyway, it was a welcome visit.  Charlie is always full of wisdom and his thoughts always help me to remember to enjoy life and smell the roses. 

Charlie posted the passage below on his Facebook page yesterday.  He is quite a spiritual guy.  But did he realise that the passage would speak volumes to me?  I bet he would say “of course I did, it is in the stars darling!”

Holding On

If you’re feeling like you’re “at the end of your rope,” then you’re right where God wants you.  The problem is that we tend to hold onto the rope… when we should be grabbing hold of our faith in God.  So holding onto God, trusting Him, means “letting go.”  Don’t believe me?  Here’s an example:

There was a mountain climber who desperately wanted to conquer the Aconcagua and began climbing it after years of preparation.  But, he wanted the glory to himself, so he went up alone.  He started climbing and it became later and later.  He didn’t prepare for camping, so he decided to keep going.  Soon it grew very dark… 

Night fell with heaviness at a very high altitude.  Visibility was zero.  Everything was black.  There was no moon and the stars were covered by clouds.  As he was climbing a ridge at about 100 meters from the top, he slipped and fell.  Falling rapidly, he could only see blotches of darkness that passed.  He felt a terrible sensation of being sucked in by gravity…

He kept falling… and in those anguishing moments, good and bad memories passed through his mind.  He certainly thought he would die.  But then he felt a jolt that almost tore him in half.  YES!!  Like any good climber he had staked himself with a long rope tied to his waist. 

In those moments of stillness, suspended in the air, he had no other choice but to shout “HELP ME GOD! HELP ME!” 

God replied, “Do you REALLY think that I can save you?” 

“OF COURSE, MY GOD!” 

“Then let go of the rope that is holding you up,” God said.

There was another moment of silence and stillness.  The man gripped the rope even tighter. The rescue team says that the next day they found a frozen mountain climber…

…hanging strongly to a rope… TWO FEET OFF THE GROUND.

(source unknown)

Charlie’s words

“This week the Moon turns the corner, leaving Scorpio, a place where there is a lot of imagined fears, then enters Sagitarrius, the sign of God’s grace and hope.  You may have felt these fears and stresses over the weekend.”

My reflection

I have been confused, and upset, about many things in the past few weeks.  I have felt like I was living through a swirl of emotions, not all of them pleasant. 

Rather than focus on the negative, and the fears, I am choosing to focus on hope.  I will be making my tough decisions with hope as my backdrop.

Side note:  I also cut about 6 inches off of my hair on Friday.  I feel lighter already!

One response to “May = Hope”

  1. I totally believe that. May=Hope.  A couple of years ago I watched A Band of Brothers. We watched it all on about a week and a half and were so moved by the sacrifices these mean made for our country and by all they went through during the war. But after the film was over there was a short part that talked about what each of the soldiers did after the war.  The went on to marry, have kids, become senators, business owners and a hundred other things.  In the end, the war, which would seem to be such an enormous thing was just a blip on the radar of their lives.  This changed my whole attitude about life.  If these dramatic events were just a blip on their radar, my hard time can be overcome and better days are surely on the horizon.

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