Rippling Evergreen

I gradually watch the leaves change color, fall to the floor and bloom once more. I sit in admiration, closely analyzing the time lapse of the seasons before me: nature’s way of removing the old in order to welcome the new; a process so simple, yet so complex. Can’t the same be said about life itself? How everything has a time and place. How nothing is permanent. How change is inevitable. How everything has a season.

There are moments, however, when I feel as though I’m an evergreen tree surrounded by autumn foliage.

I end up at another temporary resting place, with the sensation of what must feel like to be a mannequin: stuck behind glass as I ponder behind a window display, emanating a standstill energy on my side while people hustle and bustle on the opposite side. My eyes are suddenly intrigued with curiosity and wonder as they spot a trail of fallen polaroid photos with each passerby. Like withered leaves detach from trees, so do the memories that slip away and fall from these anonymous human beings. Falling smoothly onto the floor like pieces into place, forming complete images of a past that is evidently unknown to me. People trample over these portraits as an animal stampede in a South African jungle, going unnoticed as to what lies beneath their feet. What was once sitting safely in pockets of clothing, is now touching cold stone beneath the soles of shoes. I observe them with an irrational feeling of envy, in contrast to a sudden empathetic nature that overwhelms me as I look upon those whose memories within the 4×3 polaroids that do not fall; an unspoken understanding that causes my eyes to well up and heart to sympathize.

There are individuals who allow new memories to form just as fast as they allow old ones to disintegrate. “Don’t live in the past” they say, heartlessly to those who do, transmitting the message in an unsympathetic dialogue. Ignoring the blockage that they have placed inside their own hearts. Their soul grows colder like a sunset on a winter’s night. Their heart strings pull, stretch and weaken with every soul that intersects with their trajectory soul path. The memories that are encrypted in these polaroid photos are simply too painful for them to revisit, so they decide to save face and emit a false persona. What about those that carry the past with them, refusing to leave it behind? The polar opposite for those whose polaroid photos continue to stick stronger than adhesive, haunting them inside their abyssal mind. The journey of the unknown frightens them and the words, “it’s familiar” are painfully echoed back in silence.

I’m quickly transported to what seems to be the gallery of my life. With each turn of a corner, I’m met with fragments of my shattered past. How could something that was once so painful, turn into a beautiful work of art? As I continue on, my eyes are suddenly locked onto this intricate and reflective painting that captivates me longer than I would have expect it to. It hangs there on the museum wall, inclined vertically as if carrying the burden of a chaotic heart. Quietly in thought, I decide to exit this historic concrete structure of my past and open the doors to a new world, only to be greeted by an explosive rain storm as it forcefully meets the pavement floor.

Lifting my face upwards towards the dimly lit sky, I’m submerged by an implausible feeling that everyone around me is walking on uncharted territory, embracing change while I succumb to the familiar depths of my own run down past. As I wait for a cab to save me from this downpour, I momentarily look down at the glossy paved sidewalk. What I thought and had always imagined to be a smooth and paved walkway, had actually always been a cobblestone alleyway. The cracks and spaces in between each rock with it’s weary textured path, lay bare all of my failures, past mistakes, and periods of tribulation.

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If you’re anything like me, you’ve learned the fallacy of the phrase “time heals all”. A cliché statement that is simply no more than a band-aid placed on a wound that continues to bleed. If you’re anything like me, you’ve learned that the memories don’t entirely fade and that they linger in places where they were once created. People who change or outgrow one another. People whom you can no longer decipher. People who you thought would be in your life. All these snippets and flashes of memories that happen to be jumbled up together in your mind like an unfinished puzzle piece set. You’ve experienced days when looking back was nothing more than a mere simple reflection. Yet you’ve also experienced days when a song, a fragrance, or just a significant place triggered a tsunami of memories that overwhelmed you with mixed emotions. If you’re anything like me, you’ve felt these raw unfiltered sentiments and how they tried to define your future. BUT, if you’re anything like me, you’ve stood up time and time again with the scars embedded on your skin from your own personal cobble stone road. The scars that remind you how far you’ve walked and not the number of times you’ve fallen down.

Life is full of unprecedented uncertainties…

We are all perfectly imperfect and there is nothing wrong with the feelings we experience. We owe it to ourselves to give our emotions the space they need to breathe and pass naturally. We learn, we grow, and sometimes we change. This year I learned the difference between thinking about the past and living in it, how life is full of unprecedented uncertainties. It’s one thing for us to question God, it’s another for God to have questions for us. He’s trying to get us to see something. Where you stand determines what you see, and what you see determines what you do. Just because something doesn’t make sense now, doesn’t mean it never will. It may mean you have not gotten to the place, space, or season in your life where God makes sense out of it. Life is lived forward, but only understood backwards. If we reflect objectively, I believe we’ll have to honestly admit that there were some things in our past that we did not understand, did not value, did not make sense to us, and did not realize were damaging. Now when we look back in retrospect, we gain respect for that season.

Maybe you still feel like an evergreen tree, standing in the midst of uncertainty, surrounded by ever-changing foliage. Maybe you still count the number of scars on your skin like the cracked cobble stones of your past, or maybe you’ve had to move on without closure. Maybe there are times when you don’t understand what God is doing, because you’re not seeing what God is seeing and you’re not standing where God is standing. Maybe you don’t need what you think you need. It’s that season where God separates and differentiates between what you think you need and what you actually need. You’ve got two options – to focus on the uncertainty of it or the certainty of Him. Pain exists to give rise to joy, for in darkness faith grows.

As for me?

I finally manage to flag down a taxi driver in the middle of this monsoon. I eagerly climb inside the vehicle and sit there while the driver sets the course for a new beginning into the great unknown. I slowly turn my attention from the driver to the tinted window located on the right side of me. Streams of raindrops create an obscure outline of the historical gallery that I exited from just a little while ago. I gently place the side of my head against the window and look forward as the taxi driver begins to steer me away from the bustling noises and images within the rear view mirror. I’ve learned to see things from a different perspective. The thing I thought was destroying me was the thing God was using to develop me. This principle of perspective helps me manage these seasons in wisdom for days to come. I arrive at a new destination with tangible peace, assurance, understanding, and beauty. The warmth of the sun touches my face as it peeks from behind the heavy dark blue clouds that previously hovered above me. Joyful tears begin to run down my rose colored cheeks as I see an evergreen tree from afar. I am reminded that His love is eternal and that He knows me far better than I know myself. I am reminded how God has helped me walk through ambiguity, not by giving me certainty about it – but by giving me certainty about Him.