Flying Into An Empty Sky

Sometimes, when it gets quiet inside and outside of me, I look back on a lifetime of disappointments, heartbreaks, missteps, and other harsh realities.

I am growing but it feels like it is into an empty sky. What good is flying freer than the wind if it is through a sky that never seems to end. ~Alexi Helligar

And I cannot help but wonder what is the point of all my arduous, awful experiences?! What’s the point of all my growth?!

And I contemplate the real and imagined possibilities lost to me yesterday and so long ago.

There’s no doubt that I’m wiser and I’m stronger for my painful experiences. And that’s good.

But to what end if getting older limits any future possibilities to use my hard-won wisdom and strength?

Call to action: When new possibilities are limited or the sky stays empty, how do YOU endure?

Check out this related post: Where Did Wonderful Go?!

8 thoughts on “Flying Into An Empty Sky”

  1. Not long ago

    I pledged to seek no more to close relate
    Nor serve my time as Sisyphus stooped in Hades did
    I had grown tired of the rocks I sought to overthrow
    And promised never to roll the stone that was my soul

    But I cannot say farewell to my lust for love
    I cannot still the lark that wings my breast
    Oh, how I still long to lay my weary head
    Upon the delicate pillow of his chest
    And find relief from the weight
    Of thirty-two waiting years

    And I cannot leave my need to close relate
    Or the dream of us together in a braid
    I cannot give up on my mate, and so
    I jack by back against the jagged stone
    And push it up the hill — up — up
    All for one more day of hope

    Since every morning star from Hades rises
    Someday I will awaken with my fated one and
    We will ride in the fiery chariot of the sun
    And like the noon of a summer day nourish
    The dark spaces in one another’s heart with love

    And when at eve we step from our gilded car
    And the dim moonless dusk droops to cover us
    I will forever call his soul and
    He will forever call my soul
    Home — Home — Home …

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  2. Although new possibilities seem limited, we should always keep trying to soar. I am reminded of the scripture that goes like this: “Hope is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Therefore. we should soar like the eagle and look for all the possibilities that might come our way.

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  3. I must agree with the Eagle. There is satisfaction in passing on hard-won wisdom and strength to a young person. Yes, one can feel that after a certain age growth seems continuous, but almost pointless. Perhaps this feeling is due to life seeming to repeat itself. One learns lessons and experiences growth, only to come in contact with the same or similar challenges. How growth is useful is that it gives perspective on life. A twenty year old experiences a failed examination, a breakup or the loss of a part time job as the end of the world. As one ages and grows in vision, one sees that these hills and valleys are a part of the journey.

    There are times when it all seems exhausting and endless, but without this we loose our sense of being.

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  4. A decade or so ago, a friend sustained burns on her body that completely disfigured her after, as a young mother. She rescued her three children from the burning car they had been in. Her husband divorced her and took their daughter, refusing to let her be with her mother. My friend ran back to her parent’s home for solace, comfort and safety for her and her two sons. She remains unmarried – avoided by virtually all, like a leper among us.

    So tight has her heart been twisted and tied into a knot that she has no idea how to loosen it and live again. She has no idea why her prayers (for life and life abundantly!) are not answered. She cannot bear the pain of thinking about whom and what she has lost so desperately holds on, night after night, passing through each day, waiting for the release death will bring and the restoration of her youth and all that the locusts have eaten and all that the devourer has stolen that divine life eternal will bring.

    How to endure the suffering of the hopelessness that comes from devastating losses that cannot be restored short of a divine miracle – and the utter death-knell of hearing nothing from God but silence in response to your screams in agonizing pain?

    Further, what is the point of enduring more of that?

    AS A WITNESS.

    God wants to know what is in the hearts of men.

    Reply
    • Thank you DVRH for sharing your friend’s story. As I read your words, I become filled with immense sadness and sorrow. Honestly, I do not know what is the point of enduring more of that. But if there is one strand of good in this, it is this: You are a true friend. A friend who apparently has had the strength to stand with her in the “fire.”

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