I've learned that the world is full beauty. But from beauty also comes a realm of darkness.
As I arrived home the other evening following a lengthy day including voice lessons, treatment, church choir, and a rehearsal for singing in church on Sunday it was growing late, but I have certainly come home much later before. The rain beat down on the road, and the streetlights dimly lit a path for passerby's. I always keep the car doors locked- not even out of fear, but out of safety and common sense. As I pulled into my spot, I responded to a friend who texted me asking a simple question, and noticed an email from a professor. Midway through reading this I realized that the car that had driven up the street and pulled up just behind me, but partially beside me had been a car parked out in the street with their headlights on for about three minutes by this point. My instincts heightened, and I became uneasy. I know I made a mistake now, but I pulled out from my home hoping the car wanted my spot, and my paranoia had simply gotten the better of me... the vehicle began to follow me.
Initially it was only down the street, but as I turned, they were there. Then it was every turn- the stoplight. The stopsign I ran. My heart racing like a drum- I called my mother who told me to come home. I had gone from calm to hysterical in two seconds flat. I only pictured the worst in my mind- I only wanted to keep driving- but eventually I would run out of wind... or gas. I had to come home. I began praying, knowing only God could handle this doozy of a terror. I hit a busy intersection, and as I twisted through a yellow light, just making it, he was stopped by the busy traffic in the changing lights. I had made it. Gunning it home- the pain in my chest was unrelenting, but the small whisper that things would be okay was also present.
Earlier that night in choir we had been singing a piece: (Check it out here!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3re8UIqMBA - but ANYWAYS- one of my favorite lines is "When you pass through the waters, I will surround you- when you pass through the floods- they will not sweep o'er. When you walk through the fire you will not be consumed. You are my child, you are so precious to me" It is based on Isaiah 43:107, but it just always brings me so much comfort to think about this. To have that in my head- to have those words pouring forth into my heart... even in my hours of the most terror- it helps me understand things in this world are not forever.
It hurts that I feel anxiety whenever I get out of my car, or whenever I am driving. Or the fact that the next day someone approached my car on the corner at a stoplight and tried to open my locked door. (You better believe I made a trip to the store to stock on pepper spray this morning..) To be out walking, and to become a piece of meat in a males eyes, and be cat called. Sexualized. Shamed. It is a painful experience, and it feels disgraceful, and sometimes leads me to wonder how I could ever be worthy in the eyes of someone else if other people think all these things. Or if someone would want to hurt me.
But that's the problem. In a world of hurt, and distrust- you have to look beyond the pain, and people and things of this world to the greater one to find the peace and beauty for which we so desperately seek.
As I arrived home the other evening following a lengthy day including voice lessons, treatment, church choir, and a rehearsal for singing in church on Sunday it was growing late, but I have certainly come home much later before. The rain beat down on the road, and the streetlights dimly lit a path for passerby's. I always keep the car doors locked- not even out of fear, but out of safety and common sense. As I pulled into my spot, I responded to a friend who texted me asking a simple question, and noticed an email from a professor. Midway through reading this I realized that the car that had driven up the street and pulled up just behind me, but partially beside me had been a car parked out in the street with their headlights on for about three minutes by this point. My instincts heightened, and I became uneasy. I know I made a mistake now, but I pulled out from my home hoping the car wanted my spot, and my paranoia had simply gotten the better of me... the vehicle began to follow me.
Initially it was only down the street, but as I turned, they were there. Then it was every turn- the stoplight. The stopsign I ran. My heart racing like a drum- I called my mother who told me to come home. I had gone from calm to hysterical in two seconds flat. I only pictured the worst in my mind- I only wanted to keep driving- but eventually I would run out of wind... or gas. I had to come home. I began praying, knowing only God could handle this doozy of a terror. I hit a busy intersection, and as I twisted through a yellow light, just making it, he was stopped by the busy traffic in the changing lights. I had made it. Gunning it home- the pain in my chest was unrelenting, but the small whisper that things would be okay was also present.
Earlier that night in choir we had been singing a piece: (Check it out here!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3re8UIqMBA - but ANYWAYS- one of my favorite lines is "When you pass through the waters, I will surround you- when you pass through the floods- they will not sweep o'er. When you walk through the fire you will not be consumed. You are my child, you are so precious to me" It is based on Isaiah 43:107, but it just always brings me so much comfort to think about this. To have that in my head- to have those words pouring forth into my heart... even in my hours of the most terror- it helps me understand things in this world are not forever.
It hurts that I feel anxiety whenever I get out of my car, or whenever I am driving. Or the fact that the next day someone approached my car on the corner at a stoplight and tried to open my locked door. (You better believe I made a trip to the store to stock on pepper spray this morning..) To be out walking, and to become a piece of meat in a males eyes, and be cat called. Sexualized. Shamed. It is a painful experience, and it feels disgraceful, and sometimes leads me to wonder how I could ever be worthy in the eyes of someone else if other people think all these things. Or if someone would want to hurt me.
But that's the problem. In a world of hurt, and distrust- you have to look beyond the pain, and people and things of this world to the greater one to find the peace and beauty for which we so desperately seek.
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