Anyway...

One Fall, I visited an old country chapel in the middle of Cade's Cove, TN. This historic place was always spiritual ground for me. The people who lived there and built little farms in the clay had buried more than one small child beneath the soil behind the chapel. Women died in childbirth and the fever took many lives. They planted fields, fertilized with their own blood, sweat and tears.... only to have storms wipe out the entire crop. They knew the pain of hunger, the discomfort of tattered shoes, yet, somehow these people kept trying to make the best of their lives. I'm sure they struggled, but they didn't give up.

The chapel doors were wide open, it was a beautiful afternoon. I walked inside and took a seat in an old rickety pew near the front of the little sanctuary, where for hundreds of years, believers had met to worship God. It was not long until I noticed a fluttering of two Sparrows who had somehow flown into the chapel, but did not know how to get back out. They flew against the windows, against the ceiling, desperate to break free of their prison and reach the open sky. I can only assume they were a mated pair as one was male and the other female. They would ram their little featherweight bodies against immoveable obstacles repeatedly- I was sure they were killing themselves for the effort. After several failed attempts to gently capture them and set them free, I took my place on the pew again- helpless to assist them. However, as the sun began to set, light poured in through the open doors. It was only then that the birds knew what to do. They followed the light and emerged victoriously into the freshness of evening air.

My life has been quite challenging on several levels. I've never felt so alone or helpless. Due to our circumstances, my man is distant and has slipped into a dark place where I cannot reach him. He has tried for weeks to find work- no luck. Unemployed, he feels useless and wasted. I don't know how to bring him back into my world and honestly, it hurts to try. I cannot need him at this time, because he has little to give.
Sometimes, I feel like a tiny sparrow beating against a ceiling that will never let me get any higher or go any further. I'm not getting any younger, but I'm not giving up. I'm looking devastation in the eye and staring it down. I still have a fool's hope that things are going to get better.

Perhaps the truest measure of who we are is not how high or far we go in life, but how consistently we try to get there and how kind we are in the process. Some of us will try, succeed and be celebrated, but many will try and never realize the dreams that existed in us since our first remembrances. Some of the old ones sit pretty on fat retirements while others who worked just as hard lay in nursing homes with bitterness and disappointment, having lost what they loved most and wallowing in regret. We cannot know why this is, only God sees the reason. But, we have to try. When I heard the song 'Anyway' by Martina Mcbride I cried over it because it's exactly where I am and how I feel.

I don't know what great dreams, what passions beat within your chest. Failure to accomplish set goals is not always a reflection on the individual. We are all limited by factors such as funding, distance, time, circumstances, and the fact that life is short. If you're like me, you've lain awake many a night contemplating things and forging ideas of how to achieve your goals. We all have obstacles to overcome- this is not entirely bad. I believe challenge makes us stronger. Wish I could say with all certainty that you will see your dreams come to life. What I can say is don't give up hope and don't ever go down easy.

I still hope that somehow the light will shine for me...