Paradise.

I’ve been there once. I actually took up residence there for approximately three months during what can only be described as one of the most random chapters of my life. Unfortunately though and much to my dismay, it wasn’t filled with green grass and pretty girls like Guns and Roses had promised me. It was actually quite dull and brown due to a forest fire that had swept through some months prior. Things were still ashy, they were hard and cold in appearance. The sun and water hadn’t yet repaired the damage to the things were living. Apparently, it takes time for that kind of healing to occur.

My time in paradise seems to relate a lot to matters of the heart. Not just mine I am sure as I have witnessed the toll of heart fires on more than on occasion. I have come to believe that each of us has our own paradise lingering inside. When we are young, it is easy to access through our imagination and our hope and our faith. As we grow, it seems paradise transforms from a place of hope in the future to an old memory. It is a space we once lived in that was filled with an overwhelming sense of contentment and joy. It was a feeling of love at first sight. It was a slow walk blissful walk outside with another’s warm hand in ours. It was a word of kindness. It was a dance. It was a laugh. It was a kiss. A hug. A touch. A smile. However, like the paradise I lived in, sometimes that paradisiac space we love and feel safe in gets burned from time to time; and like wildfires, once the flame is lit it’s hard to know how stop and control the unpredictable path.

I cannot lie. I, like so many others my heart has entangled with have let the wildfires of my heart change me, burn me, damage me, turn me hard, brown, gray and ashy. In an effort to control the damage and prevent new fires we seem to build walls in order to try and protect what we have left. We have dug trenches. We have stopped ourselves from believing that love is real or that paradise ever even existed. All of this work and effort only to ultimately discover that fires can still happen within the confines of the walls we painstakingly composed.

This morning, as I was sitting and brewing in the shadows of my own heart I heard a whisper. The whisper of words to remind me that just because a wildfire took place, doesn’t give anyone permission to deny the fact that pre-fire paradise and it’s beauty ever existed. It did. There is no possible way to do deny the truth in that.

So as I work to navigate my way out of the shadows that have been weighing so heavy on me, I find myself praying to be more like the city of paradise: to not deny the truth of love and its existence nor to ignore the hope of complete restoration and faith in a future. We will only get out what we put in. We must remain steadfast in our efforts in order to reap the restoration we are starving for. Our hearts cannot be healed if we refuse the sun.  The city of paradise never put it’s guard up. It didn’t change. The sun still came out every day and the water kept running through the Feather River. The gold flecks still shone like freckles over the lava rocks. The rain still fell. The trees never stopped their efforts to grow. Ultimately it is clear that the joy of it’s previous beauty is what makes it worth waiting for, it’s what always made the fires worth enduring. For this I will take joy in my hope for the future and pride in my naivety in that I know I will never stop trying for the sake of love.

If you ever find yourself sitting where I am, I hope you can find the peace you crave. I hope you can forgive yourself and others so that the weight of hurt doesn’t hinder your ability to keep dreaming. I hope you don’t let the world make you hard and I hope you never lose hope. I hope you will grow with me as I attempt to rest in gratitude for each of the fires as there is always the promise that new beauty will always come from old ashes.  And above all else, I hope you stay you.

“And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” – Galatians 6:9 NKJV