All Aboard.

A reflection of life on the move.

As I watched people board the train and patiently wait for their next destination, I felt a familiar feeling in my heart: An affirming and really warm feeling that I always get whenever I see people enter the chapel.

We’re all, in one way or another, aware of your presence God. Of your existence. 

What else could it be that has the power to move beings as selfish and as weak as we are to try again every single day? I don’t know if I could do what I do everyday… as small as it is… if I only did it for myself. I couldn't spend hours of studying or even years of being in school if it weren't for a future I hope to prepare for. I'll give up a certain good because I know there is something greater at hand. No one waits patiently on the train or better yet waiting for the next train to come and get to where they need to be for themselves alone. There is something greater that moves us. 

We all believe in someone greater than ourselves. We all make the sacrifices necessary for reasons beyond ourselves. We all live for reasons outside ourselves. 

I guess the hard part is trusting in all that you tell us and all that you promise us. Hoping in the things that we cannot see. Lord, if you haven’t noticed, we tend to hurt each other here. We break promises after promises to one another. We allow our unbridled passions to rule over us and undo the good of your creation. We say one thing and mean it, but immediately take it back the next moment.We break each other’s trusts. We hurt one another. We steal. We lie. We kill. We hurt! With all of our limitations, Lord, how are we to trust? How are our broken hearts and jaded minds supposed to trust? 

I just wanna hold your people in my heart. I want to love them all and give them the hope that no matter what it’s going to be okay! Sometimes, we feel as if all that time has done for us is prove us right about the brokenness of this world. About the inadequacies and about the wrongness of this world. We feel as if all that time has done is repeatedly remind us that people will always find a way of disappointing us. And in time, instead of giving the world another chance, we just build our walls even higher and keep her out. She’s no longer welcome. She has to do so much to prove herself. Is this how it works? Are we here to prove something to each other? 

I’m beginning to realize that to love this life and to love this world is to be forgiving of life and the people we encounter everyday. How can we even truly say that we’ve loved and will continue to love if and only if the world is good to us? I say that I love your creation, I love this life… but when it started breaking my heart, I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know what it really means to love. 

I think we all want to love, and it’s real up until the point that our hearts have been done wrong. That our hearts have been crushed and stepped on. Up until the point that we’ve opened ourselves to someone and they’ve disappointed us. Or when we disappoint them. The real love doesn’t come in until after all of that has been done… or so it feels. The decision to love deepens the respect and appreciation from the beginning. At that point, forgiveness takes us on a different route and teaches us to love in a different way. 

The hardest part is trusting that we will be freed, that we will find peace, that we will be at peace in the midst of all the chaos and the ruins. Moreover, that we, too, can find the strength and humility to forgive ourselves. This is the trust that we have in God: Blind, but certain in knowing that we will be taken care of through it all. 

Here’s to blind surrender. May everything I do be done with love.