Shining too bright

“My dear child, I thought I was going to teach you about the world, but instead you are teaching me about myself.”

-J. Melburn

Approximately once a month I drive an hour out to Clyde, NC to talk with Pastor Jim. We don’t always have a specific topic, and I’m sure he sometimes wonders why I keep coming back.

One of the things we’ve discussed is all the ways that God tries to show us love despite our tendency to push it away, or just not recognize it to begin with.

Jim says children are a gift from God, but far too often the parents cannot receive it. This results in traumatic childhoods and broken families.

Children naturally mirror the parents’ light and innocence, but if they’re uncomfortable with this aspect of themselves (or it doesn’t fit with who they believe they are), the parents will reject this truth- and the child along with it.

Children are viewed as the enemy, then shamed, silenced, and shunned. Caught in the crossfire of an adult’s war with themselves. A casualty of the generational trauma they were born into.

While this may seem like a lost cause, the cycle can be broken. We choose what we participate in, and always have the option to heal and show up to our lives in a more empowered way.

Being a “pattern breaker” is not for the faint of heart, but there is freedom to be had on the other side.

Photo: Penrose, NC May 2021