Hanging on to the last thread of life. Exhausted, fatigued. Feeling alone in a world where people around you say they love you. My heart seems to beat intense acid that courses through my veins, burning every one of my living fibers. I want to give up. I want to let it go. I want my dreams to stop haunting me in my sleep. I just want to die.
Is this the price that the greats had to pay? Is this where they began? Having to crawl into a dark corner with tears that run down their cheek to end at their lip? Taste the sweet yet sour taste of their heart’s pain? Is this life really worth it? Most people do not have to experience the continuous battle with self. The ever piecing, blood drawing question of am I worth it? Looking into the mirror you see the lion but the lion seems to meow and not roar. It seems the Devil outwitted Jesus for my soul.
Prayers at night are not for strength. They are the: why Lord? Why did You have to create this seemingly impossible dream in me? Why did You not create the dream of being comfortable by being mediocre? Live an average life, having an average wife playing with average kids living in an average neighborhood, driving an average car and hanging out with average friends? Why did You have to decide to make me a warrior of life when You know I am nothing but a weak vessel with nothing but guilt, depression and low confidence filling me? Why me Lord? You know I can no longer cry because even though I have tears to flow like Niagara Falls, You know these tears can not escape my eyes to wash my broken down face.
I feel weak Lord. I feel I can not make it. I can feel she no longer loves me. She no longer sees me as that man who nothing seemed to stop him. She sees a loser and a coward. If it wasn't for the love she poured out into me and for me, she would have left within the blink of my red shot eyes. I feel alone in this world.
Am I worth it?
At this moment the Lord knocks and enters my dark corner. He says nothing but simply looks at me. He tightens the screws around my eyes so that these tears I have stored never see daylight- or moonlight. He raises me up. He looks straight at me saying nothing. He raises His big brown hand and finally He speaks: “Look at My hand. Its empty. Now look at My other hand” As I look at the object in His other hand I see something long and very broad. and He says, “Why have you kept your sword in your scabbard? Why have you left your armor to rust in the sweet waters of the hellish pits of self-defeat?”
With that He disappeared. I still had no idea what happened but I knew what I had to do. I went back to the mirror where I saw that meowing lion. Then suddenly the mirror started to come alive. It took the form of everything I feared to be: a weak and vision-less man. And here I was wishing to be that man that I was seeing in the mirror. Asking for a spiritual intervention to grant me the pass to be that average man having an average wife playing with average kids living in an average neighborhood, driving an average car and hanging out with average friends. Within that moment the strength of a thousand gods entered my system. The God of Gods appeared behind me with nothing but a smile on His Face.
“I have chosen you. So now you will go.” I stared closely into that mirror. The sadness became hate. The self-pity became pride. The weakness became strength and with the quickness of a striking cobra, I pulled my sword out its scabbard and sliced the mirror in half. As the fragments fell, I saw reflections of myself in each one. Reflections of every moment when I was weak. Everytime I let life weigh me down. The last piece fall and shattered on impact. The sound of the glass echoing in the oblivion of my soul. I knew I would no longer see that man.
That man I killed him- for good.