Despair?

I was in Romania for 10 days visiting my friends and family and I have returned to England with a heavy heart, feeling a little lost as one is prone to feel when one is torn in half with the inability to be in two places at once and be two different versions of you at once. 

It happens sometimes that I am faced with a certain thing or event and after that encounter I feel completely disconnected from everything I knew before the encounter. If I haven’t mentioned it before, ahm… I have issues (more than a Vogue magazine). Anyway, because I know myself, I am prepared for times like this. You see, I have a habit of recording everything I live or feel or inspires me since I was about 14. Why? For such a time as this. For times when I feel misplaced or just off somehow. Then I can just pick up one of my journals or inspirational things I’ve written and remember. 

This was the case today. I felt like my soul was yelling at me “Enough already!” So because I don’t want an internal war I was like, “Ok, let’s do this!” and proceeded to pick up this little notebook where I would just scribble down any little fact I read that had an impact on me. It’s a disaster really, because I recorded everything from the greatest rabbis to anime characters with awesome lines; from Seneca to lyrics to Avril Lavigne’ songs. Basically, it’s all over the place. 

Among all the many quotes I have in there, the one I will mention is one by Tzvi Freeman and it says:

“Despair is the ultimate form of self-worship—the perception that you have the capacity to truly mess up, to take the world’s destiny out of its Creator’s hands and sabotage His plans.

Know that the world is in a constant state of elevation, rocketing upwards towards its ultimate wholeness at every moment. Every quivering of every leaf, every subtle breeze, every slightest motion of any particle of our universe is another move in that same direction. Even those events that seem to thrust downward are in truth only a part of the ascent—like the poise of an athlete before he leaps, the contraction of a spring before its energy is released.

There is not a thing you could do to halt that dynamic even for a moment. True, you must take responsibility for your deeds, and work hard, very hard, to clean up your own mess. But when all the dust settles, you are exactly in the space where you were meant to be: One step closer.”

I know it would be so much easier to have the plan all laid out, like a project for a house that you can look at when the mess of the construction site makes you doubt there is an end to all that dust and clutter. But I don’t have the plan, only the Architect of my life’s plan. When in doubt, I need to look at Him and trust like a child, because all knowledge and maturity flies out the window and all you have is a reassuring smile that whispers from every page of The Book “I’ve got this! Just trust Me.” And I do, because the option is to despair and I can’t afford to do that. So I’ll trust in You, not because I need to stay positive, but because You have never failed me HaShem. Not once. I’ve checked. You’re worthy! Even of my insignificant trust, Adonai.

Bat Melech בת מלך

 Cristina כריסטינה

Real

By now, people that know me a little bit, know that nothing inspires me more than cartoons, animated movies and children books. Yeah, I know! Real genius. Be that as it may, it works for me. 

My favorite children story is The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry followed by the Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams Bianco and I decided to share a passage from the latter, just because I think it’s extremely beautiful:

“The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

---------     The Velveteen Rabbit by  Margery Williams Bianco

I am Real. Not because I am simply that great, but because I am loved by HaShem. I know that just by looking at whatever hits the eye, some might feel inclined to ask why am I such a mess, or why are some things missing, like the Skin Horse missed an eye or some hair, but my answer is just that some of me has been loved off. But when you’re Real you don’t really mind, because you know you can’t have that closeness without some of you getting lost in the process. And the best part? Adonai hasn’t grown out of it. Hasn’t gotten tired of loving me and knowing His heart, I doubt He ever will. Because once you’re Real, you can’t become unreal ever again. It lasts for always.  

Just a thought…

Bat Melech בת מלך

 Cristina כריסטינה