the places we don't want to go back to

So, yesterday I talked about our comfort places.  Comfort places are those places in our life that we felt loved, we found passion, we just had great feelings about.

But, what about the other side of it?  These are the sides we don't like to talk about.  These are the places, people and times that bring hatred, fear, frustration, sadness to light.  These are the times when nothing made sense when everything was hurt hurt hurt.

Many of these places cause us to change as individuals.  Because of the hurt, sadness and anger, we build shells and walls around us.  We don't let others in.  We find it very difficult to trust.  Much more than the valleys of our lives, these places are dark and ugly, sometimes with no view of a way out.

So, what if you had to go back to those places?  I can think of several people and times of my life that I would never want to relive.  These are times when all I wanted to do was lie in the fetal position and make the world go away.  If I had to go back there, I am not sure.

Many of us find times in our lives where we do have to face our ugliest, saddest most treacherous demons.  We have to revisit times in our lives where we didn't like the world around us or we didn't like ourselves.  For some, that is the scariest feeling in the world.  It is much easier to live in denial that that part of your life ever happened.  Facing those fears just doesn't seem worth it.  Or does it?

We all come to a time where we do see those demons.  We may even find that because we have grown and because we are different people, those demons aren't so scary anymore.  When we remember that even if that outside force of whatever kind of hurt it is cannot change who we are, it often makes it easier.  When we grow in love, faith and hope for the world and truly understand that that love is inside us, we can confidently face those demons.  We can look at the past as just that, the past.

AMEN