Miles To Go

 

Miles To Go

 

October 31^st – Halloween.

There was a time – for me - when this night was controversial and conflicting. Certain aspects of my upbringing required complete shunning of this ominous occasion. Today, I will not avoid this holiday. In fact, I will celebrate.

Why celebrate? I lived through my own scary ghost story. Halloween seems like an appropriate time to appreciate the outcome. This week, I have a story to share.

Once upon a time, there was a woman who spent her days drowning. Death would have been a relief, but it never came. The waves would ease each evening, only to climb higher and crash harder over her every morning in a continual tsunami terror.

Escaping her tsunami cycle seemed impossible. There were ghosts from her past who taunted her, pushing her further under the dark waters. Heroes swam in, attempting to save her. Their attempts were temporary relief that did not last.  

Eventually, amid her choked cries for salvation, she saw someone swimming with her. He said he had been there all along. She had refused to hear him or even look his way.

He had a solution. It wasn’t easy. She had to accept a gift from him. After accepting his gift, she would then have to give it to her ghosts. She was desperate and agreed.

His gift was three words. “I forgive you.”  She hadn’t realized how much she needed that gift. Tsunami waves calmed. Peace surrounded her.

Facing her ghosts was the hardest thing she had ever done, but she wasn’t alone. One by one, she and her Savior swam up to them – each one closer to shore. Those three words sometimes swelled in her throat. It felt like she was drowning again. She would cough and cry through the searing pain as her Savior held her above the water.

She sometimes whispered and other times screamed the words, “I forgive you”, to each frightening phantom. One by one, her ghosts slowly sank from sight. Finally, with her Savior by her side, she crawled onto shore.

The tsunami terror cycle was broken.

I am that woman and I’ll be very transparent here. The choking cries of forgiveness were real. Alone in my basement, Jesus Christ (my Savior) and I faced those ghosts of my past. While I didn’t have to physically face people who hurt me, I did have to forgive them. 

There was one ghost I had to face. She would not leave. She was the hardest one to forgive. She was me. Once that painful requirement was complete, my daily cycle of depression disappeared.

To this day, those ghosts attempt to haunt me at times. The solution is still not easy, but it gets easier each time I speak those three words. Forgiveness is powerful.

During that season of depression, when I lived that story, there was a poem that spoke to me. The last stanza of Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening’ goes like this:

The woods are lovey,

Dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

And miles to go before I sleep. 

In my darkest moments, I knew there was a reason to keep fighting forward. At that time, my husband and my boys were my reason. As lovely as hiding in the dark, or a permanent sleep, seemed – I had ‘miles to go’ before any selfish desire could be fulfilled. The easy way out was tempting. The knowledge of how those actions would hurt my family saved me from turning those terrible thoughts into action on more than one occasion.

A few years later, after the boys had grown up and left home, those ghosts were attempting to haunt me again. The tsunami cycle wasn’t back, but I could see the waves growing on a distant shore. My husband and I were going to a large church that had two Sunday services and a Saturday night service. We liked to go on Saturday nights.

One Saturday night, while I was walking closer to that tsunami prone beach, the pastor’s message turned me around. His message was based on a Robert Frost poem. He spoke of how we, as Christians, have a purpose beyond our selfish desires to stay in the dark and lovely woods. We have a reason to keep moving forward. We have promises to keep. We have miles to go before we sleep. 

That reason is to help others turn around and see their Savior, Jesus Christ.

I still have miles to go.