The Journey

Certain memories remain frozen in time, and as pictures in my mind.

Winnipeg, early 80’s . . . Unicity Shopping Centre. Some parts of this memory are drifting into the obscured blurr of a bad memory. But I do remember that I was on my way home from breaking up with my girl friend. I had come face to face with how selfish I’d been over the couple of years previous to that moment – I’d gone steady with girls, and when I wanted to on whatever whim I’d break up with the one to bounce over to another. Spiderman flying through the air above city streets is a good image of that process. Shooting a web to continue momentum forward, releasing my grip on the previous web as I grasp the new one. Hearts broken . . . until at last I broke my own.

I remembered hating the young man that I was, and done with him. Suicide might have been my next move, but my faith restrained me… sort of. I looked up at the night sky, facing north, the shopping centre’s back parking lot/delivery area… as I say it’s a very vivid picture, a memory that remains as a picture. I wanted out. OUT of this life, out of this self centred fool that I am… and realized that only HE could release me.

Maybe it was an epiphany at that point. I recognized heaven as my home, as my longed for destination – and as being one ‘sent out’ into this world by him, all my provisions from him for this journey forth coming. John 15:16 comes to mind.

This process of continually putting my flesh to death would become a habit 🙂 but it’s that memory that remains most vivid. I didn’t want to hurt others anymore, I wanted to continue here as  on a mission from God to bless the earth – to be part of God’s plan . . .