Immortal Diamond - Week 3

Questions from Chapter 1

• How has this central task been experienced in your life?
• What has aided you in this discovery?
• What has taken away from your search for discovery?

Separated out from the surrounding text, the question lies as clearly in front of me as the mountains I see from my studio window. From this viewpoint, there seems to be no way around the mountain so to continue the journey means I must, I am compelled to journey forward, across the river that lies between us, up through forested flanks and then out into the snow-packed sharp ridges and peaks where the crucible of life is to be engaged.

The question has been an unseen engine that has driven forward through the years of my life.

For years I searched for the answer of who am and who I was meant to be all the while I finished my education, got married, raised a family, battled the twin dragons of depression and anxiety, overcame alcoholism, got back on track of uncovering who I am and what I am supposed to become and now here I am. In 8 days my professional career will be ended and I realize that the question of who am I supposed to be and what I supposed to become is now irrelevant. From a professional viewpoint, there is no more becoming. I am what I am and in a blink, I will try to express that in the past tense.

This is not a bad thing. Retirement is my choice, my employer has done all they can to keep from shuffling off into irrelevance but there is no changing my mind. It will be a relief because now the only question that lies in from of me is to discover who I am. Strangely I am ok with that. All I need to let go of those things I thought needed and to just look with gratitude at how the God-sized hole inside me has been filled with things of eternal grace. Finally. I don’t need to climb the mountain. I am already there.

When I consider all of the self-esteem issues that fueled destructive behavior, fear, anger, and rage, I am amazed to have something of ultimate value, something of value, that pearl buried in a field worth selling all to gain.

What has aided me? It takes a volume to fully explain. I will have to just state the obvious. It is all dependent on grace, grace that was always present, always waiting always guiding and motivating me to take the next right action that was meant to help others rather than myself. Like Paul, for me His grace was sufficient.

What distracted me? The answer is simple pride and ego were the destroyers of peace and acceptance. They always were the true enemy that painted elaborate portraits of a persona I foolishly chased for an entire lifetime. Now to get better at sensing when there is a glitch that needs to be isolated and defanged.