Germinating Life’s Destiny Seed

“Any person who does not accept the conditions of life sells their soul.”

~Charles Baudelaire

A common thing in the modern rat-race of life, and just as common a thing in any other age, as we might find on further investigation, is the prevalence of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression over the greater or lesser aspects of one’s personal situation and life. All four prevailing moods-of-spirit deny the truth.

As the quote at top indicates, there is a costly price we pay in procuring denial over the predominant truth—truth is a fact never changed.

Two Forms of Denial

We are all given to the shape and consistency of denial, even by those little lies we tell—the ‘white’ variety; the omissions; the half-truths. Indeed, truth does often command its own price. And our humanity cannot always pay it.

We are all tempted to enter into a deeper, more life-paralysing denial. The symptom of this form of denial—the virulent selling of one’s own soul—is escape by activity or substance.

Look at a person with an alcohol, other drug, gambling, or pornography etc problem, and there you see the symptoms of the deeper cause: they cannot bear the truth, and they are running, sardonically, from themselves—and from God.

Now, we can see that denial leads to major problems and minor problems; both because truth was not chosen as our ally. Accepting the conditions of life is harder than we suppose, but it does help to know denial is insidious.

Acknowledging That Denial Is Insidious

Denial is subtle and menacing; we can divert our attentions to it, now, if we are truly interested in reclaiming our destiny seed—that which God has planted so deep in our psyches, we haven’t a clue until we dig truthfully through to it in the quest to see it germinated.

But, first, we must grapple with the fact that denial will topple us if, and whenever, we allow it to—that is, whenever we prefer our conditions rather than accepting the never-changing conditions of life.

When we are aware of this truth, and we are committed to approaching life more truthfully, we crush denial in its tracks, and our souls are our own, again.

Accessing the Destiny Seed

God has designed a path for us—it is the narrow way lit up in truth.

We can call the commencement of this path, Life’s Destiny Seed, though it doesn’t matter what we call it, so long as we strive to attain access to it. This seed was planted before we came into being; the presence and make-up of this seed are absolutely irrefutable—in essence, we are God’s.

Whenever we accept the conditions of life, without denial, anger, bargaining, or depression, we have Life’s Destiny Seed at our grasp. When we go this way, God gives us the keys to the city of our souls. And we go on to becoming the persons God destined us to be. Only then can we be content.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Fit For a Crisis

Due to the likelihood of them, God designed us capable of bearing under them: crises. When we cannot, we bow to Divine strength to get us through. Whichever way we look at it, we are fit for a crisis.

Notwithstanding, crises come to all of us; we might as well be as ready for them as we can be.

Daily And Life-Ending Crises

Both occur—the former is typical, the latter we wish not on our worst enemy. Still, the latter variety is destined to come.

Daily crises come both by anticipation and surprise. Life-ending crises always nip us by surprise, though many will be anticipated by hindsight. Life-ending crises might otherwise be termed life-changing—one way of life has ended and a new one, begun.

Either form of crisis is an opportunity at grace.

Meeting Crises with Grace

What anxiety is present in life if crises can be competently met? None—if this were the case there would be no reason to be afraid.

Yet, we’ll never achieve the completeness of preparation in handling every situation; many potentialities threaten to sweep us out on the ripping current, from the safety of shore to the tremulous, choppy sea; the creation of the perfect storm.

The best sensible process and outcome to any personal crisis is grace.

Grace knows not the answer to complex life problems, but it works beyond the perplexing.

It sits there, beaten by the waves of change, sodden by the inundation of grief, dizzied by the incomprehensibility of the panicked present and future, and it accepts what cannot, now, be changed.

It bears the truth well—as good as could ever be expected.

And when such truth cannot be held—for an hour, or even a day or so—it approves escape to the safe asylum of numbness—the soul taken, as if by lifeline, to the Presence of God, and we will be carried.

Grace oversees the entire process—a moment’s adjustment, or adjustment, through the seasons, to new life; one engineered by God, alone. Grace is enough for us, though at times it feels replete in inadequacy.

***

Readiness for crises is wisdom, as is grace to cope. Underpinning all crises is the sufficiency of God; especially even when God feels missing.

We are fit for the crisis. When they come, we, of course, doubt. The truth is we either solve our problems resiliently, or we’ll be carried through them, if we don’t give up. Grace helps.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Reconciling Anger By Exploring Guilt

“You have learned to bury your guilt with anger.”

~Henri Ducard (played by Liam Neeson) in Batman Begins (2005).

There are times in all our lives when for want of reason or rationale we just cannot seem to help running spare of tolerance. At times we really wonder why this is so; we upset people or are upset ourselves. Life is just maddening in this space, disregarding what side of the anger we’re on—dishing it out or being in receipt of it.

It’s also maddening in another way; there’s no logical way to us for understanding this dilemma, i.e. because of it, and we don’t know how to ‘fix’ it.

Anger, without question, is a failure of patience and of self-control. It is so very often caused because goals are blocked and frustration sets in.

Patience is the key to becoming mature and is made available by the absence of visceral guilt, shame or anguish due to the infamous ‘emotional baggage’.

Two Key Reasons for Anger

There is everyday anger and the more subdued anger that the quote at top targets. It would be fair to say that both converge over all of us.

As far as addressing our anger is concerned—and we all have it to deal with—the former is about maturing in patience, warding against the frustrations of life, and the latter is about reconciling the hidden guilt (and shame) from bygone years—forgiving others and ourselves—so that these nemeses do not cloud issues of truth with confusing dissonance.

Two Fixes Augmenting Patience

It is no good trying to be more self-controlled by being less angry. It’s only a temporary answer and therefore it’s no solution at all.

It is better for us to develop real patience, especially for those situations that normally frustrate and anger us, whilst coming to grips with the emotional baggage that plagues us. These are both processes along a journey with no overnight fix.

We may find that resolving the latter issue—our guilt, shame and other anguish—might do more to address the former problem also. Peace over deeply latent issues is always going to proffer peace in the here-and-now.

Resolving guilt, shame and other anguish results in poise, for there’s nothing left to prove; nothing left to gain—our pasts no longer ransom or condemn us.

Anger – the Sign We’ve Got Unresolved Issues

It is interesting that anger is so often the sign of acute repression where recent issues perhaps call us to account, again, regarding an old trigger—the dredged up wound we’re hardly even aware of.

In this way our anger is telling us something.

It’s telling us that we have unfinished business with both our distant past and our recent past. If we should choose to accept this mission of exploring our woundedness, truth will be our ally, and peace will be our prize.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

The Faith of Honest Thought

Times when our memory or creativity fail us, we search our minds almost to the point of despair; yet, the subconscious mind seeks freedom from such loveless interrogation, and it’s marvellous just what this powerhouse of creativity can produce when it’s left to its own devices.

The faith of honest thought is such an initiative whereby it proffers peace toward the cognitive process. It forces nothing but keeps trying in any event, whatsoever. It denies nothing and keeps working with what it has.

The faith of honest thought adapts to challenge and diversifies in pleasant counter-attack; it develops new initiatives to power the capacity to achieve the present goal.

Such faith of honest thought believes in its own thought process and seeks its own underwriting. What might be a risk to some is just plain faith to another. At a thinking level, this is about trusting ourselves—the recovery of thought, memory, or creativity is confidently within our grasp, though we see it not. That’s faith!

Behind Every Act of Faith – a Thought

Beyond even the subconscious mind, into the realm of deliberate thinking, there is the fact that a thought—likely, a bunch or series of them—is behind every act of faith.

A decision is made.

And behind that thought, or thoughts, revealed as a decision, resides the magnanimous language of courage; a lattice of inner tension that the boldness of the soul must wrangle with.

There is no escape, yet faith fuels the fight.

Processes such as these are invisible; we can only know them as they are personally felt and experienced. We have no way of telling just how much faith-load any person is under, unless we feel for them through how we would feel if we were placed in the same situation. That thinking gets us close enough.

Thinking, therefore, is underestimated and downplayed—for its role in, as they are later revealed, ennobled acts.

We scarcely think of how courageous we have been in our faith processes as they manifest via our thought. Yet, we observe this in others by way of their accomplishments; those we admire.

Informing Every decision – a Feeling

Just like we cannot have east without west, or good without bad, we cannot have our thoughts without feelings.

A decision made without feeling behind it might reveal a lack of judicial wisdom; for, the ability to reason through emotion is what makes us human. Both are necessary: thoughts and feelings.

The decisiveness of thought reveals even more courage as we consider the usual cacophony of feeling that both clarifies and clouds our thoughts. Decision-making is critically complex.

***

The faith of honest thought is a matrix of human endeavour. The matter of momentary decisions portrays us as necessarily courageous. What more courage could be shown than by the faith of honest thought—truthful consideration—a consequential decision—and the will to carry through with it? It is great, and to be admired, the processes of faith that go into our virtuous thought.

Genuine faith-within-thought is the endeavour of human achievement. It melds truth with love by the mode of courage. Every great person of history has exemplified the faith of honest thought. One humble moment at a time, we can too.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Meeting Your Goal

The establishment of a healthy desire is paramount in the successful achievement of any goal. Fortunately, for most of us, that healthy desire comes as a nagging motivator that constantly suggests what we should be doing as opposed to what we usually do.

Meeting our goals is simply taking a healthy desire and succumbing to it—perhaps easier said than done, but certainly no more complicated.

This is made easier if we have just one goal—just one thing—to concentrate on. That one thing we can achieve if we’re determined enough and have enough imagination to construct a worthy plan for change.

The following four steps may help:

1. Plan What’s Right (for You and Nobody Else)

The trouble with many self-improvement plans is they don’t cater for individual differences. If we have imagination, wisdom, and vision (and all of us do) we can develop a plan that is fair and achievable, and even inspiring.

This is about creating rules that work for us—we will own these rules.

It’s also about focusing on the specifics of the goal; getting down to the actual endpoint we wish to achieve. Many times the soul has uttered such a desired endpoint, yet we have continued to ignore it. Now is the time to plan to achieve that right thing.

This is personal. Goals have to be personal; relevant only to us, workable in the context of our lives.

2. Consider Foreseeable Threats

This is the biggest reason that has destroyed our previous plans and which has the ongoing power to implode our future plans.

There will always be threats. Life is not life without them.

Our planning needs to cater for the existence of foreseeable threats. These are things whirring through our minds during the early going and, also, in the maintenance of our goals. Threats both come by surprise and sneak up on us.

A good for instance, regarding diet, is the threat of dining out—how will we plan that event in order to stay within the planned boundaries?

3. Construct/Envision a Schedule

Considering the threats, and knowing the major chunks of what’s right for us, alone, it’s now time to engage in the nitty-gritty of creating a schedule—a plan on paper using dates and times and other necessary details—that we intend to stick to.

This schedule needs a couple of date ranges. The first is the immediate, short-term, goal—something achievable in the first 30-40 days. Our willpower can carry us that far, but perhaps no further, for we will need to anticipate a plan with fresh emphases.

The achievement of giving up smoking or drinking is slightly different in that a one-day-at-a-time approach is most likely the successful one. Perhaps we might plan to reward ourselves at the 30-40 day mark.

30-40 days is the time taken to construct a new habit. We will also need a string of such plans to carry us through the first months, to 6 months, 12 months, and finally two years. Perhaps new habits need a full two years of validation before the change is considered permanent. Two years may seem a long time, but two years comes quickly.

4. Review Progress Regularly

This step is critical to achieving the medium- to long-term result. It’s actually a continual process from day one. It’s using whatever discretionary time (the time we have choice over) we have to create focus in steering us to the goal.

This step, alone, is the most important, for if we can manage the moment—making wise decisions each moment—we have everything we need to achieve the goal.

As soon as we forget to review our progress regularly, though, the energy behind our change process will dissipate and failure will become more imminent. Not reviewing progress regularly is the biggest threat we must manage.

***

Goals are important. Meeting such an objective is listening to the healthy desire within each of us. Self-discipline is achievable if we follow broad rules. Previous failures, even hundreds of them, have no say over future success!

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Why Willpower, Alone, Won’t Work and What Will

New Year’s resolutions are 99% forlorn, ultimately, because many of them are built in the temporary influence of so-called willpower. The recent science suggests that willpower is a powerful force, but it is limited in its range unless it is exercised.

The work of Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney (Willpower), profiled here, suggests that goals can be achieved by willpower but we best use it wisely, training it much like we do a muscle, to raise its fatigue threshold, and to minimise the effect of ego depletion (that sense of failure we feel when our willpower, alone, has failed us).

Looking at the Science

Science has a strange way about it; as soon as we’ve read the results of research, together with the conclusions made, we accept the hypothesis. We become convinced of it... if it’s good science. And this science is.

Very simply, then, if we think of willpower—the ability to self-ordinate levels of self-control for the achievement of goals and transformation of habits—as a muscle, we may go close to knowing how to improve our willpower.

Any professional bodybuilder will tell us that growing muscles requires they be ‘hit’ from different angles, in different ways, with different weights and routines, and most importantly muscles need rest; otherwise they get fatigued and overtraining results.

Like working out hard for two hours is going to send our bodies into fatigue, working on several goals at a time, and perhaps asking too much of our willpower, is going to pillage our powers of self-control. We may quickly become willpower-bound: not able to achieve any goal.

But, by working out our willpower muscle, steadily and regularly, with smaller and more iterative goals, the powers for change can be harnessed. Less ego depletion occurs as a result and, actually, greater portions of self-confidence are redeemed.

Never Underestimate the Miraculous

Besides willpower, there is another power; one the world doesn’t use—indeed, it loathes even the thought of its existence. Beyond willpower is a miraculous power of God: the provision of power beyond comprehension and, hence, explanation.

We certainly know this miraculous power that sponsors change by the times our willpower was massively weak, again and again, and then suddenly—without warning—we were strong enough to achieve our goal. God was there for us; why, for this time and not others, we don’t know, except perhaps because of our more surrendered sense of obedience.

***

Exercising our willpower muscle, but avoiding fatigue, is a key to a happier and healthier life. We can see God blessing our application of diligent moderation, and obedient surrender, as we do this. Willpower, alone, is not enough. We ought to be single-minded, prayerful, and resolute—but, also, reasonable in our application of self-discipline.

We achieve very little, long-term, without God firmly in the picture.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

The Prayer of Belief

“The prayer of the person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with.”

~James 5:16b (Msg)

There are, indeed, many forms of prayer, and presuming an object of prayer, perhaps many gods. Everyone prays, for everyone hopes, and all souls speak in words, to varying gods, of ecstasy and anguish and many emotions between.

The prayer of belief, in present sight, is prayed before the Father, in Jesus’ name—the object of our worship. The prayer of belief, also, presumes right position and right method.

Belief by Right Position

If we, by our humility, will bring a right prayer before God, why should we not expect it to be expediently or ultimately answered?

This, of course, implies right position: to come before the Throne of God in humility, having dealt with a wish-list mentality.

Even if we’re not rightly positioned we are commended in praying to be more rightly positioned—that is, of itself, an expression of need in the mode of humility.

God loves to bless a solemn and contrite heart; this is by way of answer. Yet, as the Lord answers we frequently get more (or less) than we expect: genuine humility meets those answers in a calm sort of delight; a bargaining humility, however, will always be disappointed by the answers that come from the Almighty God.

The former, humble, person is rightly positioned; the latter, self-absorbed, person needs to pray for God to sort out their heart. Their need is humility, first and foremost.

Belief by Right Method

Rightly positioned, we can now go on by method, reaching into the holiness of God in order to get what we need—which is essentially at harmony with the Lord’s agenda.

Expressing belief by right method is simpler than we could imagine. God is not the one setting rules up regarding prayer; our humanity does that.

So, right method is not about established procedure, and following it rigidly, but it is honouring God by virtue of the order of things, again, reflected by right position of our heart.

If we go to the Lord with our need, underpinned more so by the frankness of worship, knowing that worship is more important than our need, the Holy Spirit will guide our method. Yet, there are times when frankly we have no energy for worship; we only have our need. To go to God in prayer in these circumstances is worship.

***

The prayer of faith is prayed by a humbled person, through true belief in Jesus; it’s powerful under its own steam. We should pray expectantly and open-mindedly toward result. God is of the practice of answering prayers prayed by faith.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Beta Spirituality

“Let us endeavor to commence every enterprise with a pure view to the glory of God, continue it without distraction, and finish it without impatience.” ~François Fénelon.

Brainwave activity is measured in several streams and, for the purposes of present discussion, especially by alpha and beta waves. Alpha waves register when our minds are on autopilot; beta thinking, on the other hand, occurs when we’re focused on a task to the exclusion of all distractions.

Beta spirituality, likewise, fits the François Fénelon tag. There is intentionality about it. And whilst we may worship the Lord mindlessly from time to time, we never truly worship our God without our minds fully engaged.

Alpha Spirituality

Surely, however, we do identify with the mindless enjoyment of the Lord our God, especially as we are carried off into a netherworld of fancy in the Spiritual realm. Many times we found ourselves sodden in joyous tears or encroached by a spirit beyond us. Sometimes God blesses us so much, via our worship, we cannot rationalise how we feel.

This so-called alpha spirituality is the Lord’s allowance, like alpha thinking is mindless, for simple enjoyment in the inimitable Presence and Power of God.

But, without the intentionality of beta spirituality our growth in God is stunted and, even, paralysed; even to a point where alpha spirituality sits condemned and even, its blessedness, unavailable to our touch.

The Necessity and Practice of Beta Spirituality

“Focus” may seem an overused word these days. It is, nevertheless, the most appropriate input we can bring in enjoying more and more of the divinity in the Presence of God.

It is the comprehensive necessity of the one bent forward for God in fervency.

What more could it be, then, than to be focused—again, with intentionality—toward a pure view to the glory of God; the transcendence of all mystery regarding the Divine?

Practicing beta spirituality is the continual realisation of the stipulation to focus and refocus, and when we pick up our Bibles there are literally limitless images, stories, metaphors, and characterisations that help toward that end.

Yet, we can practice beta spirituality any conscious moment as we find thought for God’s glory and take that marvellous sight into our everyday living situations, sprinkling them with the majesty of virtue, by loving people and, therefore, God.

***

Beta spirituality is a thoughtful and poised spirituality. It imagines the fullest Presence of the Lord—for that’s a fact—and lives deliberately out of such a blessed assurance.

Such a practice indwells our conscious lives, making nothing good impossible.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

The Enduring Memory of the Lost

Perhaps without doubt the hardest adjustment of life is going on without a most-close loved one. I have never lost such a most-close loved one, a partner or a child, but I have lost something just as significant: a marriage.

Maybe you will relate in some different way.

What is the most precious possession, in the corpus of loss, is the endurance of the memory of whom or what was lost—it, or they, live on for us; it or they must.

They give solid meaning to the further expression of life for us. They make the future relevant for recognition of the past.

Not Denying Our Memories If We Can Bear Them

It may seem false and denying to entertain thoughts of lost ones or lost things living on through us or with us—but that’s not true. Where we no longer have access to them or it in a living way we are blessed by way of honouring the memory of them or it.

Why would we not do this when there is much spiritual healing implicit in such foci, personally and interpersonally? Such a practice ensures we remain safely at-access for those still living—those loved ones who depend, provident at their emotions, on us.

It is not disobeying God to do this—to ‘defy’ the fact of death—as much of it honours God that we acknowledge the power of love to captivate us, so painfully, in the grip of grief.

Life Changed Forever – Embracing The New

Such a power overcomes the mightiest of us, and it swallows whole the way life was.

Allowing the memory of the loved one or thing to endure is surrendering peaceably to a power that transforms our lives—not by days, but through years.

Life cannot be the same, but it can be renewed, eventually, in hope; part of which is to know thyself better, as well as the one, or thing, lost.

This is surely the Lord’s gift of healing: the space of reflection and time for growth in a novel land of sensibility—one custom-designed for our unique situation.

We are not mad to keep them, or it, alive by memory, for we know they’ve passed.

We accept dual realities: that death, the unrelenting assailant, has come, and won’t be bargained with, but also, in that, that death can’t take our memories, those for which God endows.

Let us allow these memories to acceptably reign as we adjust, now and into the future, to this new thing.

***

Memories of lost ones are amongst our most precious. God blesses us to nurture these memories, by keeping them alive in our hearts and minds. Death cannot separate us from our loved ones whilst we have memories. Let us pray that we can bear them.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Soul Stillness In A Busy World

Becoming like Jesus is understanding, loving, and revelling in, the nature of the Divine; that, besides the myriad activity in Creation, is consummate stillness; unchanging, ever-reliable stillness.

Our privilege is to perceive this tranquil stillness wherever we are, for wherever God is, is peace; God is obviously omnipresent.

Participating in the Lord’s stillness is to enjoy thought that’s unencumbered—the resplendently and unabashed open mind.

That, right there, is peace; reflective and free, as an offering to God—open to Divine influence.

Picturing Tranquillity

Where is the presence of tranquillity but safely within the heart and mind?

The heart and mind are internal vestibules typically impacted, oh so easily, by an oft-noisy world.

As we begin to toy with the picture of tranquillity, rummaging mindfully over what might look like as a concept held by our spirits, we suddenly notice our God taking us away from ourselves; the burdens now fleeting.

The burdens of life do weigh on our hearts and minds—feelings of trouble, depression, and despair combine with thoughts for loss, incapacity, and a lack of control. The heart contributes to the mind’s dilemma and the mind agrees, depressing the heart further. Tranquillity is amending the heart and mind.

Picturing tranquillity is alleviating such a burden and it is done by spending time with God, away from the noise, even if in the midst of the noise. Yes, this peace is available anytime.

A Heart for Truth – The Mind of Christ

A heart for truth and the mind of Christ takes us all the way into the Holy of Holies so far as a tranquil spirit is concerned.

When we feel for truth, and we are humble enough to listen to our emotions, burdens are heard and then relieved. Before the judge, the entire courtroom is quiet; then at the verdict all is known, and the mysterious is dealt with. The truth, likewise, sets us free. Our hearts are then their very own; the soul is congruent with itself. Peace.

As we nurture the mind of Christ, which is the true wisdom of God in intuiting and obeying the Father’s will, we are necessarily focused on the Lordship of Christ, by setting our minds high in heaven whilst keeping our feet firmly on the ground.

Such a balance is achieved to know freedom beyond explanation and all we’re doing is being with God.

***

Tranquillity of heart and peace of mind comes, even at busy times, to those safe in God. Have faith to know soul stillness, of the Lord’s variety, is available anytime, anywhere. It’s a miracle because it can’t be explained; it just is... peace.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Learning for Life – to Grow and Conquer

Life is a tool that teaches. Time is a construct for learning. Each conscious moment; opportunities to live or die, by success or failure, and neither is the end, nor is bliss or humiliation.

Bad Things

Life is about reconfiguring thought for bad things.

We struggle with bad things. We attach ourselves to the badness because we hate pain. We think, in our human perception, that life should not be bad, hard, painful, or unjust.

But, life is life: it is all things.

It’s hard for us to think in these ways. With so many distractions in life our focus is diluted, when all along we just need an answer for the question: “How can I be me?”

Bad things threaten to take us further than ever from that question. Just as equally, though, these same bad things can take us deeper than ever into the heart of that question.

Like, “What is this situation saying about me, where I’m at, who I’m becoming, and who I’ve yet to become?”

Bad things stir us toward learning in an otherwise comfortable life opposed to learning. Learning is effort; our human default is to shirk the work, unless a passion drives it.

And, what about the goodness in life that is forgotten when the bad thing occurs? The good things still exist, though we have forgotten them, and wisdom has us again reaching out for them in the midst of the pain, senselessness, and confusion.

Good things

Good things are always good, just as bad things are designed to enhance goodness, giving true meaning to life and the good.

Bad things can be seen as good—if we have, what some might say, a ‘perverted’ sense of truth. Yes, it is perverted—contorted from the world’s way back to God’s; the way things should be. The world’s way is comfort always, with no pain; God’s way is pain as a lever to growth. Badness is twisted back to wisdom in thought for, “What’s this about?”

The Lord gets his own back, and so do we when we tackle life this way.

All things can be seen as good, though they were not always initially good.

Making Good from Bad

Making good from bad is the interesting part. It restores the rationale that all things should be right and just and fair. Suddenly, through faith, a Jesus-faith no less and no more, making good from bad is the truthful purpose of life.

Such a faith makes a science of learning for life: to grow and, therefore, conquer.

Nothing can beat us when we only have purpose to learn.

Nothing is shameful, nothing’s debilitating, and nothing’s ultimately fatal in life—not when there’s a purpose beyond the shame, the debilitation, and the feeling of death. Life goes on when the purpose is to learn, adapt, and conquer.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.