This post has been brewing for a while but now that I am sitting down to write it I don’t know how to begin. 1 month and 3 days ago I moved from North Wales to the beautiful and interesting city of Bristol. I have lived in North Wales since I was 6 and now that I’m a quarter of a century old I have moved back to England. I’ve been here 3 weeks without a job. I believe this is the longest time I have been without a job since I was seventeen. It’s really weird to have that much time to yourself. You discover some things: even as I walked about my new hometown finding important places, beautiful ones and the odd refuge I was finding out more about me and about my relationship with God and therefore all my relationships and well pretty much everything else too. I re-realised my brokenness, vulnerability and limitations. I realised I was scared of the dark places in my heart. I haven’t been scared of the dark since I was quite a bit younger or so I thought. At one time a time not so long past I would have been overcome and subsumed for weeks, even months. Now after gaining some maturity I can carry on with life with a smile even as I feel the rawness of my wounds.

So Moving to Bristol was supposed to be and is a joyous task. I have moved to be close to my love and broaden my horizons and seek love, life and new things. This is all good and makes me smile in wonderment every time I stop to consider what is happening to and all about me. But at the same time I am scared. This fear that has reared its ugly head many a time is back and the prize it seeks? My future, my dreams, me. It is the fear of failure and of not measuring up. Of not fulfilling my duty as a man in whatever capacity e.g. husband to be, in my work, as a son, as a friend, a brother, as disciple of Jesus and all of this within always trying to be true to the true me and wanting to be perfect in all these areas right now. It is a burden created by fear. It is a series of walls made to protect myself from criticism, vulnerability, injury, hurt and judgement. All my insecurity and past pain made fast with lock and key. It would seem good at first glance. The bricks made with a white shimmering stone and the mortar moss and lichen free. But these walls hold back compassion. They hold back love. They take away freedom to live in the name of safety from death.

As Benjamin Franklin said “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

These walls hold back passion from both entering and exiting. These walls have to come down; leaving me naked and vulnerable. All rough edges and incomplete works on display. Scars and all

RT

Originally posted on http://tairngir.tumblr.com/page/6