I once heard it said that a writer could not begin writing a story until the end was known and then had to work backward to fill in the story.
I wonder if I could use that same approach to look at “my story.”

There have been a number of times I was SURE I knew the ending to a chapter in my life; sometimes I was right, but most often I was not right.

My life has surprised me, shocked me, depressed me, disappointed me, discouraged me, and yet . . . through every chapter, I have always had some pinpoint of light, some really tiny shred of something inexplicable that pushed me to go on, some unseen and unspoken at the time word of hope. I did not recognize it as “hope” at the time, but it is what seemed to have been there hiding in the shadows of my heart to draw me into the next moment on my journey to today.

With a past that led me to
• early destruction of innocence,
• discovery of the deceitfulness of self love,
• an indescribable depth of impenetrable darkness,
• the reality of unseen forces,
• the door of suicide,
• there is no limit to the depth of pain,
• inner healing of surface layers,
• exposure of deeper wounds and unknown scars,
• many painful mask removals,
• unrecoverable losses,
• the futility of looking for completion in others,
• see not all questions have answers and that is okay,
• conclude that knowledge and wisdom are not the same,
• admit that I am a slow learner,
• find growth through pain and life in death
and to realize that my life would fill many volumes that would only be of interest to me . . . but the life lessons might be of interest to others in their journey of life.
I used to say that my pain would be worth it if I could save one person from suffering even a minute of the darkness I lived through—especially I did not want anyone to have to go through it alone, or at least not feel like they were going through it alone.

If my path and its traumas serve this purpose, I feel somehow that purpose gives my pain value. I remember that horrible feeling of being alone and not having anyone to share my wounding, my despair, my pain—that is the ultimate agony: not having anyone who understood my suffering or understood the “dumb choices” I made and the consequences of those choices or the choices of others that increased my destruction.

Isolated and insulated, even if it is a choice I made, is what leads to the darkest pits with walls so high they could never be climbed and there was no one to throw a rope down for climbing out of those pits—no one cares and so, eventually, I did not care either.

At the back of every deep, dark pit is always the door of suicide – no lock on that door – it opens with just a touch – it seems so right to remove the one causing so much pain to themselves and to others . . . so easy . . . the final answer!

I stood there – I planned to go through that door in several pits I lived in – but, ultimately, GOD pulled me out of the last pit where that seemed like the right final answer and, after many life lessons and extremely challenging confrontations of self, I have a new understanding of “broken vessel” and what it feels like when the Master Potter restores that vessel.

It is so hard to accept that restoration because of how unworthy and worthless that vessel feels, but the Master Potter is compassionate and patient and where I see scars and jagged pieces, the Master sees a vessel of beauty as originally created by those hands of Love from a heart of Love.

The Master Potter that, though unseen, was with me in every pit calling me to Life but I could not hear that voice over the loud chaos in my mind and heart as I focused on my pain and listened to the darkness calling me to death as my “reward.” It was the path I deserved to complete, the judgement I earned, the final steps to follow the others I had taken . . .BUT LIFE WON and the Master Potter continues to draw me with that pinpoint of light within a dark picture . . . hope for today and hope for tomorrow because that is what brought me through and out of my dark pits of yesterday—a pinpoint of light . . . some tiny unidentifiable stirring inside of me I now know was . . . HOPE!

I will cling to it as one clings to a life preserver in a rough sea
and
maybe it will grow as I fix my gaze on that pinpoint of Light . . . HOPE