Port in the Storm
A Refuge in Troubled Times
glimpses of the divine
The Great Oak Dilemma
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Once upon a time there was a Great Oak Tree which stood so tall and proud that it didn't matter where in the world you stood or lived, you could always see it. Everyone looked to this oak tree yet each saw it slightly differently, depending upon their perspective, yet all knew that it was magnificent and the centrepiece of all that they knew.
Now some people began to want to build apartment blocks where the Great Oak tree stood. They no longer recognised its central place in the world or the delight that this one tree bound together every tribe and nation. They didn't want this tree to go on as it once was and so plans were put in place to tear it down and put man-made structures in its place. It took many centuries but eventually it was believed that the Great Oak tree had finally nearly gone.
However what the planners failed to realise was that every year this great tree produced millions of acorns which carried its DNA. These acorns were distributed far and wide so in every land and tribe in the world.
“You can't get rid of me, the Great Oak Tree said one day as the lumberjack came along to remove another part of him. “You might try and destroy me but a part of me remains in every land on this globe. Even should you try and destroy every single acorn you can find, there will still be acorns hidden away by the squirrels that you will never find.”
“That might be so,” said the lumberjack “but they will be nothing when compared to you. At least we won't have to see you all the time from wherever we live. No one will speak of you anymore, because those other oak trees will be small and weak and frail in comparison to you and no one will give them a second glance.”
“Why do you hate me so much?” the Great Oak tree asked the lumberjack one day.
“I don't hate you, it's just that people fight over you and hurt each other because they believe that they know you better than everyone else and that has led to wars and rivalries which have gone on for centuries. I know you wanted others to focus on your great beauty and colours and abundance but instead each believes that you belong to them. They argue day and night about who knows you best and who is right.”
“But why have you allowed their arguments stop you from exploring who I am? Why are you cutting me out of your life because of the rows of others? I am not they. They represent me not. The ones who represent me are those with my true DNA within them. You will know them by their fruits. They will not only look like me and act like me, they will produce their own acorns which will be planted and continue to keep bearing the same fruit as I have always produced.
Believe me, you cannot rid the world of oak trees. It's never going to happen. So instead of trying to destroy something which is never going to go away, why don't you instead try to get to know me. Sit here with me and listen to my tales. Open your heart and eyes to trying to see things through my eyes. Don't rely on what others say about me. Discover me for yourself."
“So how do I do that?” asked the lumberjack. “If all those millions of people fight over how well they know you yet they all see you differently, what's the point of me trying to get to know you?"
“Because there has never been or will ever be anything in this world which will so dominate it as I do. You might choose not to look at me and overlook me, but you are trying to cut me down, not because of who I am but because others fight over who I am.
Don't give up on me as you are doing today. You can never destroy me, remember that, for a part of me lives on in every nation and village in the world. You have a chance today to not try and destroy me but to listen as I tell you things which will help you make much more sense of life and your meaning and purpose in that life. You can continue to try and destroy me or you can learn from me.
Don't listen to others who tell you that they know me. Many of them do not. Trust me to reveal the heart of who I am to you so that it becomes a very personal and real relationship. This could be the beginning of you discovering not only a lot more about me but a lot more about yourself too. I will be your teacher and I'll make the lessons fun and exciting and we will have fun together, of that I promise.
So what is it to be? Are you going to each day try and take away a little bit more of me, knowing I can never be destroyed or obliterated? Or are you going to learn from me about why I am the central tree in this planet's garden? It's your choice. What's it going to be?”
This story challenges each of us to choose what part we want to play in the life of the Great Oak tree. Do we want to ignore it and look away each time we catch a glimpse of it? Do we want to cut it down and try to destroy it? Or do we want to try and get to know it? Those three choices are available to everyone.
If you choose to want to get to know the Great Oak Tree better, then the following pages might help you head off on your journey in the right direction. However, this is your journey and rarely does the Great Oak Tree take any two people on the same paths. Very often they are very diverse, as if we have had a path made especially for us. So these stories, thoughts and ideas will only help you to head off and then it will be up to the Great Oak Tree to guide you and show you the way.
The ultimate destination is to become more and more like the Great Oak tree, for whether you know it or not, you too are an acorn made in the same image waiting to be planted in the right soil at the right time.
introduction
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When you get to know someone, you must spend time with them. It is only by being with someone through the highs and the lows that you really get to know their true character.
God is no different. He or she is a person. They walk and talk and love and encourage and show compassion, tenderness and wisdom. These are some of the many characteristics of God which I have discovered along the way on my journey, as well as God's faithfulness, devotion and support. I can tell you of these things because for over thirty years we have been through a hell of a lot together.
I learnt to trust him even when there seemed no hope. I saw him work things together for my good when it seemed impossible. I could write countless books on my relationship with him which might give you a glimpse into the God I have come to know and am still getting to discover something new and exciting about each and every day.
However, my relationship with him will not be the same as yours. You will talk about stuff that we never will. He will show you things which you are more open to than I am. He will weave your life story through every place he takes you to, helping to heal what is broken and restore what is lost. Therefore, although I can paint pictures of the Great Oak Tree, you need to find and begin your own relationship with him.
Some days I call God him. Some days when I see God as Wisdom and Life or in Mother nature, I call her her. To me I no longer try and put God into my small one-pint pot, for who can pour the vastness and wonder of the universe into something so tiny and insignificant?
And that's the sad truth. That ultimately none of us will ever be able to say that we know the Great Oak Tree until we have grown into a fully formed oak tree ourselves. Ultimately, you cannot put God in a box and those who try to do so, do him a huge disservice.
Yet I have got to know the heart of my God a tiny bit more each day and have begun to see through those eyes of compassion, tenderness, newness, awe and wonder. I know after many years that God is good all the time, even when I've struggled through some of the most horrible of situations and circumstances.
But you need to discover this goodness and kindness for yourselves. My hope is that these reflections will help you get started.
Elegant Title
Daily Thoughts, Reflections and Prayers
What is Prayer?
Within these pages are many thoughts and ideas, but I have also included prayers. To those who are unfamiliar with praying, it might seem like a strange and unfamiliar place to enter into. Yet it is not, for at the heart of it, prayer is all about holding a conversation between two people, expressing thoughts, hopes, fears, worries, concerns as well as joys, delights, wonder and awe. It's an exchange, a divine exchange, where both sides choose what to say and what not to say.
The best analogy I can use is one of friendship that grows into love. It might take many years for that to happen or it might be instant. It is different for every single person. It's a one of a kind friendship or love affair. No one has ever been you before therefore your relationship with the divine will be unique.
We sometimes find that with some friends we can share our highs but not our lows. With some we don't feel able to open up to them because we are afraid that they will laugh or ridicule our honestly expressed feelings and we will go away hurt and damaged in some way.
But God is love, a love that is unconditional. If you look that up it means that whatever you say or however you feel, he will never stop loving you. Now that's hard for most people to get their head around as nearly everyone who loves us does so with conditions. Yet God promises to love us as we are, where we are and to accept whatever it is that we want to share. Of course as we get to know him, that is amazingly freeing, to find a place and relationship where we can be ourself. We learn that when we are confused or angry or hurt or disappointed, we can express these emotions as God is a safe place, probably the safest most loving place we will ever be able to find.
As we get to know him or her or call them the universe or God or divine spirit or giver of life or whatever comes from our heart as we pray, we learn that we can trust that divine being to take care of us in a way that ensures that our wounds get healed, we gain greater freedom to be the person God created us to be and that enables us to learn to grow in love, truth and compassion as we walk side by side with him.
Sometimes we learn eventually to speak a love language of our own to him. This too is a unique, one of a kind way of expressing what words alone cannot say. In the same way as being in the presence of one who we love deeply is enough, without needing to say or speak out anything, so too is it with God.
So that is prayer, a free exchange of love and friendship between two persons in a unique and wonderful way.
If you would like to know a little more about how to pray, then please see Appendix 1 at the back of this book.
Thoughts for the day
Day 1 - finding the path
God is everywhere you look. You cannot look at anything without it in some way speaking to you of a very different life beyond the one you’re currently acquainted with. All around you are clues to the mysteries of life.
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So, let that be your first challenge, to look deeply into life all around you, to discover the God of the Universe speaking to you today and you alone.
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God has laid a path to the door of his heart and home. At first it can be difficult to find, but the promise is that all who seek, will find. So, let that reassure you that if you are diligently seeking, you will begin to see and hear things in a new, life giving way.
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Knock and the door will be opened. Seek and you shall find. That is God’s promise to you today and all days.
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Prayer
Giver of Life,
Thank you for laying down a path from me to your door. Thank you that you want to get to know me and to share your world with me.
Help me to know you better and show me what is of importance and worth to you, so that I can appreciate what is of value and discard what is not.
Help me to see through new eyes the world you will shortly be opening up for me. Help me to taste and see that what you bring is good and nourishing.
Thank you that you are a God who is in every situation. Thank you that you have the answers to the problems I am experiencing and you will lead me into all truth, so that I may no longer be afraid, but instead learn to trust that you only want to prosper me and not to do me harm.
Open the door of my heart, so that I may not be afraid of this new journey I am beginning today. Help me to trust you, I pray. Amen.
day 2 - the invitation
In the same way as we knock at God’s door, he too knocks at ours and extends this invitation to us.
“Open your heart and I will come in.
If you keep your heart closed, I cannot enter. I will wait here, waiting patiently until such time as you dare to open yourself to me. I will not come in where I am not wanted but I cannot begin to transform your life until such time as you open the door of your heart and let me in. I know that’s a risk, but to not do so means a life spent struggling for sense and purpose on your own.
I can be trusted but you will only know and discover that when you have truly opened the door and let me in. There is no time pressure, no rush, no hurry. However, the sooner the door is opened the sooner your life can begin to change for the better and I promise you it will be for the better.
Let me in knowing that it is still your home, your house and you can throw me out whenever you want. But I will promise to stay and be there with you through every twist and turn for as long as you want me to stay.
I can be trusted within your home. I will never take your hospitality for granted or lay down rules and regulations about how you should lead your life. I simply ask that I be your companion in good days and bad; an ever present presence that you might seek out and spend time with whenever you choose. I am not a house guest you have to tip toe around. I will give you space when you need space or I will sit gently and quietly near you when you need the presence of a loving friend. I will never force my way into any room and will knock at each and every one of these rooms before I enter.
This will always remain your home and your safe refuge, a place no one can come into unless you choose to invite them in. This is your sanctuary, your hiding place, your bolt hole from the world. Although I reside here with you so that you might know that you need never be alone, I will give you your heart to roam in and discover as you so please.
I will never inhibit you, restrain you or hold you back. I will simply be there, showing you further rooms whose doors you might wish to open but never forcing anything upon you. I recognise that I am here at your bidding and remain your house guest for as long as you so wish. I will never take this privilege for granted and will honour you and your home at all times, in the same way as I hope you too can honour me and my home.
Come inside and visit me too and again, I will show you the doors and windows that lead to wonderful masterpieces contained within the heart of my home and my abode.”
Prayer
Another way of praying is to personalise words that you have read. I have rewritten this again as a prayer which you can say. The same can be done with any of the other words in this book which you feel you want to turn into a prayer.
Giver of Life,
“Help me to open my heart so that you can come in.
If I keep my heart closed, you cannot enter. Instead, you have promised to wait here, waiting patiently until such time as I dare to open myself to you. I recognise that you do not come in where you are not wanted but you cannot begin to transform my life until such time as I open the door of my heart and let you in.
I know that’s a risk, but to not do so means a life spent struggling for sense and purpose on my own.
I want to trust you but I will only know and discover that when I have truly opened the door and let you in. Thank you that there is no time pressure, no rush, no hurry. However, I recognise that the sooner the door is opened the sooner my life can begin to change for the better and you promise that it will be for the better.
Thank you that if I let you in, I know that this is still my home, my house and I can throw you out whenever I want. Thank you that you promise to stay and be here with me through every twist and turn for as long as I want you to stay.
Thank you that you can be trusted within my home and will never take my hospitality for granted or lay down rules and regulations about how I should lead my life. Thank you that you simply ask that you be my companion on good days and bad; an ever present presence that I might seek out and spend time with whenever I choose.
I am so grateful that you are not a house guest who I have to tip toe around. Instead, you will give me space when I need space or you will sit gently and quietly near me when I need the presence of a loving friend. I appreciate that you will never force your way into any room and will knock at each and every one of these rooms before you enter.
Thank you that you have said that this will always remain my home and my safe refuge, a place no one can come into unless I choose to invite them in. This is my sanctuary, my hiding place, my bolt hole from the world and although you reside here with me so that I might know that I need never be alone, you will give me my heart to roam in and discover as I so please.
Thank you that you will never inhibit me, restrain me or hold me back. Instead, you will simply be here, showing me further undiscovered rooms in my home whose doors I might wish to open, but never forcing anything upon me.
Thank you that you recognise that you are here at my bidding and remain my house guest for as long as I so wish. Thank you that you have said that you will never take this privilege for granted and will honour me and my home at all times, in the same way you hope that I too can honour you and your home.
Thank you that you invite me to come inside and visit you too and that you will show me the doors and windows which lead to wonderful masterpieces contained within the heart of your home and your abode. Of this I feel truly grateful and honoured. Thank you. Amen.
Photo by Richard McCall from Pixabay
Thought 3 - Is Death the Answer?
Picture by Joggie from Pixabay
Sometimes it seems too hard to live with all of one’s losses, grieving and wounds and therefore death seems the only way out. But is death the answer?
Suicidal thoughts come when we feel trapped in a darkness that there appears to be no way out of. Life seems like an insurmountable obstacle or mountain that we no longer have any strength to get around or over. We are weary with trying. We are despondent with life. There seems absolutely no point in continuing. Reason, logic and guilt - we hear them all speaking as dear friends to us. Yet there is one speaking louder and clearer than all of these and this is death himself.
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Death comes selling his wares, promising us peace, rest and an end, where we no longer have to struggle or exist or cope. He tells us that what he offers is freedom, eternal freedom from this dark, dark place in which we reside. Whilst other voices try to offer us hope of a good life here, he offers to take us on a journey to the next life, death......
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Thought 4 - The turning point of despair
I was twenty two and one day I was standing at a railway barrier waiting for the train from London to pass. A woman stood next to me. At the last minute, just as the train was about to roar past, the lady next to me ducked under the barrier and threw herself in front of the train. I witnessed a woman thrown like a rag doll in front of my eyes and nearly 40 years later that image haunts me still.
What if I had engaged with her and kept her talking, maybe I could have prevented what happened? If only I'd known, I could have done something to prevent that awful end to a woman who seemed to have so much courage to go through with that act.
That was the thought that kept going around and around in my head. Facing a massive high-speed train is not the act of a coward as some think. It’s a sign of utter despair and desperation. What was going on in that lady's life that was so terrible that standing in front of a train was a preferable option? I couldn't imagine......
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Thought 5 - you are not alone
“I can’t go on”, she cried, first to herself and then to the world around her. She was desperate. She had lost all idea of hope.
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It seemed that everywhere she turned she was met with a brick wall. North, South, East and West, only brick walls. She felt caged in a tiny room with barely enough room to swing a rabbit. The walls contained no windows in which she could see out of. There were no doors and no way out. Just a closed in room, where she believed she would eventually die. Each day the walls seemed to move inwards, getting closer and closer to her. Each day she therefore felt more trapped and claustrophobic. There was no way out above, below or to the sides of her. Where was she to go? What was the point of continuing in this nonsensical existence?
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“I know,” she thought. “I will end it all now. What have I got to look forward to but greater fear and anxiety as my world becomes ever smaller? If I take something or take an irreversible action, at least it will be over and done with. I’ll finally have peace. I will no longer have to battle through each minute of every day. That’s my way out. It is the only way out that I can make out from this tiny, dark, cramped and claustrophobic existence. When I’m gone, everyone can be alright again...... Read more
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Thought 6 - You are of great worth
Deep within a forest stood a tree. It was a lonely little tree because although it was surrounded by hundreds of other trees, it could not see the light. It felt cut off from the height of itself, the part that could feel the sun’s warmth and rays.
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It was as if this tree was now only a trunk, a trunk that felt rigid and lifeless. It was rooted in the soil of despair and despondency. It could not leave. It could not escape. It felt trapped. It was not in a good place.
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One day an axe man came along and sat by the tree, telling her that if she liked, he could cut her down and then her life would be over and she would never have to live in this dark place ever again. His offer sounded very appealing and she was tempted to take him up on it. He knew she was interested and so he kept coming back each and every day, trying to persuade her that he was the answer to all her problems.
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Then one day a very different person came along who talked differently to her and never suggested that she would be better off dead. Instead, he began to tell her of the beauty he saw in her and how excited he was about all she might achieve as a magnificent tree......
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Thought 7 - winter and the hero within
Picture by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
Sometimes in life we have no strength to go on. We are tired. We are exhausted from the battles we are fighting within ourselves day after day after day. We are wounded. We are hurting. Our strength is ebbing away.
It’s as if we have somehow ended up on the rocks of life and we have fallen out of the boat of everything that once held us. We are now caught up in these ferocious waves that are determined to batter and destroy us. Wave after wave comes trying to draw us nearer to the rocks of doom which threaten to take our life. Once we had the strength to try and swim in the opposite direction. However, now we are barely able to stay afloat and we are tempted to allow ourselves to be carried to whatever fate has ordained for us.
Yet it is at these times that there is always a voice within us telling us that this too will pass and that the waves will subside and that one day the same waters that are battering us now will be still, clear and balmy to swim in. We just need to hold on.
But what can we hold onto out here in these ferocious seas? The truth that within us lies a hero or heroine who has the strength to carry on. It will be in years to come as we sit contentedly upon a sandy beach watching the sunlight play over the sea that we will recall with horror how close we came to missing this very special and precious time in our life.
We will see clearly then that we were living through a bitter winter when it appeared that everything in our life was dead or dying. We thought it was the end and yet in truth it was the season that would prepare us for the spring to come. However, we couldn't see this truth for we were frozen......
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Thought 8 - climbing out of the pit
Sometimes we want to begin again but it seems too hard to climb out of the pit we are trapped within. Here is a story of one goat’s struggles to escape his pit.
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Once upon a time on a hill overlooking a city sat a gorgeous little sheep. She was very beautiful to look at and she had a heart of gold. One day as she was walking, she heard muffled cries coming from nearby.
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“Help me, help me please” shouted a little goat, caught and trapped at the bottom of a very large pit.
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“Oh my,” she exclaimed, “however did you get in there and however are we going to release you and set you free?”
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The goat told her a long story of all that had led up to the point where he had fallen into the deep pit but which he was unable to escape from on his own. He had tried for many hours and even days to find a way to escape.
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“We need to get you out,” exclaimed the sheep. ........
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Thought 9 - the power of words
Words are very powerful weapons. What you tell yourself, you believe. What others tell you, you listen to. At our darkest times, we need to be extremely careful about the company we keep.
It is at these times that the companions of fear, worry, desolation and hopelessness come along and grab as many moments of our waking and sleeping time as possible. They are forever telling us that we will never get through this and that we won't be able to cope with all that is coming our way. They tell us that we're a burden and everyone would be so much better off without us. They whisper in our ears that we are a failure and a waste of space and that nothing we do will ever change that. We will hear them calling us awful names and remind us that we are a terrible disappointment and a burden to many.
It is at these times that you need to counter these lies, for that is truly what they are, with truths. You need to say them out loud, even when you don't or can't believe them.
It is a little like scales. If all you put onto the scales are negative, destructive words and thoughts, you will end up in even more dangerous water. It is only when you allow yourself to think or say words of life and hope to yourself that you begin to tip the scales in your favour.......
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Thought 10 - loss and gain
When we are able to, we can eventually see that we can never have a loss without some form of gain coming as well. Sometimes it’s almost impossible to see how anything is being gained from our most terrible of losses. However, it is one of the rules of life that with every loss comes a gain.
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It is like painting a picture. At first, we lay down the first wash. We like the colours and are pleased with them. We might be reluctant to paint anything on top of it, but we know that in order to paint the story of our life, we need to begin to move on. We feel reluctant to, because what was there before will now be covered over. Yet we know we have to go on, for to stay grieving is to stop living and breathing and the one who we have lost would feel immense sadness and heartache to know that their loss meant we stopped painting.
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And so the day comes when we begin to paint over that part of ourselves, often in dark colours, for the original light is becoming dim now and darkness is how we feel. Gradually over time, colour returns and although we can no longer see the coats of paint we made originally, we know that they underpin everything that we are now painting. Just because we can no longer make that wash of paint out and it remains hidden, it is still there as surely as if we could see it.......
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Thought 11 - the peace garden
Finding peace whilst living through the wars raging all around you and within you can be hard or seem almost impossible. Yet that is what you somehow need to find in order to survive intact. I have given the image of a peace Garden to help you try to find that peace.
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The mind rules lives; when it is agitated, we are agitated; when it is at rest, we are at rest. So it is important that there be awareness of the thoughts going through the mind.
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The mind is like a busy railway station, with thoughts and ideas coming along like trains every few seconds and minutes. There is constant activity and as the trains pull into the station, they unload many people, each separate and all going in different directions at different speeds.
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As we watch the trains come and go and watch the people embark and disembark there is not a moment left to be in the moment. We are caught up watching our thoughts as if we were watching the people coming and going and then have no time left to seek out and search for peace and calm. Therefore, first, we need to shut the station for a while and allow no trains and no people to enter. The signals need to be set at red for a while so that within the station there is only peace and calm.
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When there are no trains or people to watch, then one begins to notice the trees and the flowers and the sounds of the birds and the wind in the leaves of the trees. You can begin to get up and wander away from the track and wander behind the station walls and discover amazing gardens just empty and waiting for you to discover......
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Thought 12 - letting go
Sometimes, we can't let our heavy rocks of our pasts go because we want justice, and we hold onto them because of the unjustness and unfairness of what we have suffered. Somehow to let these things go means our hurts haven't been seen or witnessed and ignored.
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Our pasts contain many happy times and memories but they also contain trauma or hardships, sadness’s, losses and regrets. Whilst we hold on to some of the good times, it is the hardest and most difficult and painful times that we find hardest to let go of because they still hurt.
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It is like having an open wound on a part of our body, that has not as yet been able to heal. We can forget about it for much of the time but then suddenly someone or something inadvertently bangs into us and the pain of the wound shoots through us once more. Some wounds have been with us since childhood and yet they still are not healed. Why is that?
Because these are our deepest of wounds that were in some way inflicted in our foundational years. They need to be cleaned out, have healing oils put on them and then wrapped and kept safe and clean.
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