If this dream is breaking my heart, maybe I need a bigger dream.
There is space between desire and attainment, a metaphorical desert or no-man's land where our faith is tested. When what we hope for, strived for, prayed for, doesn't show up, we have space to hear what we really think about ourselves and our worthiness. What happens when we get lost in this desert, when our desires begin to break our spirits because the waiting seems far too long? Do we not hear our own whisper, "maybe it's not meant for me..."
I wrote that opening quote above, recorded in the journals where I pour out all my humanness and suffering, all the things that should die in a fire than be shared, because pain seems so precious when you're in it and so self-indulgent when surpassed. Yet I find something beautiful and honest in these words, because I'm in the desert and the sand cuts away at me everyday. What if I've placed too much expectation on what is missing from my life? What if I'm meant for something more than I can imagine? What if I'm being prepared and I have to be patient? How do I know which one is the truth?
Fortitude is the courage through pain and adversity. It’s having a backbone, a force that walks us forward when our hearts are broken. Fortitude is having #truegrit, it means we’ve allowed ourselves to be scoured by the stands of the desert - that space between desire and attainment. Right action, one step in front of the other, endurance and resilience to keep going without any sign of relief or arrival is what builds our resolve. Resolve means the solution, the medicine.
Fortitude = True Grit = Strength of Character/Resolve = Medicine
When we follow the meanings of these words, we see the process of healing. We move with courage into metaphysical terrain that holds no nourishment. We suffer the abrasions, mental, emotional or physical. Do we give up? Do we settle? Do we continue? Those are the things that define us. It's not our fulfillment that builds our character, it's how we sustain our vision when there's no reason to believe in the happy ending.