Awake

My friend Mia has two mountains in her home. They’re both tall and cushy and snow-colored. One’s in her closet and the other is in a corner and they’re both growing.

It’s toilet paper.

She’s been hunting and hoarding the stuff since February.

I’ve poked and prodded her about it. I’ve pointed out that it is neither healthy nor responsible to gather these types of things in such quantitates. I have mentioned that it’s a bit overboard and irrational. I’ve let her see me pick my jaw up off the floor when she’s showed me pictures of the fluffy mountains she’s created. Nevertheless, she prevails and the precipices keep growing.

Mia recently told me however, that one day as she was sitting in her living room looking at the toilet paper tower in her corner, she felt compelled to ask the following:

“God, why am I hoarding all this toilet paper? It doesn’t make sense to even me.”

She received a swift, kind, and guttural reply:

“It’s because you had to use newspaper as a child, Mia.”

…

“Oh yeah.” she said. “I had forgotten about that.”

Her conscience mind had forgotten, but her subcscience mind hadn’t. Remarkable, considering that she made purchasing decisions based on an experience that she had neither remembered or recounted. It’s not like she stands in the toilet paper aisle and thinks to herself…

“I didn’t have the means to get the toilet paper I needed when I was a child. I didn’t have parents that made sure I had things like that, much less feminine products and healthy foods and emotional support. To avoid ever going without again, I will cover my bum by making absolute sure I can properly wipe it.”

No. That’s not what happens.

The thought and memory hadn’t occurred to her, but the effects of it had. Something she experienced in the past, is effecting her decisions in the present.

And this?

It makes me want to hug all of humanity.

People carry so very much, and they operate out of their lived experiences. It matters not how big or small, encounters and events from our pasts impact and inform our futures. What we carry, we emit. And like Mia, we often times don’t have a clue we’re doing it.

No matter how pristine or privileged or loving, no matter how torn or twisted or dark – our yesterdays influence our todays.

The great news? This can be spun for good.

It all starts with asking and awareness.

Mia realized that her tendencies weren’t exactly healthy. She became aware.

Then she went to her Maker with it. She asked.

And then the next step? Action.

Mia is now armed with a few things:

1. She realizes that she has the ability to be awake to herself. Her past. Her experiences. Her leanings.
2. She realizes she has a Creator who cares and answers her calls in all sorts of ways. She is awake to the Divine. She has a built-in Counselor and an Advocate, and she uses It.
3. She can shift and change and transform. She is awake to healing. She knows God’s power, and the power He’s placed within her to grow and thrive.

Ah. Mia can be free.

And so can we.

I don’t know what type of “mountains” you have in your life right now. I have a few of them myself. But we both have a Maker who specializes in speaking, making Himself known, and equipping us for a life of purpose and love.

I pray her story encourages us all to become aware of the precipices in our lives, to ask the One who Wove Us about those things, and then to become our true selves in Him.

Big, huge, knowing, comforting, sincere embraces to each of you.