Robert Wesley Branch

I’m listening!

Point of No Return!

© 2008 Robert Wesley Branch

It was a lazy suburban Saturday morning and I’d already run my usual errands: laundry at four-thirty, CVS shopping for toiletries at five-thirty, coffee at six, dry cleaning pick-up at eight.  I’d settle into my brand new white terrycloth robe and was ready for a relaxing day at home, away from the world.  That’s when nostalgia overtook me – and a still small urge hit me to connect with people I hadn’t spoken to in years and to revisit some of the places I’d shared with them in times past.  Over the course of that day and into the evening, I reconnected with a part of my life that I’d left on the path some years ago.  And what I found is that I have reached the point of no return.

I have lived long enough to know exactly how I want to live.

Reflecting on the many years, months, weeks, days, hours and minutes I’ve spent with myself, engaged in unhealthy habits and behaviors, I would be numb and dumbstruck, if I remained in that toxic emotional space for too long.  What a blessing it is to be able to touch down in those long ago memories just long enough to appreciate how much I’ve grown beyond those wayward states of being.  I can recall those days with ease – and readily move past them in my mind.  This is an accomplishment, for I used to be a dweller – constantly playing and replaying in my mind, running a list of all the fucked up things I’ve ever said and done.  This created a negative internal dialogue that kept me feeling bad about myself.  And the inferiority complex created by this perpetually pessimistic self-perception spilled from my most personal moments into all my public and professional responsibilities.  Beyond and behind the ever-present smile was constant and consistent emotional pain.

Today I am a healed man.  And I have reached the point of no return.  There is no going back to the pain of my childhood – and to all the scars and wounds that crippled me for so much of my adult life.  Today I am a free man.  And life after pain is much sweeter than all those years wandering in that wilderness of self-pity, guilt, shame and regret.

On that Saturday, on that quick trip I took back to some of those spaces where I spent so much of my life’s energy and passed so much of my life’s valuable (and fleeting!) time, I forever realized that I am no longer that man.  I have faced that Red Sea.  And having crossed those parted waters, I am now living in my promised land.

It is possible to live beyond our present pain and to come into a new place – higher ground – where fresh manna strengthens old bones and the weak spots that once kept us from the good life we all seek.  We just have to keep living.  We have to keep dreaming.  In the midst of the sadness seeking to destroy us, we have to keep loving ourselves and others.  And no matter how elusive it may seem, we have to be sure to find the laughter that is oh-so-god for our soul.

This, I know, is true: There comes a day – liberating – and an hour when you will look back and briefly go back, and you will see for the first time (again!) that part of you that is forever frozen in time.  And you will know-that-you-know that you are no longer that pillar and that once familiar image is no longer you.  You will then turn to face the life you now lead and your unknown future will lead you forward.

What you can be sure of is this: real faith is knowing that whatever happens, you will be okay – for you have survived, and having passed the point of no return, you are now Divinely prepared for the unique destiny that awaits you, that purpose for which you were created and born.

Let me please encourage you today: I will thoroughly purge away your dross and remove all your impurities. Isaiah 1:25