Descent

Today, I’d like to share a reflection on my journey in what I am calling my Descent.  Perhaps you will find hope in my experience for the path of your own soul.  

In her book, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, Sue Monk Kidd describes her own eight-year internal wayfinding. She pictures the descent into the depths of her own soul like a gorge that she must go deeper and deeper into. That image has stuck with me and sheds light on my own experiences of late.  

For the past year and a half, I have been descending slowly into the deepest recesses of my own soul.  I’ve scaled my way to the bottom and found myself in a pit.  Only, it’s not a small and narrow pit, as I once imagined it would be.  It’s not actually confining me.  I am not simply collapsed on the floor waiting to be lifted up and out.  No, it’s a broad place.  And I am walking.  The pit has transfigured into a road that stretches out endlessly in front of me, not because there is no end but because I am not constrained.  The road is broad because I am free here.  

Eventually, this broad valley will ascend out into a new space for my soul.  The road will gradually shift upward and light will overtake the darkness that I have been walking in.  It will lead me out.  This place is not something to be escaped.  It is actually the key to my flourishing.  It is not meant to punish.  It is meant to bless.

All along the path, standing at the sides and lining my way, are light bearers.  They are the women who have been guides as I move my way through.  They point the way, they light the way, they reflect back the way that I know within myself and they do so without judgment, without shame, without pre-empting my own right to choose my next step.  They have been shepherdesses for my soul who have illuminated this place.  I know that the darkness would have overtaken me without them.  

The tender love of God overwhelms.  God did not leave me alone to struggle or to wander.  God surrounded me.  And every time I have doubted or wondered or just needed a reminder of His promise, He brings evidence of His work in so many ways.  Many butterflies fill my weeks! It is quite remarkable.  

 I’ve long held strength inside, but I did not always know it or walk in it.  The work of the last year and a half has been the work of building a strong emotional core. Like in exercise, the core is the main thing.  You have to strengthen it in order to keep everything strong.  It takes focused effort.  Emotionally, this has been my work: Strengthen the inner resources.  Get rid of living in shame and in fear of the expectations and opinions of others.  Look at where I actually am.  Validate my own experiences.  Trust my inner knowing.  Slow down and go deep, deep within.  

I have been given an immense gift in this descent.  And I have chosen to receive that gift and grasp for its lessons whole-heartedly.  I am realizing, however, that many people do not. 

This is because in all of its beauty, it’s still an utterly painful place to linger in.  It’s a heart-wrenching descent- this movement from what conceals to what heals.  It costs all that we have known before.  It’s scary because we are exchanging what have known for what we don’t yet know, what we can’t yet see.  It’s like swinging from a monkey bar and letting go of one without grasping the next one, trusting that it will be there when it needs to be.  This in-between suspension is more than unnerving.  It’s radically life-altering.  And most of us want to grab that next monkey bar just as quickly as we possibly can.  But, the invitation is to take the great descent, the descent into the gorge of our own soul.  When we get there, we find that the road is broad and the way is lighted.  We really and truly don’t have to be afraid.  

What is the descent that you are in today?  Can you start walking, trusting that there WILL be light to guide you and hope to sustain you?  Or, maybe you have taken this journey and are on the other side.  Perhaps you can strengthen others who are still navigating the depths.  Wherever you are, remember that this place is for freedom, not constricting.  It is for flourishing, not punishing.  Be brave. Take the first step down. You’ll find a broad and lighted place waiting.