Wearing cloaks of darkness, claws of quietness
It approached and pounced as I pondered
The miserable tune life was playing for me.
“Help!” I screamed but I was done, alone.
I had to get up, get out, and continue
To dance or I’d die where I was fallen.
I had to get up, get out, and continue
To dance my style, my way,
To this miserable tune if I truly must live.

As I was pondering how to dance to the tune of the demise of my one and only car on December 25, 2014, other strange tunes played on at the background. My annual rent was due and is a major expense. I had other huge expenses waiting that I couldn’t afford the luxury of a new car right away. I live in a part of the world where you pay for what you want or you don’t get it: credit comes with killing interests and is therefore not attractive. A million and one thoughts ran through my mind but at that point I made a choice on how I was going to dance the tunes I didn’t request.

I chose at that moment to look away from me and from the obvious loss, to look to God, to the person involved in the crash; to try and understand what he must have gone through and how he must feel at this time; to others around who were or may have been impacted by the loss – that single decision not only changed the position from where I was viewing the incident, it unconsciously influenced my attitude and was reflected glaringly clear in my dance steps in going forward.

Instead of me; I reached out to the one who had gone through the actual experience. It may be easier to do that when others are around, supporting, but at the end of the day when everyone else departs, and you are left all alone to bear your loss – the vacuum takes a gigantic pose and it becomes harder to bear. When night falls and everywhere is silent save that horrible tune, playing for your ears alone, with nothing and no one else to distract you from pouring all your thoughts on it: that is the hardest time to dance and that is when you dance your best. Then you are dancing for no one else but for God and for you. At nighttime when supporters and sympathizers have returned to their due places, then who you truly are within is buoyed up in the sea of overwhelming quietness of everyone else’s absence and you feel the claws of reality.

That was where I found myself the next morning between 2 and 3am. I woke up, unable to return to sleep, unable to get it off my mind: stuck right in the middle of that worrisome reality and scary tunes. The ugly loss was staring me so hard in the face, daring me to be still, to bear it, to swallow and not choke, to continue dancing and not stop. It was a battle I couldn’t escape or deflect. I couldn’t go back to sleep and I couldn’t push away the loss clawing to overwhelm and steal my peace. I prayed. I reached for my iPad, anything to get my mind off it. Then Patti noticed I was online and sent me a message, “Why are you up at this time?” At loss for words and not wanting to ruin the joy of Christmas for her, I said, “I just couldn’t sleep,” and left it there for then. Patti is one sensitive presence in my life that I can’t tell how she gets the signal whenever I’m fighting battles and not willing to disclose. Much as I didn’t want to mess her Christmas with a sad news, I knew she’d be praying for me.

At that time, down and feeling alone, I was fighting monsters. They are always lurking around like their master, seeking opportunity to come in and devour (Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 1 Peter 5:8) I was battling monsters of disappointment and regret. The future dared me to approach – it appeared unbearable, impossible. Stalled, I staggered, I wondered; what could I have done wrong? How did I get here? What could I have done differently? I went back memory lane, revisiting events of the previous days up to the point when I handed over that key. I was searching for insight, a revelation, something that will trigger understanding to make that loss easy to bear. There was none.

Glory!