Trials are tunnels

An excerpt from "Women, Food, And God"

"I shut myself down or walk out the door when pain threatens to destroy me- which is in any situation that involves another human being or whose outcome I can't control. Something else is happening-the refusal to accept- and therefore engage in...life as it is. In the way things are. Polar bears are dying. Honeybees are vanishing. The oceans are drying up. There is a part of me that wants my money back. That wants to say I didn't sign up for this, I don't like the way this whole thing is set up and I won't participate in it.

Stephen Levine, a buddhist teacher, says that hell is wanting to be somewhere different from where you are. Being one place and wanting to be somewhere else. Being constantly agitated- another word for nonaccepting- about the inevitable. Being in a relationship with someone and refusing to surrender to love becase you don't want to give yourself to something you will eventually lose. That is called living in hell. That's also called leaving without leaving. Dying before you die. It's as if there is a part of you that rails against being shattered by love that you shatter yourself first."

Sometimes life is hard and I don't want the trials I'm given. I know I should be glad for the opportunity to grow; but unfortunately, sometimes I'm just not grateful for the chance to be stretched to what feels like wayyyy past my limit. To be at the beginning of what feels like a never ending tunnel.

The thing that is important to realize though, is that long before I came to this earth, I did "sign up for this." And when I made my decision, I knew full well that it would be hard and full of challenges. If I made that choice then, knowing what was coming...then I must have definately known that it would all be worth it in the end. And sometimes, that is a little piece of knowledge that reminds me to keep on going. A dim light in the distance.