Leaps of Faith




Leaps of faith must be taken on a regular basis. It is how I live my life and definitely the reason I experience the heartaches I do. It is also the reason my life is filled with surprises and immense joy at times too. We have to play to win. We have to live to actually, well...live.

I watch many people I know hide behind the walls they build and false bravados of, "I don't care. Not going there." and, "I'm doing just fine on my own." Not true. It isn't ever true that we are really living if we are hiding with blankets pulled over our heads fearful we might be attacked at any moment instead of taking the chance and stepping out into the world-the real world. Not the world we carefully construct around ourselves making sure only the right experiences invade our premises. The real live world where anything can and usually does happen. The world where we have no foresight to know what is just around the corner waiting for us.

There has to be room for the dark horses and odd occurrences to happen-the things that we do not plan or aren't expecting. It's scary thinking about everything wrong that can happen, but it is exciting to still enjoy the wonder of what good might come too or even come out of any horror we battle. This is where faith comes in. This is what dreams are made of. This is what living is.

Each of us walks through darkness. We fall ill, we lose those we love, or our jobs. We are broke or wounded, or simply desperate. We are jaded and confused and alone and bitter. However, it doesn't have to own us. Those awful heartaches do not have to rule our existence unless we simply stop jumping to the next part of our lives to see what happens next.

We lose hope sometimes when others hurt us, when we feel lonely and disconnected. It is understandable but it is not the place we need to stop in. When we stop in those moments of heartbreak we don't get to find out the rest of the story. We don't get to find out what lies right over the next hump. We instead dig our own graves and close the earth right over ourselves even though we still walk around in everyday life.

I have made the conscious decision to not stop no matter what. I will forever leap, jump and even spin pirouettes as I stumble through my life without any idea where I will end up. I will not stop until I have made it all the way through whether I wind up in pieces or not. I am not giving up-not ever-no matter how low life can take me and it has taken me down into some pretty deep dark holes. I will not build walls of steel or bricks or even diamonds to stop others from reaching me.

I will continue on, even when I ask myself if I am crazy to do so. I am not crazy-I am simply alive, with a heart beating huge thuds and a head filled with the faith that it will be good. I just have to keep the faith.

Monika M. Basile