Who enters vs who leaves

Going into this journey, I did it because I wanted control back. I wanted answers. I wanted to understand what had happened, why it happened, and where everything was supposed to lead.

Now, the less control I have, the freer I feel.

I see it time and time again. Person after person reaches out wanting to hear about experiences I had that they did not. I do not share the details. Instead, I listen to the very things they say. The very words they use that contradict their claim to be fully surrendered to it.

I point out blockades they missed. Obstacles they are not seeing. Places where they are still holding on.

Not because I have somehow figured everything out, but because I have walked through enough of my own wilderness to recognize what surrender does not look like.

Along the way, I began to believe what so many people told me. Maybe this was simply a path to becoming a better person.

In its simplest terms, it is true. Then I get reminders that it is more.

I went to sleep with severely bruised ribs. Had I gone to the doctor, I am fairly confident the diagnosis would have been worse. I woke up with full mobility. No pain. No irritability. Nothing.

That is not the cool part, which anyone walking the path can attest to. The cool part is how I got them. How I reacted.

I was the victim of premeditated aggravated assault. It happened at work. Everybody heard it, yet nobody knew what had actually happened.

Someone came to my job, watched me, waited for a moment to strike, smashed me in the back of the head, and waved a knife in my face.

The person who entered this journey would have come out swinging. Would have wanted blood. Would have wanted to show them who I really am... or who I was.

Instead, standing in that moment were four words.

Love. Compassion. Humility. Grace.

Not as an idea. Not as something written in a journal. Four words that were there when the moment came. My first thought was not revenge. It was understanding.

Why did they feel the need to do this? What brought them here? What could possibly have compelled them to come to my place of work and do this?

The four words were there before I could turn them into anything else.

Love. Compassion. Humility. Grace.

Then I dusted myself off. I told people I fell.

Not because I was ashamed of what happened. Not because what happened was insignificant. Not because I thought the person who did it should face no consequences.

I simply did not feel the need to make that moment into something bigger than it already was.

Then I went back to work.

There was a table of customers upset because I was taking too long to refill their drinks. They did not know why. They did not know that I had just been assaulted. They did not know that the reason their drinks were taking so long had nothing to do with neglecting them or not caring about their table.

I could have told them. I could have explained exactly why I was delayed. I could have asked for their understanding.

Instead, I went back to the table, apologized and refilled their drinks.

Love. Compassion. Humility. Grace.

Those four words belonged to that moment.

They were not about making the assault acceptable. They were not about pretending nothing happened. They were about what I chose to carry away from it.

That is where the path becomes different.

You can walk through something terrible without allowing the terrible thing to decide what comes out of you. You can recognize the wrong without becoming consumed by it. You can seek justice without seeking vengeance. You can have boundaries without hatred, which is something most everyone gets wrong and the judicial system is more than happy and readily available to destroy livelihoods in your "honor". You can forgive without pretending. You can continue walking without needing everyone around you to understand what just happened.

That is what the wilderness has taught me more than anything. The person who enters the wilderness is not the person who leaves it. If I had encountered this moment before the journey, I know who I would have been.

That is surrender.

Surrender is not knowing what happens next. Surrender is not caring how people judge you for your experiences. For your truth.

It is releasing the demand that everything make sense before you continue walking.

That is where I am with my marriage too.

I tried over and over to surrender the idea of it being restored. Yet every time I thought I had finally released it, something seemed to pull me back toward the question.

Maybe that soul connection needed to remain because so much of my journey felt connected to hers. Maybe there is something I still do not understand. Maybe that part of the Bible has been interpreted incorrectly. Maybe society refuses to acknowledge the other passages that speak about divorce being permissible.

Maybe my marriage will be restored. Maybe it will not.

I do not know. That is what surrender has become for me.

Not giving up. Not deciding the outcome. Not demanding that God prove anything to me.

Just continuing to walk. Continuing to be obedient. Obedient to commands that drain you. Obedient to commands that are pure sacrifice to your goals. That feel like more harm than good. Obedient when the command goes silent because the command to stop was never there.

You do not have to understand every obstacle before you move past it. You do not have to know the destination to take the next step. You do not have to carry every wound with you just because it happened. You do not have to become the thing that hurt you.

Love. Compassion. Humility. Grace.

The path is not about changing what happens to you. It is about changing what happens through you.

Who enters the path is not who leaves.