It is in such moments, when conversations that touch beyond mere formality - breaking norms and provoking paradigms, that give rooms to character development. And I now believe (albeit a bit late) that conversations make huge differences, whenever it may be by God's grace.
I had a rather uneasy re-initiation of my counselling session back with my counsellor (officially because the previous meeting we had recently was just an update of what I have been doing for the past year). To be frank, in allowing myself to be revealed once more in that deep seated setting, with all my insecurities let down naked for someone to see can be quite dissonant. However, after 4 years of knowing him, I somehow had a better grasp of the character of my counsellor and therefore felt that even through the stark nakedness, something beautiful can be made out of that obscenity.
A lot has been talked about in the session, and much secrets were also revealed in the course of the reflection. They are rather intimate and personal, and I will leave it in the future to address them in the form of adaptation (a veiled confession that is more refined with dramatic embellishment). However, the main intention is to take home the lesson learned at each point of the journey, akin to lamp-post that is built together with Elijah, or someone influential along the way - to eventually arrive Home, a place where I could meet the Master and say, "Thank You for Your mercy to allow me to live to see You."
Along the conversation, I kept toying around the idea of 'lamp post', ironically when the setting in the counselling session reminds me of 18th century study room. When you have dim warm light lamp lighted up around the corners, and you see books around no difference from those that are of higher education, I was prompted immediately to discuss life as a spiritual enlightenment, like 'having lamp post along the way'. And that impromptu analogy stuck in my mind for a while, which I think deserve a write up.
I reflected upon my life and found that moments in the past, whenever I have reflections upon deep insights after talking with godly people (my counsellor being the main person contributes, though many other spiritual saints walked me through from time to time) - I would build a lamp post along the path, letting light reflecting the harsh road around the lamp post. Sometimes the reflection of the lights revealed more that is required, like a huge stone, or a grave-looking gutters of which you found the source of the foul smells. In parallel living, these people revealed a lot of the deeper roots of evil that is either around you that you may not have noticed has it not their enlightenment, or you may have detected foul play in your daily walk in life, only to find out that the unwanted character that you exhibit originated from a certain event triggered that is suppressed in the heart too long not to have been revealed.
In the journey of walking in faith, these lamp post proved to be life-savers at time, for which though you may see the rockiness of life, you at least appreciate the fact that you are leading up to somewhere. Builders do not remain alone, therefore there are always people along side to move you along to guide you through, just like building a lamp post, it always lead you somewhere. More importantly, when there's new chapters in life, there are always signpost that gives you direction of whom you can continue partnering with.
The catch here though, is when the signpost points you to somewhere that, like two roads diverging - you have to choose based on the judgment. And whatever that comes out from that judgment determines the kind of life you will have.
For the past year, I have chosen a path that gradually lead me into darkness. When you start to lack the resource, like a builder lacking, you decide to stretch your limit of distance of lighting coverage. As you go further, you gradually were blinded by the darkness, especially when the condition of the road that you are travelling no longer seems as rocky as how it seemed when you first see. This is the path of descent that I have talked with my counsellor at length, and it took considerable level of mystical visions to put me in a jam-brake, and tell myself that enough is enough. I need to turn back.
I now realized that the slippery slope of the darkness is not the lack of light shining onto the rocky path, rather it is the gradual comfort one feels when he/she sees lesser rocky path along the way. Subsequently the path seems smoother according to the traveller and it deemed as a good journey. Sometimes the darkness allowed a imitation of identity, because you can cloak yourself in darkness, thus hiding your true self while posing yourself hypocritically to people just to appease to people's heart. I guess one very important step of understanding the darkness is that dark doesn't allow reflection, while light reflects and reveal.
When we were ending the discussion, my counsellor did make a comment about the lifelong journey towards recovery that I initiated. Somehow, the inner thought of mine revealed his role in my life akin to a service engineer, who came to my rescue despite my conflicting selves at war. And in that conflict, I envision a spark that light up a fire, fighting against darkness to reveal the truth about me. For very weird reason, because of such sharing I actually mentioned that 'what is life without a fight?'. Very candidly I played along the thought of fighting because I always liked stories like Rocky, The Fighter, Against All Odds - boxer movies because they have the element of going through difficult times, difficult partnership and difficult opponents. But what stood them all together is knowing that every good end comes from a hard-end fight.
It may have been a long fight for me, after so long (especially during the one year almost absence in my blogging habit), but I felt that now the fight has just begin, and may turn ugly at times too. Pray that at some point of time, like a fire that light the lamp post along my journey, may these fire be the spark that reminds me of the journey I commit since the first day I devoted my life to Jesus.
