There is always a tell.

Good morning,

I pray the day finds you well.

We have been walking through the woods for some time now. When I look ahead I am starting to see signs of a clearing. 

You know the feeling, you are walking through the forest and gradually you start to see more sky through the trees; not when you look straight in front of you close to the ground, but when you look up a bit, not way up but at a decent angle toward the sky, you start to see more sky through the canopy, as if there are fewer trees all of a sudden. 

We are definitely coming to a clearing or something. It will be interesting to see what I see.

I am so grateful to have someone who is willing and able to walk with me, as I make my way down this path; I never would have made it this far alone. 

I know I am healing.

I know I am getting better.

I know that I am becoming whole again. 

My heart feels lighter.

My head seems clearer.

My thoughts go up and not down. 

My spidey senses are back. 

If you are wondering what I mean about my spidey senses, it is a term that one of my psychologist friends gave me long ago.

He said, "Roger, God gave you a gift. You have this unique ability to peer into a person, get past the mask, get past the lie, and see the pain that inhabits their soul."

He called it a gift, time will tell how much of a gift it truly was. 

When I talk with people, I can see their pain. Lots of times I see the pain that they won't talk about for a long time. So I have to be patient and wait for when they are either ready to talk about it, or it cannot be held back any longer and the dam bursts with all that "stuff" cascading out like a waterfall. 

For a long time, I wore what I called Teflon armor. 

People would talk with me, and tell me their stuff but it wouldn't stick to me, their stuff would just slide off, like that burnt egg in those stupid infomercials. 

I think one of the reasons I was stuck in the mud was my armor had worn out and things began to stick.  

I needed new armor. 

You don't just go buy this kind of armor. No, you have to forge it yourself. 

One of the things that my companion and I have been doing is working on my armor. 

In the words of Wonder Woman, "Long story, longer."

I say all that just to say, "My spidey senses are back."

People will be talking with me, everything is fine and light. Then they say a word, or their posture shifts, an inflection changes.

There is always a tell. 

My spidey senses go up and I suddenly become more aware of all that is around me. 

I start to see into them, and there it is.

The pain. 

Life is hard.

Everyone has pain.

I tell people, "Life is what happens when we are busy planning life."

I wish we didn't have to have pain, but I know that is unrealistic. 

I guess the best that I could wish for is that when something painful happens to a person they get the help they need while it is still on the surface, where it can be removed more easily, and not let it fester until it is so deep we have to do major surgery to dig it out. 

I had to do major surgery to dig out my pain, I have scars to show for it. 

My wish would be that I was the only one to have to go through it, the surgery was dangerous and painful. I almost died. 

Thanks again to my traveling companion for being with me "All the way."

If you need to talk to someone, don't put it off.

Do you need to talk to someone?

Is there pain in you that is digging deeper?

Take a look inward and ponder.

Blessings,

Roger