Liquid Paths

 A very real occurrence here in this arctic world of mine is that it's a process in the winter to defrost the car. If you don't have a garage where you can park your car away from the elements, any snow or ice buildup cakes onto your windshield and side windows, leaving you with quite the job just to leave the house when you need to. You have to allot extra time just to make sure your line of sight is clear enough so you can drive safely. Anybody living in a cold, wintry climate knows the struggle is real. So turning the heater on full blast, the scraping and watching the ice melt on the windshield is a common sight and one that I've been used to for many years. 

The melting of my heart after years of pain has taken its own time as well. 

I find myself sitting in a parking lot, waiting for a family member to return to the car, and watching these icy patches on the windshield turn to liquid and slowly create these channels that pave the way for more frost to thaw. I am fascinated as I notice how it only takes on little drop running its course for others to follow. One channel breaking open for more to begin. Just like the thoughts in my head... neurological pathways carved out in the human brain for good or bad by the beliefs I've allowed myself to embrace. It only takes one singular lie or truth to create a channel for others to follow suit. As goes the mind in one area, so goes the rest. And I've opened the path many times for both false and good beliefs based on that one idea that I chose to take root. 

More paths are running down the windshield and I'm seeing how they're catching each other along the way, gathering speed and volume with each drop. The channel is growing rapidly now. And I realize that it really is just as fast that a wrong idea, a limiting belief, a false identity can gather strength in my life - a powerful force that has the ability to shape who I am and become forever. If I fail to capture that initial thought, all the rest will follow after. Beyond that, it will likely take far longer to undo said incorrect idea than simply to take it captive in the first place. Yet just as true, if that starting idea is good, it can make as equally powerful and strong a way for my whole life to change for the better and my entire perspective on God, myself, others, and the world to transform into something that reflects the mind of God Himself. 

And then it strikes me: 

Every single one of these pathways began with a liquid drop. Just like the tears I've shed along this journey to being shaped by suffering. The entire process of letting the old self fall away, the limiting beliefs go, the unhealthy relationships end - all the scraping away, defrosting of my heart, melting of my false ideas and identities - has been anything but comfortable. Tears have often created the way for confession, grief, and surrender that otherwise would never have occurred. The warmth of God's love has had to turn a soul hardened by pain into one of softened substance and only in that happening have I been able to gain the sight needed in order to make my way forward. 

Seasons of tears can become the catalyst for transformation in ways you never saw coming. They can unlock the channels of new life amidst the melting away of the old, showing you that clarity often comes at a high cost. 

Now the entire windshield is one giant pattern of channeled drops, and I must wipe them away so that I can drive. Just like there comes a time when the tears must be dried and one has to move forward into a new tomorrow filled with possibility and hope. But it begins with liquid paths. There is no starting over without first melting away. There is no new channel created unless the first thing is true and right. Otherwise, the pathways remain fixed and the heart stays hard and the brain never knows anything else is possible. 

So let the tears fall and the ice of the soul shed its hardened grip. The freeze has the potential to give way to movement always. But only unless a new trail has been bravely blazed that began with a singular thought that changed everything. Only unless a stronger Force comes and lovingly chips away at all that's held me in its icy hands and warmly invites me into something more.