I know what my soul needs to survive! It needs to help people, to talk them through life’s hardest trials and deepest hurts. It needs to help people with heavier-than-average burdens, particularly men. I’ve always been better with men. Men find it hard to open up. They need to trust and feel trusted. I like to think of them as reluctant travelers through the murk and muck of life’s emotional turmoil, unlike women who make their emotions an essential part of their beings.
I tried to imagine what would have happened if I had dared to go out and talk to the man that day — the man in the chapel who I wrote about in my previous blog entry. If I had not ignored him, I wonder what would have happened? I imagine he would have been skeptical at first. Maybe he would have waved me away or ignored me the way I ignored him.
I’ll never know.
But, if I could imagine, I believe he would have opened up to me. I believe he would have ranted and raved at the world and wouldn’t give up. I imagine I would have listened for a very long time, until he broke down and cried. I imagine I would have told him how blessed he was, knowing God had just shined a certain, separate and distinct huge light upon him. I imagine his face would have begun to relax, and I could see his soul in the light of Christ. That is what I imagine could have happened, if I had gone out to talk to him that day.
I have been dwelling on this scene now for days on end. It has been a mystery to me for three and a half years, and now I understand what happened the day I saw the man, before I opened my eyes. God works in no uncertain mysterious ways. He knows what we all need and sometimes, if the right two people happen to be in the same general area together, he’s going to use them. We are, after all, his hands and feet.
Yes, I regret my inaction tremendously.
But, I also know I can’t go back no matter how much I want to. Yes, I want to go back and do it all over again. God, please? I can ask God to give me a second chance, but it is always up to him whether he grants that wish or not. I cannot know until, if and when, it happens again. I have prayed for the grace. I have asked God to forgive me. I know I’ve been forgiven because I confessed it, albeit as an afterthought, but still. Just because I’ve been forgiven doesn’t mean I’m not still suffering. Look at what happened to me after the confession.
And yet, my life goes on.
I’ve grown accustomed to not knowing and understanding exactly what that vision means, until now. I’ve wept over it. I’ve felt extreme remorse because of it, and I have begged for mercy and a second chance.
Now, all I can do is wait.
Waiting is a virtue, I know — one I’ve never been in possession of. I pray for the grace to receive a second chance. Please, Heavenly Father, receive my prayer. In Jesus’ name. Amen!