After enough failed attempts to rescue myself, I finally realized that I am my own worst first responder.

I spend my life attempting to create that which I cannot create. Therefore, that which I seek to create forever eludes me, leaving me either utterly frustrated or ever more adamant. Both lead to certain defeat. But if I am wise, this defeat will eventually lead me to the God who long ago created that which my hands cannot. And here I find rest in what I’ve dreamt of, and rest from the failed attempts to create it.

Remember, laying on the ground looking up grants us an invaluable perspective that will dramatically enhance what everything will look like when we’re back on our feet.

We can be seized with panic of the fall, or inspired by the potential that lies within the fall.

With God, we will never be backed into a corner because He is bigger than any room.

However far I’ve come, it’s probably somewhere less than halfway of where I could be if I simply believed in myself.

When surrounded by the ashes of all that I once cherished, despite my best efforts I can find no room to be thankful. But standing there amidst endless ash I must remember that although the ashes surround me, God surrounds the ashes. And once that realization settles upon me, I am what I thought I could never be ... I am thankful for ashes.

If I see God as nothing more than a caricature of history or imagination I cannot do anything less than make myself my own ‘god’. And once I realize that in doing so my rendition of being a ‘god’ is embarrassingly inferior to the very caricature I am mimicking, I quickly come to realize that maybe the only thing that can be ‘god’ is a God. And if that is the case, I suddenly find myself hounded by the stunning reality that God is not a caricature.

To make the ‘shadow’ the tree is to try and climb something that’s always flat and constantly moving. However, it’s something from which we’ll never fall. And maybe that’s why we live in the shadow of dreams rather than living out our lives actually climbing one.