Beautiful: The Awakening

BEAUTIFUL

The Awakening

By A.T. Waters

Beautiful: The Awakening

© 2021 A. T. Waters

Portland, Oregon

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or modified in any form, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Cover Photo by Harrison Haines

Forward

When God wakes you in the night and says, Write. I have learned that the best thing to do is open your eyes and obey. Don't look at the clock and roll your eyes when you see it is 2:45, and then roll over and go back to sleep. He will wake you again until you write. This book has been just that, a long series of thoughts written down as I have been roused at around the 2:45 mark night after night in half an hour to two hour increments. I wouldn't trade all the sleep in the world for the words that you are about to read. They are the heart of me, but I believe they are also the very heart of God.

I have never had words come so fast, so in order, so concise and revealing. I actually was writing another book when all this began to pour forth on its own. It too covers my life journey and themes of living, dying, love, and vulnerability, but there was just something about the journey that God desired to make known. And maybe that is why He woke me... so that the words were His and not mine.

I like to think, to ponder, to solve all of life's little mysteries. God knew that I was a fine writer and my thoughts would be accurate and adequate, but He also knew my mind would second guess, over think, and analyze every word. Writing whatever comes to the forefront of your mind is an exercise in surrender, and every morning when I woke up and read what had been written in the wee hours of the night, I was in awe...

So, as you read the following it may seem a bit stream of consciousness at times and the imagery may overtake the story. It may force you to go back and reread paragraphs or sections. I make no apologies. I wanted to keep the text as true to the spirit of how it was conceived as possible. There are realities that may or may not be true to you as you read--words that will bring a sense of discomfort. I hope in those moments you will listen to the stirring in your soul and investigate the why. It was those very questions that set me out on my journey. May it open a door to you as well...

CHAPTER 1

Am I Dead Yet?

The cords and sorrows of death encompassed me, And the terrors of Sheol came upon me; I found distress and sorrow.

~PSALM 116:3 AMP

There are stories and then there are stories, and when a story is a good story it is a much shared story and a story that haunts you and you can't put it down. I feel like this is how my life has been for the last few months--a story that neither I nor those around me dare put down. There is a looming suspense; a question of authentic change, a wondering if this is, in fact, real. As the main character in this sorted tale, I can tell you it is more real than anything I have ever known, yet so otherworldly that I too question the authenticity.

Had you told me even six months ago that life would reflect the image I see before me today I would have laughed, somewhat hysterically, at you. It is not that I didn't believe that God could change my heart, heal my brokenness, or remold my thinking. It was just that my imagination was too finite to create an image to compare to the life I am living today or to even conjure up the journey to get here. I wake up every morning and wonder...Who am I today? What crazy thing is going to happen next? Is it Monday or Tuesday?

It is hard to explain life to someone when days are more like years and months are like lifetimes. I truly feel like I have lived a few lifetimes in the past months. My friends say it is a miracle, like watching a butterfly come to life. They use words like brave and courageous and miracle, but it doesn’t seem like any of those things. It just feels like living.

Most stories are about living. It is interesting to think that we don’t read stories about something that is dead, unless we are reading about the character leading up to said death, or the lives affected thereafter. Nobody cares to get into the mind of a dead thing and wander around in the emptiness of their thoughts. It is dull, lifeless really. It is nothing more than a void and a void, a big empty void, was where I feel like I crawled out of…

They say no one knows death until they die. I have to disagree with the statement because I feel very much like I know what death feels like and I am still very much alive, but I will say I did not know what life was until I rose from the grip of death. To not feel, to not know love, that was death. I knew death well. We were good friends.

Making friends with death was not on my to do list when I set out on this journey of life. Death chose me over and over, courting me until I broke off the relationship only to embrace me once again in his waiting arms. It was a tragic relationship actually, much like one of those movies where the lead character dies of some unnamed cancer, except in my story there were no tears, there was no feeling. Whether I chose death or death chose me matters little when in the end you lose everything. What I did not realize was what I had to lose.

Identity, when you don’t have one to call your own, becomes a life quest to find one. You put on an outfit, look at yourself in the mirror, and depending on whether you like what you see or not you decide your next step--your next layer of life. And that was what my identity was built on, not a revealing of the heart of me, but a dance and a game to tame the voices that hurled their painful words. The funny thing about not having an identity all your own, you will go to the ends of the earth to find it, transposing notes of authenticity into a key you can’t quite vocalize, but seems much easier for others to sing. It sounds harmonious at first, but then the notes soon ring dissonant.

I have always hated singing the Happy Birthday song. It always felt inauthentic and ritualistic, as did birthdays in general. My long awaited third birthday delivered a lifetime gift. A brother.

There is something about having a brother born on your birthday that just robs you unknowingly. At the moment it is more wonderful than you could ever imagine, but as time goes on you realize that that single moment in time stripped something from you. I would always be we, and identity, true individuality, ceased to exist. Finding me would be an epic journey complete with an archaeological excavation to uncover the heart buried decades before.

Digging in the dirt is not for the faint of heart, there are bugs, worms, creepy things. But if you dig long enough and in the right place you may find a treasure. My brother and I spent a lot of time back by the old wood pile, me sifting dirt and him playing with his oversized excavation toys. With my screen across my yellow bucket I would shake and sift the dirt until the rocks sat on the screen and the fluffy brown soil filled my bucket. It almost went without saying as I carefully poured the water in, the next step was to slather the perfectly smooth mud all over our exposed limbs and wait for it to dry. Then, after sitting still until our shell was complete, we would flex and watch the hardened mud crumble off just like the Incredible Hulk coming to life. I will not lie, I was not a princess and we were not inventing facial mud, we were imagining our alter egos waking. Plain and simple.

Most little girls play dress up and long to be princesses in flowing gowns with a prince on their arm. I had no clue such things went on. It was all cowboys and Indians, matchbox cars and Legos in my world. I wasn’t exactly a tomboy, but I wasn’t a girly girl either. I was rough and tumble with a soft sensitive core that I wouldn’t let you see, but at times I could feel it so deeply it nearly wrecked me. And in times of stress, like the Hulk, it was the anger that came to the surface. I tried to keep it down, but the mud would crack and my angst would be seen, I would be ashamed for my outbursts, and retreat into my quiet places. I wasn’t dead yet, just dying.

The process of death is gradual. Once the disease takes hold it can be many years before the symptoms warrant your attention and the diagnosis made. Looking back through the looking glass and seeing life for all it was, I can see the disease permeating my tissue, drawing life from my viable frame. But at the time I appeared to be just a vivacious little girl, a bit bossy, overly talkative, energetic, curious, and unusually secretive.

Little Miss Bossy came on the scene with a vengeance, demanding the submission of all the serfs in her kingdom. At three I found my first subject in my little kingdom, and though I loved him greatly, I sought to control my brother’s every move. I was his protector, his comforter, his provider, the ruler of the province. The delusion of grandeur laid upon me as I sought my royal post, but as I grasped for more and more control my tiny hands grew strong and my heart grew hard. I wanted to be in control, but I had no aspirations to be a princess...more like Joan of Arc or Amelia Earhart--independent, strong, resilient. (If you remember, things didn’t turn out too well for either of them.)

Growing up my brother and I were close and the best of friends. When I would come home from college we would sit and talk for hours. My mother always wondered aloud what it was we could be talking about for so long. There was a kinship, through the good and bad seasons, that instilled in us a trust and love that nothing was able to rival. Private things remained deep within, but there was a knowing. A knowing that we weren’t alone. It was much like I imagine twins feeling, like the other part of you is really in someone else.

It is a fantasy of sorts to grow up thinking that you have a twin somewhere, and like in the Parent Trap you will just happen to run into them someday. I was pretty sure that the hole I felt within was just that, my long lost other half. The chasm was deep and empty, and beckoned to be filled, but seemed bottomless. It felt like weakness.

Weakness and its competitor strength warred within me in unending battles for my attention. I would feel weak and pull myself up by my bootstraps to prove my strength. I would glow with pride in my strength and feel inadequate and weak under it all. I would find myself shattered and refuse to let the tears come.

Tears were the ultimate sign of weakness, so I disallowed tears. I would feel the emotions rising up within me and push them down, further and further, hoping that my efforts would keep even the littlest of tears from finding my eyelids. I only remember crying a handful of times in my life, and most of them recently. Tears drew attention and required the acceptance of my lack and need. It made already uncomfortable feelings even more troublesome. I never wanted to be seen as needy, and actually, I didn't really want to be seen even though I did everything in my power to be the center of attention. Even from my earliest years I was satisfied to take care of myself. For all intents and purposes I was self-made (or at least I thought).

Being self-made comes with the folly of a child-like mind deciding what is best for the long term success of growth and development. I don’t care how smart you are at five years old, you will have no idea how to choose the right path to get you where you need to go. That is why God created parents, grandparents, teachers, coaches... A child is not meant to be an adult or God would have had us come out of the womb eighteen years old and equipped to take on the world. We’re not. So to take hold of one’s life at such a young age is a setup for ultimate failure.

I was a pretty independent, but obedient child. I did as I was told, but I was never the child to ask for help. To place a memory on my childhood would look something like a little strawberry blonde girl dangling from the limbs of a tree, or riding a two-wheeler with a teddy bear bungeed to the back of her seat. There was a carefree wildness to her that cried out for adventure as she endlessly chattered and stuttered through her thoughts. She had an awe about everything and a question about everything else.

It would be the questions that would haunt her as the years passed. Why did her mind leave her in times of stress? Where did the anxiety come from? Why did thunder and lightning shake her to the core even years after childhood was a distant memory? Why did every touch seem sexual and wrong? Where was everybody? Why am I always alone?

It was the last question that sunk like a stone to the pit of my stomach. The other questions I was comfortable not knowing the answer to, but the question of alone, that one stuck with me. It stuck to me like duct tape across my mouth keeping me from asking any further questions. But even without the words coming from my mouth, my mind whirled in ebbing tides of confusion as I tried to determine what it was that made me so alone; what strange force was at work always banishing me to this secluded island, and if ever there would be a moment of rescue. I gave up on rescue early on and resorted to self-sufficiency as I built my raft and planned my escape.

The mind of a child is in fact childish. There is plenty of fantasy and fiction and very little in the way of practical or well engineered thinking. I spent a