*Disclaimer: Claire is a fictional character from The Chronicle of the Three Trilogy. She is not real. But, I believe, there is still some truth to her struggles, while fictional, that could give us insight and encouragement in our own. You may proceed.
Imagine waking up on your fifteenth birthday, so early the sun hasn’t even begun to make it’s daily debut, and there is a demon hovering over your bed. Yeah, I freaked out too.
The thing is I knew about demons, about the reality of a darkness that wants to destroy us. I grew up in a home of demon slayers, descendants who fought these shadows. I just never thought that life would ever really be for me…and then it was.
That day a demon woke me from a dream into a very new reality. I wasn’t just a descendant, I was the Chosen One. (Really, I wasn’t but we didn’t know that then and it’s a whole other story so let’s just go with it.)
Being chosen sounds cool (I did get a sword). I mean we all want to be the hero while we're watching a movie or TV show, but in real life it’s hard, real hard.
From that first day of my fifteenth year until too many days later to count I was mostly alone, isolated, consumed solely with the mission. For the record, being passionate is not the same as being consumed. (It’s funny because I defeated the darkness for others for half my life and hadn’t seen it creeping into my own, waiting for weakness so it could pounce and nearly destroy me. So pay attention to your own hearts and minds, people. Self-assessment is a spiritual gift, at least in my book.) Our lives need balance. We need rest. We need healthy relationships. We need time to refresh and be restored. I never gave myself any of that. I mean, the world needed saving and stuff. My health came second to that, right?
Wrong!
You can take care of the whole world, you can even be really good at it, but if you don’t take care of yourself, of your own soul, you will fall.
I fell. Not far. But it was enough that it could have ruined everything. I let loneliness and bitterness and burn out push me to make a choice I wouldn’t have made on a better day. It was a choice that left me heart broken, cracked in places I thought would never repair and feeling like I had failed beyond the point grace could redeem.
Have you ever felt like that? Like you’ve messed up so badly that the effects of it rippled out and hurt people you would never want to cause pain?
I found myself in this hole, a grave where I was being buried by regret and despair.
But…
For three little letters that can be a really powerful word…
BUT nothing is unredeemable. You can’t mess up so badly that the Maker can’t repurpose it.
I had another choice to make. I could stay in that grave or I could take the hand reaching to pull me out of it. (There is always a hand waiting to pull you out by the way, look for it.)
Here’s the thing, I got out of that pit. Well, I’m working my way out of it. It takes a little time to get all the dirt off and the hole filled back in.
I feel like I’m rambling, sorry about that. I don’t usually talk about myself and definitely not about this, but I needed to. Maybe you needed me to.
I guess it all boils down to this one thing, failure isn’t final…unless you let it be.
If you mess up don’t give up. Put your fighting clothes on, pick up your sword and fight. The darkness may draw first blood, but you can make them sorry they did.
Claire is a character from The Chronicle of the Three: Trilogy. You can learn more about her and her band of demon slayers in The Chronicle of the Three: Bloodline. (Read a sample of #TCO3Bloodline for FREE)
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