Personal Narrative: The Dwarves In The Stable

Fearsome blessings

My life so far has been like a good hiking path. A path that is winding and twisting and encompassed with plenty of beauty. A path that is lined with trees like angels protecting you from the mysteries in the deep forest and that keep you rooted on the path you are destine to take. One that is filled with deep troughs and the most beautiful peaks you could ever image. Sometimes the path is rocky and hurts the soles of your feet until they crack and bleed, but other times it’s covered with a soft green moss that lifts your steps and revives your spirits. Through the last 17 years of my life, I have traveled that path and endured every step. I have gone into the dark abyss of the trough and have found in it the most precious grace of light. As I have gotten older I have come to recognize that the scary and shaky steps of my path have indeed been “fearsome blessings” (Buechner, 92).
As a small 5th grader not much sense came out of my parents divorce. Lots of confusion mixed in with an underlying sadness that I was too shy to show because I couldn’t stand the thought of making my mother cry. But it hurt. I took these emotions and bottled them up hopes that things would go back to normal

eventually. However, as I grew older so my emotions grew larger and soon they overtook my life.
I became so insecure about the way I felt, I couldn’t grasp onto my own life. I lost control of everything I knew to the point where I looked into the mirror and couldn’t even see a reflection of myself. The mirror turned ugly and so did my emotions. I felt like I was drowning in a sea of my own despair where trying to keep my head above the surface just seemed like too much work. I turned away from my friends, from my family, from everything that kept me rooted. I was lost on my own path unsure of where my next step would be. However like Buechner said “When I deserved it least, God gave me most” (144).
Slowly in my junior year I started to find little lights of grace in my everyday life. I leaned on my parents and on my teacher’s for support and through a boy I never thought I’d be with I learned to love myself again. I laughed more than I ever had, and spent as much time as I could surrounding myself in community. As winter of Junior year rolled around I got the opportunity to join a co-op lacrosse team. Here I found a new passion and new motivation I didn’t know I was capable of finding. I put my old unsafe and unhealthy habits behind me making me the healthiest and happiest I had ever been. I went to Europe and it was there where I was able to grow and learn about culture and beauty and how to really “LIVE! LIVE!” (44). For the first time in my life I felt, I felt peace, I felt loved, and I felt alive.
As my senior year comes to a close, I have done lots of reflecting.

While reading The Dwarves in the Stable by Frederick Buechner I came across this line where Buechner says “God was present in that dark time for me in the sense that I was not destroyed by it but came out with scars that I bear to this day, to be sure, but also somehow the wiser and the stronger for it.” (99) My life has been a series of ups and downs, from my parents divorce, to an eating disorder that sucked the life out of me, I know how it feels to be lost. I will never forget those experiences for they have made me into the strong and beautiful woman that I am today. I have learned through them what pain is but also that pain is only temporary. Where “All’s lost. All’s found”

(171).
So I will continue on my path. With my head held high I will journey where my feet take me. They may lead me off the trail and into unfamiliar grounds, they may lead me into darkness and into the valleys, and they may lead me to the top of the mountain, and there I will soak in the beauty and the grace that God has abundantly pour onto me.