This past month has been, well, weird.
I’ve failed in life — a lot, actually — but never to the degree I’ve failed in the past month. The path to success hasn’t simply been obscured or temporarily blocked by a fallen tree (you know, that one in the woods that everybody talks about) — it’s been gated shut, padlocked, and surrounded by armed guards.
Yet, every action I’ve taken has seemed less like a choice and more like a compulsion. I feel like Ray Kinsella — only my cornfield baseball diamond was a 300-mile trek to Flagler Beach, where my family and I hope to find a better life.
I’m working two, potentially three, different jobs. We have an apartment right off A1A, overlooking the ocean, and it’s cheaper — a lot cheaper — than our previous rental in Hollywood, Florida. Plus, two gyms are close by that are open 24 hours a day (I know, it’s a little thing, but it matters to me).
And throughout this journey, I’ve had strange experiences: freelance work when our resources were on “E,” a chance encounter with a cancer survivor who reminded me that every day above ground is a gift, and today, I bought some food for a homeless woman who looked me directly in the eyes and asked, “Do you believe in God?”
“I do,” she continued, and I could see the comfort it gave her. When I sympathized with her plight, she shrugged it off.
“God will provide,” she told me reassuringly.
Now, I’ll admit, in the past, when I heard people say this, I found it absurd. God doesn’t pay the bills. God doesn’t work a job that bores him to tears.
But is that really the point?
Maybe, like for this woman, God provides the comfort and confidence to walk in faith — faith that one’s needs will be met; faith that the rain will eventually end.
So many of us are forever grounded by fear and doubt, allowing our lives to be clubbed into the dank submission that Charles Bukowski warned us about.
This woman has no such shackles. In fact, she took some of the food I bought for her and offered it to others, saying, “I was blessed, so I want to bless you.”
I think I was the one who was blessed.
DerekDSimon.com 