The farmer began to shovel dirt into the hole. The dirt landed on the mule’s back. This scared the mule and he shook it off. The dirt fell under his feet and he was able to step up a bit. With each shovel of dirt, the mule shook it off, stepping up each time. This went on for quiet some time until the mule had shaken off so much dirt that he had stepped himself right out of the hole, right out of what looked like his gloom and doom.

 This is what we must do. We can’t let the dirt in our lives bury us. We must shake it off and then step up, step out and move on. Our journeys are all different. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else. It’s inevitable that we are going to have some symbolic dirt thrown on us during our lifetimes. Don’t compare your life’s dirt to someone else’s. The shoes they walk in were meant for them. We each have our own shoes and our own path to walk down.

Sometimes it will seem as if the way out of your deep and dark well, out of your difficulties, is hopeless, or too difficult to bear. It won’t be if you call on the Power Within and allow this Power to work in your life. The dirt will be much easier to shake off if you do.

Remember, we must “trust what we can’t yet see.” With each step we take, a new step will be revealed to us. We’re not meant to have the whole view revealed to us. Faith and trust are developed only where faith and trust are needed. If you can see the whole path–then it’s not your path, its someone elses.

One day I heard:

 “Thank you.”

“For what?” I asked. [I was very surprised that the Divine Intelligence was thanking me.]

 ”Your love and your trust.”

“I didn’t have any choice.” [I was being a bit sarcastic here; of course I had a choice. I was referring to my giving up," letting go and letting God", because my way hadn't been working.]  

“Yes you did.”

“The way to Me hasn’t been a cakewalk for you. I needed your strength—your character— and those aren’t found on easy street.

Oh so true–real character and real strength is revealed through the fire of the hard  and painful work of peeling back the layers. But is the most important work you can do—and the Phoenix of yourself will rise out of the ashes.

Our lives will represent the rising of the phoenix if we allow it. Out of the fire and ashes of our crash and burn lives, we are offered a new beginning. And this Grace is offered over and over again. This mythical bird never comes out of its ashes despondent and dejected; it arises with great power and beauty, undamaged and strengthened by the flames of its self-created fire.

We don’t need to gaze upon the ashes of our burnt out dreams with a heavy heart. We are encouraged by the power of this timeless myth to rise up—to be re-birthed— into a new beginning, a new opportunity and sometimes, a whole new life.

If we can stay focused on the Good, we will find It. It is right here with us all the time. It has never left us.

A phoenix experience is the ulitmate change–a “dying” of the old, so the new can be born in and through you.