A dear friend of mine recently sent me this photo of a restaurant in Colorado. Knowing my nickname for Milagro is Milly, she knew I would get a kick out of it. I texted back a cute emoji and thanked her, and then I started to ponder.
Room for Milly. For some reason this cute picture and seeing these words on a beautiful storefront in downtown Denver stirred an emotion in me. But why?
I've always felt that our ability as humans to love so deeply and carry so much emotion in our hearts is a gift. Often times I think of our hearts as having many chambers, or rooms if you will, and each one can be filled with an unlimited capacity of love for what matters most. And sometimes these rooms, they sit empty, for years and years, until someone or something comes along to fill them back up again. This is how I felt when I met Milly. He came along and filled up the chamber in my heart where my love for horses once lived.
Like so many of us, these rooms in our hearts get closed now and then. Life changes, times change, and the door, it slowly closes. But the room is there, its always there, ready for the lights to be turned back on and the fire to burn again.
It can be difficult though, to look past the other rooms in our hearts, the ones that have ugliness or untidy things that keep you from closing those doors for good. We visit these spaces, hoping that someday we can finally tie up all the loose ends, shake off the dust from our hands and place a key in the lock. Sadly, to often we give those spaces more attention and more of our energy. What if we decided to walk briskly past those rooms, and move straight onto the good stuff? The chambers that hold all of our passion, our joy and the roots of our inner peace. Why do we find ourselves spending more time in the dark rooms, the ones that carry hurt, fear, animosity? Those rooms also have an endless capacity for emotion. Wouldn't it be a better use of our time building the pretty rooms, instead of loathing in the dark?
These times are filled with so much uncertainty. There is reason to sit and wait, and perhaps even find solace in the dark spaces right now. But if you ask me I would say, don't wander too far in this direction, you just might get lost. Don't allow the pretty rooms to sit vacant for too long. Your heart heeds an endless capacity for all things. But only you carry the key to all the chambers, and its your breath that breaths life into them.
Room for Milly, yes, and now more than ever.