Mind the Gap While Boarding the Train

Be reflective, not reactive

Minding your step, while boarding the train, is as important as reflecting before taking action/Photo by Breno Cardoso from Pexels

I never knew safe houses existed. I thought they were a mirage in a fictional world, only seen in big-screen movies, but I learned the hard way that they and I exist simultaneously. The reality became mine when I found refuge after exiting an abusive relationship and found myself unsafe, destitute, and without a place to lay my head.

I’m grateful for the care, love, and support I received from strangers when the ones I called family showed me the door or pointed toward seeking help elsewhere. Maybe it was always meant to be that way: if you give it long enough, anyone can and will disappoint you, let you down like clean washing coming off the washing line. That’s just how it works—it’s part of the process, the process of God and humanity. He is perfect, and we are not.

Those moments of sheer disappointment in humanity, in people, hold the profound power of becoming a lesson, a mirror into your own soul, like the wisdom inside a fortune cookie speaking truth instead of lies. A fire scorching all the weeds in its path, it’s an opportunity to look inside myself, extract a lesson, and gain deep insights into my soul.

One morning, while temporarily living there, the social worker decided that I would take a train ride with the auxiliary social worker to visit an…