When You Leave Buttons Behind

#164

Friend,

The path was overgrown, Terry was scared, and so he kept moving forward. He had gotten lost on a trail, took a wrong turn, and didn’t know where he was. Every few steps, he thought he heard a rustle. Every few steps, a new branch would scratch him, and the sun was going down.

He saw a clearing, and he finally made it back to the main trail. He saw his group ahead, and he ran toward them. They looked at him, noticed his scratches, and one of the other moms started to clean him up.

And then Terry realized.

He didn’t have Buttons, his teddy bear, with him.

Buttons had been by his side for as long as he could remember. He took it everywhere. It made him feel safe, and that’s why he got it out of his bag when he was walking; he needed to see, hold, and touch something familiar. And somehow he dropped it.

Terry stood at a crossroads. Do I go back to the camp and leave Buttons in the woods? Or do I go back on the trail and get him?

He told the mom, “I’d like to go back and get my Buttons, but I’m too afraid to go alone.”

“Scary places aren’t for us to go alone,” she said simply.

She grabbed her flashlight, another friend, and asked, “You ready?”

The Parable Explained

This parable is about healing. We all have experiences that terrified and even traumatized us. We felt alone like Terry along the path. We were separated, isolated, and experienced suffering. We sought comfort (Buttons) in our journey, but often in these experiences of pain, we lose part of the innocence that comforts us.

You found your way out, but have you found your way back?

When you go through scary and difficult experiences, you must revisit those roads to learn what you went through and what you lost, but you cannot do it alone. You need someone else to help you go through it (ideally a therapist) because “Scary places aren’t for us to go alone.”

I heard a quote from J.D. Walt that said, “We will only understand our lives, however, in reverse. We live by looking forward. We learn by looking back.”

Are you courageous enough to go back?

Love,

Aaron