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He pulled his face away from mine and I saw him scowl.
“What’s the matter? Are ya’ yeller?”
“No.” I lied emphatically.
Deep down I was trembling and absolutely furious at myself over my reflexive withdrawal. I was eleven years old and had been anticipating this, my first kiss, for what seemed like my whole life. Now, hiding with Charlie in a game of daylight hide and go seek with the neighborhood gang, I had frozen. Not elegantly like a deer in headlights, but like the chicken I was. Yeller, yeller, yeller. That was me.
For days I shook my head at my own stupidity. I had been in the grips of a terrific crush with thirteen year old Charlie for months and now it was over. The chance had come and gone and it never was to come again. I could hear Charlie’s voice echoing accusingly and repeatedly, “What’s the matter? Are ya’ yeller?”
It was the first time I had ever been called chicken, at least to my face, and it stung like sand in a windstorm. I never quite forgot it. Funny how some childhood moments are written in painful permanent ink, quite yellow in this case. And I dipped myself in the color every time the memory re-played in self-accusation. It was then, I think, that I began my lifestyle of immersion into deep yellow-inked rivers of fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of being unworthy and unlovable. And I swam around for a long, long time.
Until one day I really understood this absolute fact: I have an accuser, one whose purpose is to get me in that awful river, keep me there and make me think I deserve it. And his name is definitely not Charlie.
It was only when I truly understood I have an accuser who wants to bring me down in fear that I finally ‘got it’ that I have a Savior who wants to pull me up with hope. He wants me standing firmly, my feet upon rock, secure in Him. No more guilt. No more shame. No more fear. My chicken moments past, present and future are permanently over-written with the red blood of Jesus Christ. Praise God!
So, Charlie, Charlie! If you’re out there….I just have to tell you! I’m no longer ‘yeller’!
Charlie, Charlie! I’m free!
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