Christian Living

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TARGETS~



1. Failing~

Even as I sit here now, now, with you being dead more years than it went on, the strings are still attached. I wrangle with them, struggle against the way they close off my air and sometimes win (only because of God, ONLY because of Him do I ever come out on top). More often than not, I fail miserably. There is the descent into inauthentic living and blindness that removes us from the place God created little girls or boys to live. That failing is where I sometimes find myself wicked-witch melting into the invisible that I am.



2. Divorcing~

I have tried for years to divorce, not you, but your actions from my life. Many have advised me to allow the hatred to remain, as you deserve it. But God spoke to the little girl years ago, telling her to love and forgive. So I have done that. I hold onto the sweet smell of white pine needles on a hot summer day, the warmth of your hand in mine as we hiked over them, and the special I was to you. Now, those actions, those actions that stole little me from big me, seem like the yellowed fragment of a tattered reel-to-reel movie. The little girl runs and dances and laughs and sings but she is a shell, an image only.



3. Seeing~

I have often wondered what it was that made you choose me. My eyes? My laughter? My curiosity? My differentness? I have since learned that you groomed me to be what you wanted. What you saw was potential. The damage was in that; in that preening and petting and attention. It was how you decided for me who I was. I remember, even then, thinking (while I counted and spelled, counted and spelled), that God must have known that I was stronger than most. He was with me all that time. You were unable to isolate me from everyone-He was always there.



4. Speaking~

Telling this, putting words to this loss and pain, makes it not my story but anyone’s. Anyone who was changed…was irrevocably CHANGED…anyone who watched as their little hearts poured out God’s pure and innocent love onto the cement-hard floor of your needs, will be able now to speak this aloud. He was watching, mind you. God was always watching as His precious children were being driven from their own bodies into worlds their minds were unprepared to comprehend.



5. Stealing~

This is the crux of the matter. This is a raw and secretive thing. It is a put-it-in-your-emotional-pocket action that rolls like thunder in little girl or boy hearts. I have allowed God to peel layer after layer back to reveal the pit where each stolen gem once resided. He replaces and restores what you thought you could take with you. Now I know that you tried to steal what you were empty of. I pity the desperation and need that caused you to steal from sweet-faced and trusting little girls.



6. Sorting~

As you enacted your sin...God was at work. I knew it even then. He wraps His healing hands around hearts so betrayed and aching that it feels like they are bleeding. He offered more to me in that time than I could begin to understand. But now I do. I do. He has sorted the wheat from the chaff and I am the wheat, full and golden, waiting for His hand to gather me up.



7. Invisibility~

Now a word about what we become: how our eyes seem to forever look through windows that separate us. We are trying to find where the wind has taken us. We are just simply, invisible-which can be a comfort in many ways, or at least, a familiarity. That is who you make us when you steal us away-unseeable. We spend years in a daze of feeling beaten up inside and left-out outside. We make choices based on who sees what we allow them to. God answers our confusion with this: He most certainly sees us, intimately, and we are Loved.



8. Scattering~

Wind blows autumn leaves in spirals of burnt orange and bright yellows, sometimes reds and browns, even pinks. Those little furies, I used to call them, swirl in the hearts of stolen children. Little furies are simultaneously beautiful and dangerous. There is the brilliant color and beauty of being wanted and special and set-apart-that heart-beating connectedness that we all desire. Then there is the belly-flopping dip in the downward spiraling and wayward scattering that occurs when realization hits us. The fraudulence and untruth of it all becomes the eye of the storm. All of this NOT-God scatters little hearts, tearing apart that which God knitted together.



9. Rebuilding~

Ha! This is where all that has been stolen is replaced by what God intended. Here is the place where God takes mud and filth and creates a masterpiece. Frost-bitten hearts are melted by the warmth of His Love. Feelings of anger and betrayal become forgiveness. All that you tried to take away is transformed into all that HE intends to stay. You see, He had a plan all along. You may have imprinted your big boots into the soft sand of a little girl’s or boy’s heart, but God has impressed His Truth on top of your footprints.



10. Birthing~

It is the newness that surprises. There is a cleanliness and freshness that simultaneously frightens and entices. I can remember the shame washing away, down a drain littered with “Why me’s,” and “Poor me’s.” This is it then, the place we envision all our lives. The air is rare and clear—we can breathe. This is what we were looking through the glass for. This is the hallowed ground where we are whole and not-targets. “Victim” is no longer emblazoned upon us but “REDEEMED.” We are redeemed (“bought back, freed from distress or harm, freed from captivity by payment of ransom,” according to Webster’s), by a Daddy who has carried us safely inside and will never leave us. This is a true new birth and cannot be stolen away.



c10/20/2010 M. LaPointe

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