Healing

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I started out as a child, like most human beings. I think that my earliest memory is at the age of three or four, standing up on our dining room table, looking out of the window and longingly gazing up at the sky. I remember that my grandmother had told me that Jesus was up there, and I desperately wanted to see what this mysterious being looked like. In my little itty bitty mind, I felt that if I stood there long enough, He would come down and speak with me. I had such faith at that young age. I believed unequivocally that Jesus could do anything. I had no walls, no hindrances, nothing that stood between me and the pureness of my belief. Jesus was my hero.

But as I grew older, I began to realize that life was not as perfect as I once had believed. It might have had something to do with all of the fighting and screaming that went on around me daily. Life inevitably crept into the perfect world that I had dreamed of when I stood on that table and searched for God. I assumed that all children had families like mine, especially ones that were Christians. After all, since we were taught that we had the truth, wasn’t this all part and parcel of the same?

Life continued, and I learned many important things. I learned how to hide when the fights started so that I would not be dragged out into the middle of it. I also learned that I could not cry anymore because it never did any good. Crying allowed them to be able to find me, and I did not want that, especially when I had a good hiding place. I learned to lie when asked what those bruises were on my legs. And in the middle of all of the lies, I began, in my childish mind, to believe that it was really the truth.

I deserved what I got because I really wasn’t very special to begin with. I deserved to be called names because, after all, I really was stupid and ugly and dumb and not worth much of anything. And then I would be dressed up and taken to church and told how important my family was and how much that the Lord really loved me. And how that one day, He would come back and take us all to this wonderful place where there would be no more hurt and no more pain …..and I would be safe.

I began to truly seek to hide myself within the truth that we have all been taught. I hid His Word in my heart, I was baptized, I received the Holy Ghost, I did all of the right things. But I still had to go back home. I went back because I had no choice and because I knew of nothing different. But to me, if I hid myself enough, eventually no one would find me and I would truly be safe.


So I began to hide many things. I even hid my true personality. I felt that if I became what those around me thought best, then I would be approved of and left alone. I became the best in school, the best in sports, the best at church, the best at everything. And if I failed, I made myself get back up; but it would be just one more notch inside towards what I perceived as my secret failures. I graduated at the top of my class; but the year that this happened was also the year that my parents finally got a divorce. Physically, I rejoiced. I felt that finally, I was allowed off the hook. But on the inside, in that hidden part where no one could see, it was still my fault that things had not worked out for the best. I could have done something to make it right and I had failed.

I struggled on because, by this time, I was determined that no one see any of the cracks in the armor that I had built around myself. I would pretend that I was successful, even though everyday that I lived, I felt like a failure. But through all of this, there was that still, small voice that would call and sustain on a regular basis. He would talk to me during the night when I least expected it and He would catch me during the day, sneaking into my mind, assuring me that He knew where I was at. I would laugh at Him and tell Him to go on, to spend His time with someone else more important. But He kept coming back, pushing at the walls, at the armor, demanding that He be let in.

Through all of the hurt, I finally discovered that I was kind of lonely behind the walls. I kept feeling that there was some type of light that was trying to shine through the cracks and the chinks that I had inadvertently left in the armor and the walls that sustained my castle of disappointment. I looked through the cracks daily, hoping that I would see someone out there that truly cared to see me for who I really was. I decided, in my arrogance, that if God was truly as “all-knowing” as He thought He was, that I would make a list of all of the qualities necessary in a mate. Number one, he had to love the Lord and not be a fake. Number two, he had to love the real me. I continued to make the list over several months, never once believing that God could honor, or even care about my desires. No one else had – why should He? I fully expected to be disappointed, and thus set about building the walls and the armor higher and thicker. I was hoping, but I was not expecting.

But God, in all of His infinite grace and mercy, decided to put a good one over on me. He decided to play along, bringing into my life a knight on a great white charger. The knight proceeded to batter down some of the walls and small parts of the armor; but I, as the damsel, had learned long ago that you could only reveal that which was not painful to lose. If it was worth having, you kept it close. You did not let others see anything that you did not want them to see. And if you threw out a crumb of knowledge about yourself, you made sure that you could yank it back and act like it was all a big joke. Nothing mattered because nothing was allowed to show.

Miracles often happen, however, in the form of a child. When I had my son, I looked down into his face and knew that he was special from the very beginning. He had such a hard time getting here; but here was finally someone who would never hurt me intentionally. This tiny miracle would never willingly break me or hurt me or use me or take anything away from me that I was not willing to give.

I can honestly say that I was disillusioned. My son slowly but surely took everything that I had to begrudgingly offer and so much more. In fact, he demanded more then I thought that I would ever be able to give to anyone. But then I realized that something was wrong with the tiny perfect bundle that I had set out to protect. I began to pull him, with me attached, behind all of the walls and the armor, hoping that no one would realize that, once again, I had produced something that was flawed. My son, who came from my imperfect body, struggled for every milestone that he made. And it was all my fault. If I would have done things differently, researched harder, stood by his side longer, tried different methods, read more literature, I could have saved him from himself. I made everyone around us believe that I was fine, but inside, I was dying. I had failed again.

Through all of this, I had moments when the Lord would touch and change; but I still continued to hold my hurts to myself. Each hurt fortified and built my wall stronger. Each disappointment reiterated what I already knew – I was a failure. I had started out as a failure and would continue to be so until I had destroyed everything around me.

We moved, we changed, we grew as a family. On the outside, everything appeared normal. I made people believe that I was happy and satisfied, fulfilled….but inside, I was begging for someone or something to reach past the barriers and heal me. I did not want to exist on the edges of life anymore. I wanted to be able to grasp it with both hands and live. I wanted to be whole, not half.

Out of utter desperation, I began to tear at my walls with my own hands, wanting other people to finally see who and what I truly was. Lying on the floor for hours in prayer and supplication became a regular occurrence in my desperate dash for freedom. I finally could see that there was actually light and hope at the end of the tunnel. And as the bricks and the mortar fell around my feet, I realized that the still small voice was gaining strength and freedom. It was beginning to change into a mighty roar. And He was standing beside me, helping me to dislodge all of the hurt and disillusionment of the past.

I feel myself now walking into His light. The picture that I have carried with me for so many years, of me hiding and running, is being replaced daily. I see myself with my arms stretched wide, dancing joyfully in His light. It surrounds me, comforts me, makes me feel whole. He is rebuilding around me a wall of security, hope and a future, a future that will, without a doubt, have its bumps and failures. But in this future, I embrace willingly all of the challenges that daily arise because I realize that without Him, I am truly nothing. And with Him, I have everything….

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