I remember the first time God said to me, Do you want to be well? I was in church
and the pastor was preaching from John 5 – Jesus at the pool of Bethesda. God
doesn’t reach out and touch me a lot but I felt the hand of God on me then,
like a slap upside the head. Jesus spoke, do
you want to be well, and I felt it.
I was nineteen years old and feet first, nose deep in a quagmire of losses and
pain – my brother’s sudden death, my first broken heart, my parents’ crumbled
marriage, the giving up of my virginity for the wrong reasons at the wrong time
to the wrong person, and a drunken without
malice rape – small words for giant things that tore my soul and bled me. I
made a lot of very wrong choices, and I made them completely without style. I
caused wounds and racked up debts
that I cannot repay. But God started talking to me out loud in bathroom stalls
saying words like, I love you. I’m not
leaving you. I’m still here. Then one day Jesus came really close up and said
right into my ear, I can make you whole. I
can. If that is what you want. Right then, in the unlikeliest of places – a
church pew – God said to me, Decide.
Whole is very
different than healed – whole doesn’t say anything about what
came before. Whole doesn’t have a story.
Decide. Decide to
hold on to comfort thoughts like not my
fault, not my choice, I was a victim, it was out of my control – passive
words that justified, framing all my own choices around a picture of hurt, circumstance
and other peoples decisions – or decide to accept a new truth. Whole. Intact. Fully functional. Healthy. Decide to refuse to let my life
be determined by anything but my own choices, and to begin the difficult,
painful, often embarrassing work of taking personal responsibility at every
turn for where I was, what I did and who I was going to be. Learning to trust
again, learning to move, learning new words, new reactions, new thought
patterns – to choose to stop begging life for mercy, and to start standing and carrying
and tripping and dropping and bumping and falling head first into coffee tables
while I learned how to walk in well.
I chose whole, and
began a loud journey into forgiveness.
2 comments:
My precious, incredibly beautiful, and brave daughter, magnificent woman. I am sitting and looking at the soft white snowflakes drifting past my window and sobbing. What an amazing wonder that you have become who you are after the horrendous multiple cracks, tearing and sifting in your whole being. Your light is shining a broad bright beam on the path, your clear singing voice and the unfettered rhythm of your dance, unmistakeable. . . And what incredible grace you have given to me. Blessings on you today and always.
I love you so much, Mom. You are a wonderful mother, and have always given me the freedom to be 'me'. Roots and wings. Thank you for being such an example to me of courage and honesty.
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