She sinks down in the chair hugging her
sweatshirt tight around her stomach, trying to hold together the hollow weight
of emotions that flutter inside like the tumultuous feeling of being hit square
in the gut. Her mind rushes with a
flood of thoughts that erode the banks of her identity as a daughter of the
king. A life built around to-dos
and a constant spiral of busyness: “You didn’t accomplish enough,” “you weren’t
kind enough,” “you aren’t good enough,” intermingle with fears of hypocrisy: “you
are too prideful,” “you want too much attention,” “you are too much.” She has
made camp here, besieged from both sides by aggressors of pride and shame, whose
arrows both pierce with insecurity.
“How do I live as His daughter? How do I make His love the foundation of
my footfall?” she thinks.
A healer probes her to give a name to the
“shoulds” in her life, the to-dos that she “should” accomplish, the way she
“should” feel, and the Christian she “should” be. This one word has such a grip in her life to perpetuate the
internal attack on her self-worth and inheritance as a worthy daughter. Upon uttering the words, she finally
summons the voices out creating a power in naming that diminishes their
strongholds in her life and exposes many as lie.
This is her struggle. A battle of years. A long, unending fight that stalks her
long after its seeming defeat. She
draws her own sword again trembling under its weight.
Slice.
The bottom two-thirds of a calculated
list of tasks floats to the ground.
She makes a shaky attempt to attack pride as she chops at the to-dos by
which she measures her success each day.
Between her palms, she crumples the writing and tosses it into the
garbage can. Eyes lift, empowered.
Days pass and she falls again, easily,
prey to this subtle enemy that tip toes into her life masquerading in a cloak
of enviable ability and success. Wiping
tears from her eyes, fists pound the ground frustrated by her inability to just
break free. “I can’t do it!” she cries in defeat ripping off all pretenses
lying there exposed and broken. In
this instant different whispers whisk by tenderly sending cooling shivers down
her hot, wet cheeks. “My grace is sufficient for you,” “My power is made
perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).” Dazed she finds herself face to face with another. Slowly, the speaker stands and she
lifts with Him in an embrace, arms encircled around His form. Arms that once clutched her hollowed
and chaotic insides now clutch Him.
She breathes Him in and the fires of turmoil disappear filling with an
elixir, cool and refreshing.
From her position of complete exhaustion and
inability, she notices Him bend and clasp steady fingers around a handle
unsheathing a blade that glints in the light He radiates. He grasps it firm, hard, perfect,
strong.
Slice.
He pierces the words of failure with
victory, the chains of pride and shame with glorious freedom.
