The following is a fictional story. But the message is as real as life and death:
I was sitting in my car in the parking lot of my longtime salon letting the monotonous mechanical hum of the engine meld with the throb in my ears, waiting for my racing heartbeat to slow. I was willing my fingers to release their death grip on the wheel, concentrating on taking slow deep breaths.
This is what it feels like to go crazy. I never knew that the insane would be so keenly aware of the unreality of their thoughts. I closed my eyes, laid my head back and let the tears fall on my sweaty pale cheeks while the ache in the pit of my stomach bloomed with grief that was not mine to bear.
I gathered my wits and called my friend. As soon as she answered, I blurted out, "It happened again.”.
“Where?”, she asked.
“At the salon. I was getting my hair done for Sunday”
“What did it say this time?”
“An abortion… and a rape, I gulped. The agony and shame, it’s unbearable. It’s like a gut punch and I don’t think I can go another day in my skin. I’m really losing it!”
“A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief”. I heard a beautiful voice, full of love but tired, whisper in my soul. I knew she didn’t hear it. Only me…It’s only ever me.
“Please get some help. You need counseling. I’m so unqualified to help you with this. I’m here to listen but you need a pro. Please?”
“OK… I appreciate you being there. Please don’t tell anyone?"
“Of course not honey, I’m praying for you. But seriously, make the call…”
“Thanks, I’m sorry…hey?”
“Yes?”
“I’m scared.”
“I know... Me too. Be careful getting home.”
“Ok, love ya, Talk to you later, Bye”
I drove home numb and shaken. The voices had been coming stronger and steadier since the first day one year ago. The first time I heard it I was making small talk with the owner of a pet-grooming salon while another employee went to fetch my schnauzer from the back. As the conversation waned, I turned and began looking at my phone when I heard her tell me that she suffers from feelings that God had failed her and rejected her because of her lifelong same sex attraction. The emptiness, shame and despair in her words crashed in my throat like a punch. I nearly dropped my purse. I looked up, searching for a way to reassure her and to offer some encouragement. Honestly, I was very uncomfortable with this kind of exchange with a relative stranger. I was irritated and looking for a way to shut it down. She saw me looking at her, read my face.
“Are you OK?” she asked.
“Well, yes, but God loves everyone. He just has rules. You know? It’s not personal. We are all sinners to Him. Wow, I feel so uncomfortable but nothing I can think of to say seems helpful.” How can I defend God without seeming closed-minded, unloving?
“If my people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves, and pray…”
“Excuse ME?!?” She seemed like she couldn't remember sharing her secret with me.
"Well, I mean, what you said...God doesn’t hate YOU.” , I stammered defensively. I was thinking, Sheesh! You brought it up! Don't act so shocked.
“Look”, She said, “I appreciate your business but we don’t tolerate hate in this establishment. You need to mind your own business, ok?”
"But you told me! About your struggle and your feelings!”
"Ok, here’s your dog, I need you to leave.” The tattooed and pierced employee noticed the lady was upset and came over and placed her arm protectively on the lady’s shoulder. So I left. I was bewildered and confused. I felt tricked and manipulated. I was just trying to respond with love, not judgment, but she was giving off a very godless vibe. As I was processing this entire experience, a voice cut through the silence in my car and washed over me like a flood of light, intense and piercing…
“One who was tempted in every respect, just as we are, yet without sin…” The voice was burdened and weary yet gentle and patient. It made me think of a father to a stubborn child. I was not afraid of this voice.
As the year went by I began to get wise to what was happening in my head. As I interacted with my community, my non-church friends, and strangers, I began to feel my soul connect in some way to their inner world. No matter what the person was projecting on the outside, their voice rang in my head with the truest version of their world. The pain, injustice, victimization, betrayal, demented wickedness, and darkness from within was speaking into my thoughts even as it hid, behind their eyes and beyond the façade they projected for public consumption. Whatever the scar that sin had left, whatever the evil demonic imprint, whatever the hopelessness of purpose, their souls spoke…and told the ugly truth. And my heart broke, and flooded and no matter how revolting, I could never turn it off.
There was embezzlement, and adultery, and abuse, and secret lust. There was depression, loneliness, addiction and deep self-hatred. There was seething rage, terror, bigoted pride, and every perversion, every assault on the value of life. And I began to despair. I feared for my own sanity. I dreaded the next voice, the next proof that my “religion” had failed these people. It all seemed too messed-up for the packaged and pretty Christianity I was immersed in.
And there was the other voice… It did not scare me, but it did fill me with dread, and it made me sick…of myself…
“I have come that they might have life…”
“There is now therefore, no condemnation…”
“And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
My God, My God. Why have You forsaken me?”
He who knew no sin, became sin…”
The thief comes to steal kill and destroy…”
“Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”
“Broad is the road that leads to destruction…”
“Behold I stand at the door and knock..”
“Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of Heaven…”
“Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden…”
“Call to Me and I will answer, and show you great and mighty things you do not know.”
How can I bear it?!? I came to myself once more as I was driving. I had no idea how I had made it almost home. I was spent. Yet I had so much to do. Dresses to buy for the girls, I needed to see if my son can wear last year’s pants still, and I need to finish grocery shopping or there won’t be any feast this Easter, nor a basket from a bunny or eggs to hide. Unless I completely lose my mind before Sunday…Then they can all just hide eggs while I drool in the corner after church. I hope the service ends on time! Wait! Did I hear something?
“I did not come into the world to condemn the world, but to save it”
“No man comes to the Father but by Me.”
“I am the way…”
“Be Holy as I am Holy…”
“Why do you seek the living among the dead?”
It was too much! I pulled over into the first parking lot I could find. Tears stung my eyes and I felt a screech rising in my throat. I was coming undone. I lifted my eyes from the steering wheel’s surface and they came to rest on rugged wooden stretch of beam. It was run-through by a wicked looking metal spike. But it was draped in fine purple silk fluttering in the spring breeze. I realized my car had come to stop at a little white church. The scent of lilies clung to the air. A tiny bird ecstatically sung in the stream of sunshine that caused the shadow of the cross to splay across my crumpled face.
“Come follow me.”
“Peace, be still.”
“Go and sin no more”
“I have overcome the world”
“ Lord, it hurts.” “There’s so much pain and no one sees the truth.”
“I know. But I love them. I made a way out. I defeated sin and conquered death and rose to bring new life.”
From that moment on, I never heard another voice that wasn’t real. I didn’t need to. I never forgot what it felt like to be lost again. I never got over that fact that sin is costly, but salvation is free. I never slipped into complacent acceptance that this world is cursed so why fight the inevitable. I lost that urge to hunker down with my church friends and wait it out till Jesus comes, avoiding the filth of “sinners”. I never believed the act of the ones too scared to speak about the enveloping cloud of desperation in their homes or schools or jobs. You see, what I needed to turn off the voices, was to repent of the fact that my voice was silent. I needed to fall at that cross and feel the hammer in my hand. I needed to let the blood drip on my new Easter shoes and let tears of gratitude wreck my Sunday makeup. And I needed to speak up about the hope that is in me. The world is slowly passing away, and death hurts. But we have the antidote, Amazing Grace. And I needed to share it and live it everyday. That was the Easter that changed everything.
Hallelujah! He Is Risen!
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