When Bruises Try to Hide--The Closet Picture

The space was small, dark, and safe. She liked it there. Like a cocoon wrapped by walls, the only exit was through closet doors. If the little girl could move into it and live there, she would. The closet was the closest thing to Jesus for her.

Her Mother tried to keep things 'normal' but she knew. How could she not? An angry male voice joined by his fists and once again the danger returned. Danger never really left, just lurked. Hysterical screaming from her younger sister would make the episodes all the more terrifying. The little girl tried to hold it together for everyone's sake or maybe for her own. The panic choked by fear and helpless size. Behind closed bedroom doors, the pleading from her Mother would begin. Underneath the space of door and floor she would even say, "Be quiet or the kids will hear." But they heard. The muffled blows. The fear.

Somehow I remember the little girl like a television show replaying for an audience of me. We are connected, her and I.  I tried.  To Forget her; Move on without her; Be strong for her...Hide her. But I can't deny or separate that I lived her. I am her. No amount of being strong and grown and hidden, helped in making a better life for her.

The fear was the worst pain. Skin bruises heal long before soul-bruises heal.
 
So I've remembered her and me. Together we're one. I can't amputate my childhood as if it were some un-needed appendage. I need it and saying that sounds weird. I don't want it but knowing what, where, how I came to be, exposes darkness to Light. Even if it exposes me.

Perhaps healing and wholeness has a way of placing the past in compartments of has-beens. No longer am I tethered by the pain of a little girl. I've received forgiveness and it's allowed me to forgive. And no person, or abuser, is my enemy because my battles aren't with flesh and blood but with spiritual rulers of darkness. I've known those rulers.

On the wall in my little girl bedroom hung a picture. With every fiber of me, I imagined me in the picture. "Oh if I could just be like that little lamb!" The one Jesus was holding. The Good Shepherd tenderly carrying what was lost.

In the pursuit of safety I sought smallness in a closet because smaller was better for hiding. It was my strong tower and a shelter in weakness. Before I ever said a prayer of repentance, I knew. On hard surface behind closed doors, I knew. Wrapped in darkness and walls, I knew. I didn't have to imagine. Here in the closet, I was the lamb.

Jesus longs to carry the hurting and seek out what's lost. Not just a wall-hanging thingy for a look-see.  But a heartfelt-picture of how He feels about you and me. No matter where you hide, He can meet you there.



"The light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD binds up the bruise of His people and heals the stroke of their wound." Isaiah 30:26

"For You have been a shelter for me, a strong tower from the enemy." Psalm 61:3
 
"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:12

This Wednesday, I'm listening to His Presence from a long ago closet. Ann at "Holy Experience" makes me want to be brave to share. For more "Walks With Him" visit Ann's place.