Free indeed. . .

Knees to my chest, hands locked behind my neck. Willing the oxygen to switch whatever gears in my brain needed flipped. Out of the corner of my eye I spot something on my wrist. Two tiny words placed to intentionally be sought out. 

My mind starts to wander back to the events that inspired those two words. 

I was in college, lonely and heartbroken. The world was my enemy and bitterness my friend. 

Abandoned. 

Broken. 

Damaged. 

Those were the things I called myself. I didn’t readily invite others to my pity party, but they knew it was an ongoing event. I couldn’t see past my circumstances, blinded by the shiny newness of something that felt tragic. Something to justify those dark parts of me that really never went away. 

For months on end these things persisted. I watered them and they grew in the dark. I said so many things to myself that I could actually hear others reflecting them back to me. No one was saying a word. Until someone did. Until someone had enough of my consistent sorrow. People were sensitive, until they weren’t. 

I can remember the look on the nurses face as I sat on the paper covered cushioned chair. She was irritated with me. She kept referring to my age and telling me she couldn’t understand how I could possibly feel the way I was feeling. What’s wrong with me? I wish I knew. Saturated with the guilt of not being normal, I took my prescription and walked back through the waiting room. 

The stubborn in me gave way to a desire to prove people wrong and fight for myself when it felt like all others had lost hope. I sat with God that night. Not for the first time: I’d spent my life in a church and I was sitting in my dorm at a Christian university. No, it wasn’t the first time ever, but it was the first time in a long time. I sat down, surrounded by all of the things I had been carrying with me. The room was crowded with my emotions, tears, failures, and shortcomings. I was staring down at my excessive need for control and justification. Justification for my feelings: because people had treated me a certain way and life wasn’t fair, so I deserved to be angry at the world. I deserved to be miserable. 

Who’s really losing here? John 8:36 whispered in my ear: if the Son sets you free, then you will be free indeed. I brought my journal to my pen. With agonizing humility, I prayed for the people I blamed. I asked to forgive and love and change. I prayed for their goals and hopes and dreams. I released it without justification. I prayed to be forgiven too. And the room emptied until nothing remained but the new air filling my lungs- air that felt free. 

A funny thing happened over the next week. Every single person I had prayed to forgive approached me and apologized for the things I had prayed for. I realized pretty quickly that had I received the apology prior to forgiving them, I wouldn’t have had an ounce of grace to hear them out. But through my obedience, God gave me what I never deserved. 

I went home that summer, continuing to pray over that whisper from John. Eventually, my last day of work as a waitress, I decided to tattoo two small words on m wrist. Free Indeed. Precisely placed, in my sister’s handwriting, so that they are invisible to me unless I seek them out. And I went to work that night to wait on my last table ever. The man sitting there had been a customer for years, and he immediately spotted the newly inked words. When I answered his question about what they meant he said “and now you have to live that out.” 

“I’m trying.” was all I could say. 

He handed me a bill to pay for his dinner and told me to keep the change “for Christ.” As I rang out his meal with the $100 I was holding I realized my tip would be the exact amount I had paid for my tattoo. 

The tattoo I look at now as I struggle to breathe. Here again. Somewhere over the past few months my weight has decreased over twenty pounds- and I had never even noticed. I can feel the bones where I used to have muscle... okay it was probably not muscle. I’ve hit my knees again when I thought I’d be permanently standing tall. Maybe I’d stopped seeking out my tiny words- my freedom. I find my breath. I hear it clearly. I’m here for a reason- knocked down again. My focus shifting, my perspective changing. Resolved to fight, weaker than ever, I lean on shaky knees. I remember the shackles that have been broken and thank God that he will do it again. I’ve seen Him move the mountains. And I believe I’ll see Him do it again. And my crowded room feels a little emptier. 

If you're struggling it's okay help is only a prayer away.

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Thank you to our contributor today, Jess Warner - your strength is amazing.  Keep fighting and remember to always tell your mountains about your God .