Hot tears slam my cheeks, slide down, rivers of unbidden emotion.
I’m shocked at their appearance–hot lava exploding from a mountain that had just been covered in daisies.
I slip into a bathroom stall, place my head in my hands, sniffle into a square of paper. That year…so good, so hard.
I feel more like a warrior than a writer.
My heart has the scars to prove it.
But then, softly, a whisper comes to my heart, “Put down your sword.”
And I notice, for the first time, how my heart has stood in ready-to-fight position for so long, stiff, waiting to dodge the next blow.
I relent. And something inside clatters to the ground. I see the wounds, still fresh, not noticed in the heat of the battle. I touch them tentatively. Cover protectively.
Then again, softly within…
“If I will wash your feet, will I not wash your wounds?”
I have a choice. Drop my guard or guard my hurts.
I choose the first.
And His hand touches all that aches, His voice whispers truth, His love wipes around, over, down.
It stings a little. I flinch with old fear.
But slowly I relax, lean into Him, remember the time before the war and I know it is finished.
No longer a warrior.
I’m a child, small, safe, with Daddy’s hands making it all better.
Victory.
Surrender.
I leave the bathroom stall, finally, look into clear eyes in the mirror.
And I am never the same again.
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