The Thread

She sat in my counseling room, wiping tear after tear, make-up smudge after make-up smudge. Tense and self-condemning, but to her credit, honest and oozing out her pain.  We examined where suffering comes from and the purpose for it.  We contemplated 2 Corinthians 5:21, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."  She claims to be a believer, but it seemed  she had never truly understood the Gospel and how to apply it to her own heart.  The fog may have begun to lift as we spoke.  Her tears were replaced with smiles as she left. She gave me a warm hug, words of thanks, and assurance she would come again.

 To help me recall her story and similar stories of multiple young women I've met,  I composed "The thread."  To some of the facts and themes that came up in this recent conversation, I have added my impressions and imagination to express where, I have observed, she and many women like her have been, are now, and, hopefully, will be in the future, allowing the last thread of their self-righteousness to be cut and  replaced with Christ's righteousness. 

The Thread

Five years ago 

I started falling, 

and falling.

Two years ago 

I violated my conscience.

In a way unthinkable.

“But you need to know
I didn’t want to.

I didn’t mean to.” 

My inner Defense Attorney argued.

“How could I subject

An innocent one

To such cruelty as I had known?”

“How could I permit this new life to be,
and so to forever link, not only me, but us?”

“To him?”

“I had good motives.”

“It is OK.” 

“I am OK.”

These defense arguments,

The only thread

From which I still hang,

My breathing tube.

Take it away

And I fear suffocating in pain, 
or falling deeper,

Hitting bottom,

And breaking into a million pieces.

With this thread you might not judge me

Quite so harshly

You might see a little glistening glimmer

Of goodness,

Still in me

I, too, might believe.

My only hope that I am not totally corrupt

Not totally depraved

Not unworthy of anyone’s love

Not forsaken, accursed, and non-existent

Except for self-detestation,
This thread, 

My little piece of hope

Pure repentance

Threatens to steal away.

Then

Another's voice,

The Accuser’s

Drowns out the Defense Attorney’s:

“You unforgivable murderer!”

“You despicable piece of dirt!”

He screams and everyone around

Echoes his words,

An inescapable
hall of mocking mirrors..

Feelings of hatred and shame

Wash over me anew

Insanely, frantically

I run to escape the haunting images

and accusations reverberating 
mirror to mirror

I don’t care where to anymore.

I must drown the voice of the Accuser,

The relentlessly screaming Prosecuting Attorney

In my head and everywhere I look

But how to really escape

The truth of what I did?

The truth of who I am?

When not shouting,

 Even its whispers

Are penetrating 

My plugged ears, 

Claiming to be the core 

Of my person-hood. 

And you, friends? Family?

You want to block my running?

You DON’T understand

I need to push past you,

Push through you,

I do what I have to do

To survive

I don’t mean to hurt you, too.

But don’t you see?

Running is the only way.

Numbness is my only friend.

Is my only...

 Friend?

I ignore a deep haunting:

This friend 
I know

Is a masked enemy

So afraid to live without

This Deceiver; yet,

So afraid of the day

He might unmask

I knew the unveiling was coming, 

Someday...

And along with any voice 

Of reason,

 I pushed that thought away, too.

I didn't expect it would be

Today!

I fear to see 

Numbness
As he really looks

Behind his mask. 

But I must!

Cells of a new life

Multiply In my womb

A new chance to start afresh

To undo the past

To protect this one.

Such knowledge

Cracks the Deceiver's mask
His ugliness peers out.

"Would you, my "friend,"

harm this little one?" 

I jab. 

"You would do

what I never want to be a part of again!"

As accusatory as I am,

I know

It is I, I who made this evil alliance

As I drank and partied away my shame. 

In running from the mirrors, 

I had run to another.

It is my own ugliness beneath the mask

glaring at me again! 

I am so afraid.

What have I done?
Will this one survive
poison I've pumped into its veins?

Will the Accuser never

Be silenced?

  

True guilt 

Deserves 

True punishment, 

I conclude. 

I will call up Jury and Judge 

For mental court. 

“Guilty as accused!"

They cry.

I self-sentence. 

I self-punish.
I cut.

Finally

A sense of justice.

With justice, a semblance of peace.

“There must be a sacrificial retribution

And it must be me.” 

Over and over again

Court meets. 

Who cares anymore?
I cut again.

 Vacuous peace cycles with despair, 

To my slow destruction.

Then,  when least expected,

As if other-worldly
A new friend sings me a song 

That permeates my darkness!

A song I didn't know

existed

No one ever sang me 

such lyrics before:

“There was already a judgment

The sacrifice has been made

The shame has been borne

The price has been paid.

Amazing love, 

Your victory won

 It is over.

Walk free!

Even the broken remnants 

I will redeem!

If you let me.  

Will you let me?"

Now, yet dimly, 

 I see, 

It is not me, 

But sin in me.

I lift what I always feared

The fountain pen of true confession,

Of pure repentance.

Embracing the waterfall 

Of eternal love and forgiveness, 

I sign in agreement 
Listing
ALL my sin 
and total depravity.
No more masks.
No more thread needed!
Barely having finished signing my name
The water rushes forth, 
Swallows up the ink-named sins
In curls it swirls away and is gone 
Forever!
Clean parchment left
Signed, "Jesus." 
Clean parchment
Awaiting new words, a story of my newness.

Defense, Accuser, Masked Deceiver, Jury, and Judge,

In shock that I'd ever sever loyalties,

All flee, 

Shrinking away to nothingness.

I know the truth, 

And the truth

Has set me free! 

I let go of the thread of self-righteousness 

And Christ catches me with his righteousness
 I don't fall, 

I fly! 

And I breathe 
Heavenly air, 

Sweeter 

Than ever recalled!

by Rhonda Lynn Wilkinson 3/13/13