He found him in the desert land, And in the howling waste of a wilderness; He encircled him, He cared for him, He guarded him as the pupil of His eye. ~Deuteronomy 32:10
She was raining on the inside and I felt it deep within me. I sat with her on the floor, my legs criss-crossed like a pretzel, and facing her. With crayons in hand and paper spread out before us, she drew pictures for me. Each telling an unspoken story, no words were necessary. Her pain spread out before me in simple, amateur drawings.
She stood with her head hung low and began showing me all the marks angrily cut across her body. I took a breath and exhaled…it was a sacred moment. She trusted me as she revealed her fresh pain and history. Her body was an easel and I was witness to the damage done by others and herself. This was her way of coping with her memories; the cutting somehow soothing her emotional pain with the bleeding red. Focusing on the physical pain, she could ignore her mental anguish.
Self injury, it comes in many forms, and is often hidden where others are unable to see it. It’s the slow cutting away of all that shames and hurts; I understood this coping. I had spent years picking at myself and scraping away the ugly. Absentmindedly, rubbing raw until I saw red and realized I should hurt…somehow the soul pain bled more. Our eyes locked and I leaned into her, and listened. My eyes did not flinch as she told her story. In the months that followed she would hold her shoulders back and lift her head high.
God does the same for us…he finds us in our desert land, in the howling waste of our wilderness. Caring for us, he stoops down and encircles us. He listens and holds our hearts and souls in his hands. He guards us as the apple of His eye-the delicate pupil, the essential one for vision, the necessary and useful…the fragile soul! He quietly sits with us in our telling and he reframes all our ugliness. He makes a way for healing to begin and he helps us stand.
Lord, thank you for helping us stand this day!
Lily Mae
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