The Stranger I Know

I've been journeying as a broken fragmented version of myself. When He first invited me, rather lured me, off the paved manicured way and into the wild wood where the path curves and bends in unpredictable and mysterious ways, I did not realize that I entered that way divided. There was a part of me that I did not allow to journey with me, a part of me that I exiled to stay on the paved way while I journeyed further up and further into this Wonderland called the strait and narrow. That part of me was who I used to be, my past self- the parts I was embarrassed of and unreconciled with.

Further up and further into the wild wood I found peace and freedom and I rediscovered lost and distant parts of myself long estranged. I found God in the woods. I found grace in the woods. I found my feet in the woods. But this curved and winding path brought me round the bend and laid me within eye and earshot of the paved manicured way from whence I wandered off.

I'm watching these people walk the ways I used to walk, talking the ways I used to talk- using that despicable Christianese, language drenched in works and trying harder. I'm watching as these people march in soldierly fashion and I'm angry. I'm watching these people scowel at those leaving their road and I'm enraged. I'm watching these people like they are zoo animals behind an enclosed captivity, tamed and duped into thinking those walls envelop life and freedom and safety. But I see into their eyes and I remember what it was like to be on that side of the fence. I remember thinking I was free. I remember judging all those who were "lost" on the other side, wishing they would just cross over into true "freedom." And it's that memory that makes me the angriest of all. I'm embarrassed. "Can everyone tell that I came from there?"

I'm trying to hide it. I'm trying to run from it. I want to look away. I want to avoid it. I don't want to look at the paved way. I want to leave it behind and forget it, pretend it never happened. I don't want to accept them as part of my household, part of my family, but I don't know why. I resent that road, that way, and the people on it. Mostly I hate the contrast it brings up. I don't like who I was there and I don't like being faced with who I was there. But my journey through the woods has brought me here to memory lane and I don't know why. I'm faced with a stranger I know all too well and I have nothing but hate and resentment for her. I'm ashamed of who I was. I'm afraid to get to close to even the memory of her for fear that she might pollute and destroy everything I've come to know and love.

"Whatever is denied cannot be healed."- Abba's Child by Brennan Manning

"I myself am the enemy who must be loved."- Carl Jung

The thing is that I didn't make the connection that it was the stranger I left behind the edge of wood that I hated, I was too busy blaming everyone else I saw walking by saying, "I can't stand the way YOU talk. I can't stand the way YOU treat people. I can't stand the way YOU live." All the while what I was really saying was, "I can't stand the way you used to talk. I can't stand the way you treated people. I can't stand the way you lived." All directed and aimed and the lonely stranger I exiled to remain on that way. But I see her now. And I see that I rejected what has already been redeemed. I rejected who I used to be and did not allow her to journey with me out of shame and fear and anger. That past self, that stranger I know, was not something that needed to be redeemed but something that had already been redeemed, I just hadn't accepted it yet. I hadn't welcomed her into the woods.

How could I not be at war with those who walk on the paved manicured way when I am at war with the very memories of who I was when I walked it?

"If I am not in touch with my own belovedness, then I cannot touch the sacredness of others. If am estranged from myself I am likewise a stranger to others."- Abba's Child by Brennan Manning

I hated her and He loved her. I cut her off and He redeemed her. I tried to forget her, so He brought me back to her because, in order to be whole, I need her. In order to be truly myself I need who I was, NOT as I was, but as He has made her new.

So I wrote them a letter:

Lord forgive me for not loving what You love, for hating things You have redeemed. I forgive the girl I was, the ways I tried, the holes I dug for myself, the lies I believed, the pain I put myself through, the many long routes I took simply because I knew no other way. I forgive the girl I was for the grace, the love, and the freedom she so long rejected. And I ask her to forgive me for not loving her as she was, but instead imposing who she should have been on her. I ask her to forgive me for casting her out, for not welcoming her home as the Father did; for rejecting her and hating her; for not accepting her for who she has become, for being an unfair accuser of who she was. Come home to me old friend, let us be one. Join me on this hill. Let us be mended and joined in the grace that freed and healed us both. I need you. Without you I am not whole. I want to love you.

"Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are Mine. You are precious in My eyes, because you are honored and I love you...the mountains may depart, the hills be shaken, but my love for you will never leave you and My covenant of peace with you will never be shaken." - Isaiah 43:1, 4; 54:10

Welcome home. Let us wander the woods together as one, no longer as strangers but as one. Maybe as I journey toward wholeness I'll learn how to love everyone else I left behind on the paved and manicured way. Maybe my journey will bend again and again to lure others into the woods or maybe have me step out of the trees to love them for a mile or two. I don't know. I don't know what's around this bend. But I'm better now that I have her again and I feel that I will continue to get better as we go further up and further in.