Beautiful, Fallen Chains

 I have often wondered what I would see if I could look at some of the people I am often quick to judge through the pure lens of God’s eyes.  We all know what it feels like to be under someone else’s microscope and not one of us would say that we enjoyed being there.  We are wrought with weaknesses and experiences that leave scars.  It reminds me of those awful mirrors that magnify every pore, age spot and facial hair (especially those that keep visiting my upper lip) that we didn’t even know we had.  It is bad enough when we, ourselves have to look closely at all of our flaws we try so hard to cover, but when they are exposed and magnified for others to see, we crack under the weight of our shame.

As a child, I was always drawn to beauty.  I wanted to capture all of the beauty I saw around me and carry it with me wherever I went.  I went out of my way to tell every lovely lady I saw that I thought she was pretty and I meant it.  I did not fully understand beauty, but I wanted desperately to be beautiful.  And I was; only I didn’t know it.  What I also did not realize was that few others knew it either.

Fast forward another 10 years or so to a teenage girl who, in her quest for beauty, was now defiled by promiscuity (not always of my own choosing), wrestling with an eating disorder and numbing her pain with alcohol and drugs.  A lot happened on that hunt for beauty.  Some wrong turns were a result of my own poor choices, but there were many times when I was not given a choice which road I wanted to take.  Most people didn’t see or understand WHY I was behaving the way I was, but paid more attention to WHAT I was doing.  I never felt so far away from beauty than in those years, nor did I ever need it so desperately.  I knew what it felt like to be under a foggy microscope that only told part of my story.  I felt like a freak and I reached out to other people who the world treated differently . . . less than.  Instead of being drawn to beauty, I gravitated toward mayhem and darkness.  Where there was pain, there was I.

Little did I know that I would find beauty there as well and out of my pain and struggle, I was given gifts of compassion and understanding.  Yet, I can still find my insecurities kicking in now and then when I am quick to label a beautiful girl by her lack of clothing or assume that a man’s bad behavior a year ago has rendered no fruit or growth today. 

Over the last several years, God has given me a new microscope with a much broader lens and has gently encouraged me to let Him fill in the blanks that the lens doesn’t reveal.  He is showing me that I need to look both closely and from a distance if I am to understand anything at all and even then, I don’t hold all the pieces to the puzzle.  Someone else’s puzzle is not for me to partake in.  We all have our own puzzle that we are continually working on together with God.  It is a sacred mission between us and our Maker.  We are all working toward the beautiful end product.

As I began to look with a new lens, I saw things that shattered my heart.  I never believed that I could be strong enough to carry the weight of the things I have seen and heard in these last few years.  Some of this disturbing knowledge is engraved on my soul and has changed me forever, but I wouldn’t give it back if I could.  It is often easier to see a disruptive, violent little boy as a “bully” and a much harder thing to ask “How did he get this way?”  Even if we get that far, we are quick to blame the parents (which can often be legitimate), but what if this boy has an unexplained issue that his struggling, loving parents have given everything to uncover?  What then, when the entire family is shamed and judged by their community?  And what about that middle school girl who everyone calls “trash” because she is sexually active with her older boyfriend?  I now know more fully what drives a girl to believe she has only that to offer and we will miss the mark completely if we assume it is because she is a “bad girl”.  We look at teenage girls on the streets whose bodies are being sold and we believe they chose that life, but too often were never given a choice and were always lacking the security and maturity to even make such a choice.  I have seen teenage girls locked up in juvenile detention centers for prostitution while the adult men who paid to use them went home to their families and the pimps who beat and sell them daily walk away counting the cash that someone else made for them – someone who is still a child.  We walk past people like that and think we are somehow better when the truth of the matter is . . . we are really looking at ourselves if our circumstances had only been a little to the left or to the right.  We are looking at Jesus being crucified and we are joining in with the crowd, chanting “Crucify Him!  Crucify Him!”.

Little did I know that when God called me to open my eyes, it was not for me to save those trapped in the darkness as much as it was for Him to save me from my own dark blots that have held the better part of me in chains for most of my life.  As I break free from the remaining chains of my past, I can see that God is preparing me for more and equipping me to show others the way out of darkness as well.  But now, I have no illusions about who is leading the way.  I am not strong enough, nor do I have the vision for this journey.  I am calling out to the downtrodden to walk with me in faith toward freedom.  On the way, we will leave our chains lying on the path behind us.  Now and then we may go back and get them, try them back on and drop them again, but we will keep moving forward, delighting in the beauty around us.  But the most beautiful sight of all will be those fallen chains that whisper victory into the hearts of the weary travelers who make the trek behind us.  Keep walking beloved.   Keep walking. . .