“When times are tough
Or you’re feeling blue,
If you don’t know
Where you’re heading to.
Remember the Lord,
He will carry you.”
At this point in time, I had already memorized this short poem etched into the little blue dish I grasped on to, that it didn’t even matter that the lights were off. The door was locked. Besides, I don’t think I could have read it through the tears that clouded my vision.
It was dark, I was alone, and the sounds of arguing always managed to be muffled when I sought refuge in my closet. The cold, dark atmosphere of my closet provided a certain level of safety my household could not. My cries for a God I wasn’t even sure existed could be expressed in that place. I had nowhere else to run to.
I was around 7 years old.
At a young age I learned to hold onto God’s promises in the dark. The above quote was what began my relationship with Jesus when I didn’t even know Jesus was his name. At a young age, I believed that the world was no longer a safe place. At a young age, I believed that emotions were dangerous and uncontrollable.
So what does any scared, isolated 7 year old do in times of fear and uncertainty? I withdrew. I locked myself in my bedroom closet. What I thought to be a physical precaution of safety, I now realize to be an emotional method of disconnection and survival. Once I believed the world to no longer be a safe place, I locked myself in a closet. At 7 years old, all I wanted to lock away was my pain. But I was too young to understand that in an attempt to numb my pain, I numbed everything that made me feel anything. I numbed my joy.
All alone. Or at least I thought.
Just a couple weeks ago, I was sitting in class when the Lord came to me to shed some light in that dark closet. Worship music was playing as I sat in my chair, when I was challenged to ask the Lord where He was in my past. Anger flared through me when He took me out of my classroom and into a field.
The light was so bright I was squinting. Sunflowers engulfed the field and stretched so far that there was not an inch of ground that was not taken up by the beautiful flowers. It had never been more clear to me in my life that God is reflected in his creation, than in this vision he gave me.
He was the sunflower. He was everywhere. There was no space on this earth that he did not occupy. And as the anger and resentment built inside of me, I reacted the only way I had been taught how as a child. I began to tear the sunflowers out of the ground. I dared to bring my anger to the Lord.
“I was so scared. I was all alone. I didn’t know what to do. I was too young. I was innocent. I wasn’t able to protect myself.” Tears rushed down my face and my throat burned as I yelled these fears at him. In that moment, I could feel everything I had worked so hard to repress. All the fear, pain, rejection, and loss.
“I know. I was there.” He whispered to me. It was so soft, so gentle. Loved soaked every word he spoke to my soul. “And I always will be.” It dawned on me that no matter how many sunflowers I teared out of the ground, he would still be there. My anger didn’t scare him, and neither did my pain. As every ounce of fear left my body, his love rushed in.
Jesus is opening that closet door again. A door I had long since closed off to the rest of the world. A door I am not sure I even remember how to open anymore. I’m not able to tell you what that 7 year old girl looks like, how she feels, or who she is.
But I am on a journey with Jesus to go and find her. I am on a journey to remember. Together, we are going back to those dark and broken places so he can whisper the truths that I needed to hear and no one said to me. I am on a journey of healing and wholeness. To not only unlock the door to that closet, but to unlock the freedom that only comes from Jesus.
