Tonight, I realized that I want to learn to live well.
I’ve been holding onto the wounded place because that’s the story I know. A narrative I can follow, like a bloodline, a bone to gnaw on, a body to hold. The past year and a half, in the place of anxiety once numbed by alcoholism, I found my gifts, I saw that I have dignity, that I am loved and held. I’ve learned who I am from my wounds, by seeking the one that heals them.
For the past year since becoming sober, I’ve been in the dirt, hand on the hem of his robe, and I’ve lived in that charged moment as healing happens. I’ve seen through shattered light like blue glass. Witness. Testimony. These serve me now.
But what about when I’m made well?
What I feel the Father pressing on me tonight, in all of his grace as I learn, is that I have been made well.
In holding onto the wounded place and finding consolation in it, holding onto that charged moment of healing, I haven’t allowed myself to envision the actual healed place. What walking upright looks like. What living well looks like.
Tonight, I press my ear to God’s heartbeat. I hear it, threaded with my own, deep as blood, deep as my own breathing. My hurts have caused me to come to this place, of acceptance, openness to the other, empathy and aliveness and humanity.
Twin veins of addiction and anxiousness, struggles that sometimes lay me down, have allowed me to see my gifts. I can still share a story, speak to those who live in the wounded place, hear their stories as they shape them. But I can’t dwell there. I don’t have to be laid down anymore. I’m not bleeding anymore. God has made me to live well.
In my rush to tell my story, a story that is good, as I’ve let my words spill over from that place of deep love I’ve discovered within me, I forgot what Jesus said to the woman who bled for twelve years:
“Daughter,” he said to her, “your faith has made you well. Go in peace.” (Luke 8:48)
She believed just by reaching out to touch Him, she would be made well. She believed, and she was healed. I reach out and touch You, Father, and You respond. You speak peace over me. You say that I am Your daughter. That my faith has made me well. That I can not only go, but go in peace.
In the place where my fears shatter against each other and I find myself at their edges, You meet me. I am made new. Seaglass on your shore.
Lord, You are a miracle. You have made me well. You have changed my life. There is nothing and no one I wish to serve other than You. I will not serve my fear. I will not serve my words. I will serve You.
I trust You in this place. I trust You are holding me where You want me to be, that the power of Your Spirit that I have always known in me will guide me forward in love, courage, freedom, joy.
Lord, this is Your power. You declare peace over me. You declare I am well. I believe it. I believe I am well. I believe You touch me in this place, You touch all of us as we live for You.
Where I bleed, You touch me. Where I cannot speak, You give me voice. When I cannot move, You move me. Where I am broken, You make me whole.
I love You Father. I give my life to You, You in whom I live and move and have my being. I let my fears and my hurt leak from me in my tears and meet you in the well of your love. I let them go, Father. I hold them differently so that I can be held by You, so that I can walk with You.
All I’ve been holding in me, curling myself around, has let go. And I can see light shining through me, right to the center. I am seaglass, broken and made new. It’s You that shines through. I give the glory to You. I give my devotion and my attention and my words to You. You meet us in the broken place. You shape us with salt and water, rough edges and soft ones, with sand and with glass, with who You’ve always been, the materials You’ve always used to make things new. Even the bottles we throw away, that we shatter on rock in all of our brokenness, are beautiful in light of Your love. Your amazing, infinite love that covers me now, that smooths me, that flows through me and all around me.
You call us to adorn each other, Father. To adorn a table in a bowl of clear glass. To wear You close to us, to press our thumb into the reminder of You, to find You near again and again in the promise of who You are making us to be.
You have made me well. I can live well.
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