Neither Can Hold Me Now
It used to be easy, I thought. Pulling pajama shorts up tightly over hips widened by birth and waves of loneliness quelled by ice cream. The same pants that were loose and flowing, like silk on the shore, only a few days ago. Or, was it, years ago? My daughter reached out a sweaty hand today and lightly fingered my wedding photo.
"Mama, that when you were a little girl?" She inquires.
I was twenty-two, I say aloud.
A little girl, says the silent voice inside.
A little girl who believed that all the answers lay within her. That she was her own master, her own God. A little girl who professed with her mouth a theology of grace but saved none for herself. For all others, it was free, but she, she had to pay.
The elastic band is stretched tight, held together by two strands of thread left standing; the old guard. I think about clawing out of the pit of despair, holding on to my shepherd's staff. Blinded by dirt, frozen with fear. I have been as Jacob, fighting with God. Fighting to keep Him. Fighting to keep myself.
I am not who I was.
I have read a psalm every hour, on the hour. I've used them as poultice; a salve strong enough to soothe the burning rub of humanity and divinity. I've cried out to the Lord using his servants' words. Using His own words. Using my words.
I am twisted and bent beneath stronger arms than mine, breath hot and heaving on my neck, pain in my thigh.
I know that I am not my own master, my own God. I know that Grace is for me. I know that GRACE is for me. I know that Grace is for ME.
I fight to remember.
I struggle against sinew and sweat to remember.
I will not let go until you bless me.
I will not.
Let go.
I let go of the pinching waistband, of the strings of death that tie me to a past that is covered in platitudes like ivy. Beautiful and destructive. And I remember what brought me here.
And that I ate and drank today, both bread and wine and word.
And I remembered Who it came from and I pulled deeply of the hope that it was not, could not, have been from me.
And I placed the pants in the trash can. And my sorrows and worries in the trashcan. For they are both baggage I carried, from when I was a little girl.
But I am not her anymore.
Neither can hold me now.