Binding Chains

The lies suffocate like a noose. I feel the eyes boring through me, but it's a vague, seemingly distant threat and I can't grab hold to crush it. I'm drowning in water I can't see.

Everything looks normal, but I know I'm not right. My heart wants to soar, but something I'm dragging keeps me from the take-off. The lies like chains bind.

And they scar.

I didn't think I had scars - didn't think I'd ever been punched in the gut so hard that the internal bleeding would leave lines of searing pain. No one had ever called me ugly or worthless that I could remember. I had never been used and abused to the point that I drew my own blood to release pain. She was speaking to us about this kind of pain and it was pain I respected. How could I compare my easy life to her Hell? 

I could not. Would not. So I denied my own scars.

And they only marred deeper.

Direct stinging words have never pierced me. Direct cutting actions have never stained me ugly or shamed me to the point of breaking. But I've been pounded, bruised steady, and sanded raw.

Resistant words and eyes of pity and promises of future reward have worn this faith skin thin until the fighting for truth subtly becomes believing the lies, and laughing it off masks the drinking in of poison. The poison reeks of "broken", "worthless", "incomplete", "defective merchandise".

And I sink.

The lies like chains bind.

And I have to confront them to conquer them. I cannot cast out and cast off by name what I am unwilling to recognize.

So will I?

The pain of admitting brokenness is nearly more agonizing than the brokenness itself. It's the antiseptic on the open wounds that eradicates infection and begins healing.

I'll face it. I'll speak truth in lieu of lies, and start by speaking this one:

Your words have hurt me. The flippant disbelief of God's perfect will and calling on my life has formed binding chains, and I am scarred.

But not forever.

Because He was scarred to remove my scars. He succumbed in death to the ultimate lie so that I could be raised with Him in the victorious life of truth.  His Spirit of Truth breathes in. I draw my breath in believing pain.

And the healing begins.