And The Walls Came Tumbling Down

Psalm 89:40

Common English Bible (CEB)

40    You’ve broken through all his walls.
    You’ve made his strongholds a pile of ruins.

The strange thing about strongholds and  heart walls, you have no idea they're there. I have spent thirty-eight years  trapped behind the walls of unforgiveness. I made bad decision based on the stronghold of not being loved. A stronghold in the New Testament is simply when we believe a lie. 2 Corinthian 10:4

When I wrote the the story, "When love hurt," My son read it. He simply said, "I could understand both of your emotions. However I don't think at this point in my life I want to pursue a relationship with him, I do want to meet my sisters." I told him that was probably a wise decision. I must admit I felt relieved he didn't hold anything against me.

As soon as I finish writing the story, I reconnected with my son's aunt. The boys sister, my dear friend. For two days we caught up on each others lives. The inevitable happen, she asked me why I kept her nephew from their family for all these years. She told me how the day that the boy bought the Lional train set to our son, he was nervous and apprehensive, but he did it anyway. She explained to me how my reaction to him had crushed him. She told me of the longing her family had to just see our son. I cried and repented. I asked her to forgive me I told her to ask the boy to forgive me, I begged her mothers forgiveness. 

She still held on to some paper work of my son, all she had of him. I never once in all these years stopped to think what my actions may have done to them. I had left a hole in their family, in their lives. I didn't think they cared. I thought their grandmothers action spoke for the whole family. However I hadn't wrote the whole story. The hardest part was yet to be told. The part that made me feel ashamed and humiliated was yet to be told.

Three days after writing the first two blog post about the situation, the Lord said to me,"You didn't write it all." I said, "No one need know that part." He said I want it all. There are things in life we just want to forget ever happened. Those are the things we hold on to the tightest. Those are the walls that even God can't penetrated. He don't wanted to penetrated them though. He wants to tear them down. I reluctantly agreed.

Our son was six or seven months old. I hadn't forgiven his father for not fighting for me. I was with my childhood friends. Mostly guys, we were drinking beer. The boy came over to the house I was at. I ignored him. Bitterness had become my portion, he ignored me as well. Our grandmothers had taught us well. Without warning to me an argument broke out among the fellows that night. We came from a small suburb outside of Detroit. Most of us lived there our entire lives, the boy came from Detroit, he was not one of us, but we had accepted him over the last few years that he lived in our town with his grandmother.

This night though he became the outsider. I didn't understand what the commotion was about. I do remember the rage and anguish over the neighborhood boys faces. One of them wanted to hit the boy. Finally they told me what it was about. They said the boy had Spanish Fly and he wanted to put it in my drink. As a female teen in the seventies our worse fear was someone slipping Spanish Fly in our drink. Spanish Fly was known for making good girls do unimaginable sex acts to strangers. It was told to us that Spanish Fly was something strangers put in drinks of unsuspecting girls to take sexual advantage of them. Spanish Fly was feared by all girls back then.

The boy that I once loved, hated me so much that he would do the most heinous crime against me. He tried to enlist the help of the neighborhood boys, which told me he wanted all involved to have their way with me. I hated the boy for the next thirty-eight years. I distanced myself as far away from the neighborhood, but even further away from the boy. A few months later I started dating his friend. I wanted to crush him as much as he had crushed me. I never told anyone what had happened that night. It was to difficult to remember.

I finally told his sister why I distanced myself from their whole family. She defended the boy, she said my memory was faulty, or the neighborhood boys conspired against her brother. I guess she wasn't ready for the truth. I understand it has taken most of my life to face this same truth. Even as she spoke I tried to make myself believe she was right. I know better, but sometimes rewriting history is better then walking in it's muddy footsteps.

I have cried for three days after finally relinquishing my hold on this awful truth that has held me captive to unforgiveness. I laid in a fetal position asking Jesus to help me through this. I felt His arms around me. I heard Him whisper, "I love you." I said, "but the boy didn't!" It's strange how I can still remember the expression on certain faces that night, some where hurt and pity toward me, one was shock and disbelief, one was anger, but the one I remember most is the boys. His eyes were empty of any emotion; like pages of a novel that had not yet been written. He was thrown out of the house that night, but he took a large part of me with him.

Finally the walls came tumbling down. I have prayed for the boy, who now, his sister says, is a bitter old man. I know longer hold his secret, I am free. I have been plagued with uti for years. I felt one coming on recently. I noticed that it was gone once relinquishing bitterness and unforgiveness. I never had another child, Abba said my bitterness closed my womb. I lost so much. One of the greatest weapon the enemy uses against the people of God is the stronghold of not being loved. When we don't love we only reinforce the stronghold in the lives of others. The truth of the matter is I am loved and I have always been loved completely. I found that out the day I was filled with the Holy Spirit. That's the only way I could describe it. I know that love was always there.

My prayer is to be able to love without restrictions, even the ones that hurt us the most in this life. This is only the beginning for us. I had to stop letting my past hold me from my future. I have to look past the temporal and look to the eternal. I have to forgive quickly and love completely. Abba broke through my walls and made my stronghold a ruin. 

Fearless