I see walls everywhere.
Walls around prisons. Walls around orphanages.
Walls around houses. Walls around schools.
Mostly though, I see walls around hearts.
Walls are a man-made border to keep things out, or to keep things in. We build walls for a lot of different reasons. In a physical sense, we need to keep people in prison, or we need to protect our families while in our homes. In an emotional sense, though, we build walls to keep people from seeing the depths and pain with in, or to harbor our pain. Too often we get comfortable in our pain and in our circumstances. Family members hurt us, friends betray us, people betray us, and we beat ourselves up. We convince ourselves that we need to build walls to keep others out or to keep the pain in…at least I did.
A large part of my ministry this past month has been tediously chipping plaster off of the wall surrounding our compound with scrapers and hammers. We started this month delicately scraping this wall…ineffective. We started using the front of the hammer to break up the plaster…that just put holes in the wall. We started to use the back of the hammer to scrape, but that did absolutely nothing. We soon found out that the most effective way to scrape a wall is to hammer the handle of the scraper and just be patient. The symbolism of this has been hitting me more and more lately.
You see, not too long ago I had a wall that I spent years building. With every struggle I faced, I added another level to my cinderblock wall. I created this ideas that if anyone saw over my wall they wouldn’t love me; so I built up more levels and made my wall harder to climb. People tried to delicately chip my wall…ineffective. People tried to hammer at my wall, but that only left me with more holes. People tried to scrape my wall, that only left me with scratches. I wasn’t until the Lord came in with a scraper and hammer, full of patience and unending grace, that my wall started to come down.
I built a wall to keep people from seeing all of me. I felt that no one else could handle my burdens so I carried them. I was the girl in charge of every club in high school, that girl can’t have an eating disorder. I was the girl that sat in the front row of our fanatical student section, that girl can’t deal with depression. I was the girl that had it all together, that girl can’t struggle with anxiety. Right? Wrong. Very wrong. I spent a very long time hiding behind a smile. It got to a point where I became comfortable in my own pain and self pity. Then I became acquainted with the Lord. I would be lying to you if I said that things got easier after coming to Him. In fact, my circumstances got significantly harder but our surroundings only have the effect that we let them. They only hold the weight we give them.
Walls stop us from really living and experiencing the life we are in. A wise mentor of mine on the race said, “There are two kinds of people. People that let life happen to them and people that actively live their life.” When we put walls up, we stop ourselves from being an active participant in our own life and we stop others from journeying it with us. This past month, the Lord has taught me so much about my own walls. I found that I was harboring the pain of the past in my heart and pulling from my own happiness to survive. I was praying for the Lord to guide the healing and take the pain while having a death grip on my own pain. It wasn’t until a prayer session called, “Inner Healing” that the Lord really showed me that throughout all the struggles and the tough situations He was always there. I had convinced myself that I was going through life alone. Looking back, there are so many moments where the Lord’s whisper was louder than anyone’s yell.
The Lord has teared down my walls and shown me I need to build bridges. A bridge is a means to pass something otherwise uncrossable. A wall isolates you, it keeps you on the inside. A bridge allows you to walk over struggles. Most importantly though, on a bridge, there is room for two.
