I can’t remember a time before I was “Christian”. I asked God to save me when I was five, was baptized at 11, and generally tried to live my life according to God’s way. However, despite my devotion, I was motivated by achievement. While I knew I could never earn my way to heaven, I still believed God was disappointed in me unless I could meet his requirements.
So I set out to be the very best Christian I could be—and for a time was successful. Around high school feelings of depression sunk in as I began to realize that I couldn’t meet God’s perfect standard, nor my own expectations of what a good Christian was supposed to be and do. Exhausted with the effort of trying, I slipped further into hopelessness and despair. I prayed earnestly that God would lift me—his faithful servant—out of the pit, but He did not answer.
On January 4, 2012 (four years later), I hit my breaking point. I told God I was done believing. At that moment, an image flooded my mind that completely changed my perspective. I jotted it down in my journal, later turning it into the flash fiction piece below. It reminded me of the verse in Hebrews 6 that talks about crucifying the son of God all over again. And I realized: by trying to live under my own power and my own idea of God’s acceptance, I was rejecting the very salvation I craved.
The moment I gave up was the moment God showed up. As if he was waiting for my will to break, knowing the blinders of achievement and self-justification would prevent me from listening his gentle voice; knowing I wouldn’t hear until I came to the end of my rope.
My life since hasn’t gotten easier—in fact, the opposite is true—but now I stand as a broken vessel, held together by the grace and mercy of Jesus. It is because of his life that I live; because of his hope that I endure; and because of his love that I am forgiven. I may have accepted God’s forgiveness when I was a young child, but this was the start of my relationship with Him. This was the turning point.
This is my story.
She sits with her back against the wall, eyes threatening tears. The storm outside makes the wooden walls tremble. Her phone blinks in the corner, dangerously low on power. There is no one to find her. No one to ask if she is all right.
She is not all right.
But she won’t admit it. Instead, she lives a lie. When they ask, she pastes on a smile; mimics a happy laugh while on the inside she is wearing away. She has become paper thin. The slightest breeze, and she will tear.
The room creaks—a long, slow moan as wooden beams sigh in the wind—and she springs to her feet, heart pounding, before remembering she is alone. Dizzy from her sudden motion, she pitches forward, catching herself against the wall. The slats are whitewashed, but she can still read the messages scrawled beneath.
Unloved. Unwanted. Unworthy.
The words unlock shame-tinted memories—one after another in a twisted movie reel she cannot stop. Countless scenarios present themselves for evaluation: what she should have done; things she wish she’d said, how things might have gone differently if only she’d….
Her eyes finally spill over, trickling salty lines down her cheeks before dropping to the faded carpet. She rests her forehead against the wall. Just one night. Please. One night without this hell.
But lies—especially those buried deep—do not go away when asked.
The words beneath the whitewash are hers. Her demons. Her reality.
Unloved, unwanted, unworthy.
Unloved, unwanted, unworthy.
A muted scream erupts from her chest as she shoves herself away from the wall. If she does not escape, she will die. Her wild eyes search for a door, but there isn’t one. No windows, either. She runs her fingers along the seams, floor and ceiling. The joints are perfect.
Panicked, she spins, looking for something—anything—and freezes.
He is there.
His presence is not strange. She doesn’t wonder how He entered a room with no entrance. They’ve been here before. In fact, she realizes, she’s been expecting Him.
A wild hope makes her start froward, but she just as suddenly stops. After all, her prayers have not been answered. Are you even listening? She wants to scream. Do you even care?
Words taunt her from the wall beyond him, framing his head like a distorted halo.
Unloved, unwanted, unworthy.
She returns his stare, wondering why He doesn’t speak. If He knows the poison swirling through her mind, why doesn’t He stop it?
Unloved, unwanted, unworthy.
They say He forgives. They say it doesn’t matter what she’s done. But she’s been here a thousand times before, and she will be here a thousand times again. She will always return to this room with the whitewashed walls and the threatening words. This is her prison, and her chains are the thoughts that swirl through her mind like vultures.
Unloved, unwanted, unworthy.
The words hover beneath the whitewash, itching to be freed. Only one coat holds them back—a paper thin seal to match her paper-thin life.
His piercing eyes remain fixed on her. Her back hits the wall. She has been moving away without realizing.
Unloved! Unwanted! Unworthy!
A crunching, screeching noise slices through the silence—more than just the storm outside, now the walls of the room are closing in. Her toes catch on the carpet as the wall pushes her forward.
He sits on the couch, unmoved.
Do something! She wants to scream. But she says nothing.
Terror constricts her throat. She turns, pushing on the wall with all her might. Her shoeless feet slip, unable to find traction.
She blinks, and suddenly the whitewash is gone. Dripping black ink coats every inch of the walls: Unloved, unwanted, unworthy.
Unloved! Unwanted! Unworthy!
Disgusted, she reels from the wall. Her fingers are already stained, black lining the creases.
UNLOVED! UNWANTED! UNWORTHY!
Something inside her snaps. She is done relying on a God that never answers her prayers—done waiting for his love. She will fight her way out of this prison. She will be strong enough.
The room is half-size now. The walls are still coming.
A mallet lays on the coffee table. She snatches it.
“What are you doing?” he says.
Raising the mallet, she slams it into the wall. Wood splinters under her fingertips.
Invigorated, she raises the hammer again, pouring all her frustration, determination, and self-loathing into the next blow.
His eyes are sad, but He makes no move to stop her.
She swings harder, faster, driving each hit home with a perverse sense of justice. Soon the wall is nothing but splinters, but she keeps going. She wants to destroy this place more than she has ever wanted to destroy anything.
Suddenly, her surroundings shift.
She is no longer standing, but kneeling. Fresh grass makes a soft blanket for her bruised knees. There is a more satisfying ring to the hammer now—the ring of metal on metal.
An iron nail sprouts from the last of the beams. With every stroke of her hammer, blood spurts from the hand she has pinned there. Bloodstained, the fingers curl in pain.
The hammer falls from her open fingers, landing with a soft thump as she scrambles backward, horrified. Before she can recover from her shock, the beam rises. He screams as the nail takes His full weight.
Her palms are sticky, fingers slippery with his blood.
The hands of a traitor.
Bile rises in her throat. “I’m sorry,” she manages. “Please, I… I’m sorry.” She curls into a ball, clenching her fists as if she could squeeze her actions into nothingness.
She did this.
“Beloved, look at me.” The love in his voice, so enduring, so knowing, gives her the courage to raise her head. She expects condemnation, but finds only forgiveness.
His voice is soft, despite the pain she’s sure he feels. “My princess,” he says. “I’ve already purchased your freedom. Why won’t you take what I am offering you?”
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family on heaven and earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, together with all the saints, may have power to know how high and long and wide and deep is the love of Christ, and to know that this love surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be the glory, in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.
Ephesians 3:14-21
