The Little Girl Within (Day 2 from, Letters to a Friend)

 

            I had to protect myself, so I began to build a wall to keep everyone out using bricks of distrust and laid them with a mortar made from fear. Over the years when I faced painful difficulties I laid another layer of bricks.  Year after year I built that wall, but no matter how high it became it didn’t stop the pain from getting in, what I had failed to realize, was it had stopped me from getting out. I didn’t belong in an adult world. As I’m writing this I am seventy-three years old and still have difficulty at times. I had lost all those years growing up that would have prepared me. The wall I had built around me is gone but the little girl is still within.

I have a hard time being in large groups or showing my emotions, and I like to lose myself in the things I enjoy such as gardening or in books. Even when I get lonely I would still rather be by myself than with most people. My husband gave me a plaque once that said, “Blessed are those who expect nothing for they will not be disappointed,” and until I accepted Christ, I guess you could say that’s how I saw the world. I’ve learned, over the years, who I am in Christ, and knowing that has given me an identity I never got as a little girl.  Then one day I walked into my first Sign Language class at the church and fell in love with singing in sign language. All the emotions I had bottled up inside came pouring out through my hands and when the music stopped and I opened my eyes people were crying. God had used my signing to open their hearts; that was one of the first times I ever felt accepted, even in a church.

The first song I ever signed was for a Bible study group it was called Something Beautiful, I had chosen it because it was the essence of my life, the chorus goes like this; “Something beautiful, something good. All my confusion He understood. All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife, but He made something beautiful out of my life.”  He has brought me a long way but the most astonishing revelation came when I realized my heavenly Father was there all the time.  He had seen all the hard, ugly, and painful times and He understood the confusion for trying to be an adult when I had never been allowed to be a child, “Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you or forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:6, NIV).  I am the person I am today because of what I went through, and I believe I am a better person than I would have been without those hard, ugly, and painful times. 

To whom it may concern, I have written this just for you, and to tell you it’s time to tear down your wall. I don’t know who you are, but I have seen your eyes and I’ve felt your sadness, but you're not alone and I understand because I've walked in your shoes. Your heavenly Father has called me to pray for you and  I want you to know what God has done for me He is waitining to do for you. He is saying to you, “I know the plans I have for you . . . plans to prosper you, and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV).

 

 

Your Sister in Christ