I have this quote framed in the form of my 7th most recent screenshot on my phone. It says,
“Closure isn’t an apology or justice or answers. Closure isn’t something they can give you. Closure is moving on. Closure is your choice.“
Someone shared it on Instagram and I recite it like it’s holy scripture.
I sike myself up on this idea as with clenched fists and teeth grit I remind the teary-eyed girl in the mirror,
You Are Not A Victim.
As if when I turn away there isn’t a dagger sticking out from the center of my back with the words engraved on its blade,
Yes You Were.
Christianity in all its sanctity truthfully never did very much for me. It taught me a lot of things that I wish I never learned.
Like how to smile in the midst of searing pain.
How to sit still, behave, and obey.
And how to play dead when the white-hot anger rears its ugly head.
So many things I wish I never knew.
Like how a broken heart means something is wrong with you.
I admitted once in a small group while we were confessing things that I had no idea how to be. The only skill I ever learned well was how to do all the things I should. And how to fix things.
I can package my pain for you in a way that brings you all the hope you need meanwhile the deep cracks in my soul scream you are not fine. You are bleeding and you need surgery.
This, beloved, is the work of the ministry.
This is the part in my sermon where I am to bring it all back around to jesus. Tell you with a bright yellow ribbon how he fixed it all for me.
But to be honest I hate that jesus. I always have and only pretended not to. That was the jesus that lied to me. The same jesus that told me to swallow my pain in turn. Quietly and in submission. Because suffocating slowly is what it means to be a good Christian woman.
I have since met another Jesus. One that I like much better. He is a hothead, smells like Cuban tobacco, and cusses like a sailor. When I tell him about the boy who broke my heart, he looks at me with kindness in His eyes and a smile on his chin as He tosses out an,
“honestly,
fuck him.”
Which always makes me laugh, and is the strength I need to forgive again.
We walk the line and pray our prayers together. Lead me not into cold steel cynicism. But deliver me. Melt this pain into warm tender compassion. Let it one day help another to get back up again.
My atheist friend asked me the other day how I could be so sure this voice in my head was real or simply the product of my imagination. And it was the first time I traded in all my intelligent answers for something I really meant.
Truthfully, I don’t really give a damn. All I know is, real or not, I am wide-eyed and free in love with Him.
But if you’re ever in need of the guy, I heard on the radio yesterday that Jesus drives an astrovan.
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