I don't know the words

When I don't know the words so many lovely ladies of the interwebs do.

After the War

Hot tears slam my cheeks, slide down, rivers of unbidden emotion.

I’m shocked at their appearance–hot lava exploding from a mountain that had just been covered in daisies.

I slip into a bathroom stall, place my head in my hands, sniffle into a square of paper. That year…so good, so hard.

I feel more like a warrior than a writer.

My heart has the scars to prove it.

But then, softly, a whisper comes to my heart, “Put down your sword.”

And I notice, for the first time, how my heart has stood in ready-to-fight position for so long, stiff, waiting to dodge the next blow.

I relent. And something inside clatters to the ground. I see the wounds, still fresh, not noticed in the heat of the battle. I touch them tentatively. Cover protectively.

Then again, softly within…

“If I will wash your feet, will I not wash your wounds?”

I have a choice. Drop my guard or guard my hurts.

I choose the first.

And His hand touches all that aches, His voice whispers truth, His love wipes around, over, down.

It stings a little. I flinch with old fear.

But slowly I relax, lean into Him, remember the time before the war and I know it is finished.

No longer a warrior.

I’m a child, small, safe, with Daddy’s hands making it all better.

Victory.

Surrender.

I leave the bathroom stall, finally, look into clear eyes in the mirror.

And I am never the same again.