Free Indeed
by
R.F. Gammon
- January 21, 2019
I'm not sure how long they were looking at me and thinking about how much they wanted to be somewhere else.
How many months before the axe fell passed where every smile they turned on me was painted on? How many times did someone say, "Oh, today's not going to work, I suppose we'll have to come up with a different day," and then hang up the phone and breathe a sigh of relief? Was there ever malice? Was there heartbreak? Did it hurt them to drive away that day; did they have any idea how much they were hurting me?
Did they feel keen relief? At this point in time do they still feel that relief? Do they feel guilt? Do they feel nothing at all?
I'll tell you what I feel: I feel freedom.
~~~
Even driving into the parking lot of a hospital, looking up at those bright windows and the dark doors, triggers it. The fear. The memory of waking up in a bed crying for Thai spring rolls, sending frantic texts to a friend in a drug-induced panic, sitting in a wheelchair as my dad pushed it down the street as we went to get food.
Hearing a doctor say the c-word in relation to me. Having my entire life thrown into disarray.
Then learning that what I had was not cancer, but something else. The relief, followed by the terror of the unknown.
Last week, a doctor gave me the all-clear for six months. The surgery is past; the shame is gone. The fear lingers occasionally, but I no longer feel the same terror.
I feel freedom.
~~~
What were they thinking when they looked at me? Them and their white sneakers, their laughter as they bent low over phones, discussing things of which they had no idea. Things that I did know, that made my blood boil.
Sometimes I found myself wondering: Was I the problem? Was it really me who could never find the answers, who messed up the experiments, who was clueless about the class material? It was them, my brain hissed. They were the ones who set me to crying in the bathroom.
Perhaps it was all of our faults. Perhaps I trapped myself in that darkness, putting myself on the edges by refusing to compromise. Perhaps they were the ones who did not reach out to the girl who had no idea how to socialize.
Either way, leaving was one of the best things I could have done.
And now, I feel freedom.
~~~
Our church pews do not burst, but they are filled with people who turn their faces to the sky and raise their voices in praise.
My dreams still haunt me, and yet the true faces of those I once feared to see no longer do.
My heart breaks occasionally, but I stand on my own feet.
Depression does not have the last word. The situations around us do not have the last word. Death and the grave and sin do not have the last word.
"In this world you will have trouble," Jesus said, "but take heart! I have overcome the world."
Not "I will overcome" or "I might overcome. No.
When Jesus said this, he had not yet gone to the cross; it was the night before his arrest, and he stood in the midst of his disciples, comforting them. Sin still held sway over all; the cup of God's wrath hung before Jesus' eyes, and he prayed for it to be taken away from him so that he might not have to drink it.
And at that point:
HE HAD ALREADY OVERCOME.
If, at that time, Jesus had already overcome, how much more now, 2,000 years later in a world where we see his fingerprints everywhere?
If the Son has set you free, you are free indeed.
And even when it doesn't feel like it, friend, if you know him, you are free.
It doesn't always feel perfect. Sometimes the darkness presses close, and it's all you can do to stay on your feet. "In this world you will have trouble," Jesus says, and that is a promise.
But then there is the second promise, so much stronger and more powerful, as true as Jesus' victory over death and the grave: "I have overcome the world."
He's won. Let's believe that.
