There is a thread of guilt running through who I am. It stitches together the cracked spaces between bone and sinew, throat and tongue, twenty-three-year-old me and the little girl still trapped inside my chest.
She uses it as a jump rope until she misses a step, trips, gets tangled and cuts herself on the sharp tips of my ribs. I don’t know how to help her. I’ve been stuck in this game of jumprope and I don’t know how to get us out.
I am so tired of jumping. My body aches each time I fall. I want to comfort the little girl with bleeding knees but my mouth is stuffed with empty sounds. I open it and only tears come out, stale and ten years old.
You are holding her. In the dark crevice of my chest you are drawing me unto yourself like a father who does not offer fake unsafe affection. No, O Lord, your affection is true. Your heart is pure light. It casts shadows across my ribcage like the sun through shuttered blinds. You do not ask me to open the curtains. You are not afraid of the darkness, even when I am. You meet me here even when I’m ashamed of the state of this cellar that I’ve trapped this child within.
You climb down into the cellar of my heart. When I cannot move, ankles broken and door bolted against the predatory ghosts, you climb down into my darkness. When I cannot move, you come to me.
Your voice is small, but it is true. Even when I cannot hear it, it is true. Even when I think I hear something else, it is true. Even when I am afraid to listen, it is true. Even when I don’t understand what it’s saying, it is true. You are true. Your love is true. O Christ, heart broken open for my brokenness, your love is true.
Take this tangled mess, O Christ. Take this heart dripping through my fingers and puddling in blood around my feet. Caring brother. Loving father. Take it because I cannot untangle it myself.
I hand you the knotted ropes of my shame/guilt/conviction and you take them and set them aside. Instead of untangling it, you sit down next to me. I cannot see your face in the darkness, but it is there. There is no condemnation in your voice. You ask me to stay. I fight. You ask me to stay. I fight. You ask me to stay. I sit down cross-legged, small, twelve years old, ankles twisted and heart locked like a broken music box. You love me even when my music doesn’t play. You love me. You love me. Your love is true.
You are safe. You are love. You are here. You are true.
I am scared to stay long enough to hear what you have to say. I am scared if I incline my ear to your voice, you will cast me from your presence.
You do not speak. You sit, head bowed, face hidden, body outlined in shadow. You do not move.
That is all the answer I need.