Skip to main content

At some point in your story, a character says "You're better than this..."

She was desperate to be good. An A- was a disappointment, a harsh word's echoes didn't quit. Her standards were impossible, but she met them, and the times she didn't were deep disappointments. Success was survival. Approval was survival. Whose approval? God's? Her parents? Her church's? Despite living every moment subservient to it, they never quite gave it. Perhaps God did, but how could she have known? And so she did two things. She found someone who did accept her. He wasn't burdened with religious requirement, and his acceptance was a relief, even if she failed to see the danger in the flip side of the coin, of lawlessness. Next, she went in search of God. Because despite the convoluted image given her, she saw goodness, and wanted sense. She found truth, and she found God. And found the whole point of this Jesus they told her about was that she didn't have to jump through their hoops, recite their formulas, look just so, or behave just so. She could stop berating herself. You're better than this, do better, be good, be perfect...all faded. She locked the door, stepped into a field of possibility, running her fingers through its grasses, plucked the purple flower, and walked toward grace.

Comments

Looking for the T[ea] said…
I love seeing the different ways we approach the same prompt! I hear your journey.
December 14, 2023 at 1:36 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reflections

Memories spring before me like a surprise visitor in my window -     t he bird on my sill,           the squirrel up my tree,                the butterfly flitting by. Their moments compiled, one on top of the other -     unforeseeable,          unnoticed,                unexpected. Sarah saw, Hagar looked away, Bartimaeus pled.      Oh give me sight! Eyes that see your truth without protective fear, Eyes that witness miracles in place of death, Eyes clouded by mercy, for the clearest of vision, making me faithful and true. Someday said the bird on my sill.     One day said the squirrel up my tree.          Today said the butterfly flitting by. These memories spring before me like the surprise visitors at my window.
Post a Comment
Read more

Describe your childhood bedroom using all five senses

The problem lies in which bedroom, as my childhood was filled with arranging and rearranging. Never quite settled, never anything quite totally mine. I suppose my first room was the guest bedroom. Two single beds, first door on the right of the hallway, with the tiniest of walk-in closets, and, of course, the doorway to the attic at its outermost edge. A shared space with nothing that belonged to me except my body and the clothes I stored in my grandparent's spare dressers. The little closet, still full of clothes that hung on my grandparents bodies some days. I would sit in that closet and take in deep breaths. It wasn't that it smelled good or bad, just that it smelled. I didn't think then of it as the smell of the elderly, I thought of it as the smell of home. I wonder now, would I recognize that scent on my grandmother's body today? At night the blank walls lurched with dark, reaching shadows. While daytime frolics with the Ouji board were invigoration, the night he...
2 comments
Read more

What you're thinking about

It's like a wash cycle. Press play and it knows what to do first, the thought that follows, the spin cycle that takes over, and the short calm that exists before it all begins again - the drum never getting emptied. Just an endless rinse and repeat, no change of clothes, no new soap, nothing new at all. It's these same old thoughts, the same old process of attempting to wring them out. To finally cleanse them of their soil and fill the drum with something fresh. Yet it seems like nothing new will ever get added. There will be no opportunity. The laundromat is closed, or indefinitely broken. Relational struggle filled with critique and complaint - all righteous of course - it's what's stuck in the drum now. I desire new thoughts but, somehow, it's always the toxic parts that want the longest wash cycle. Sometimes I open the detergent drawer and add in a heavy dose of bleach, "that'll do it, it should come out clean this time." But it's hard, trying,...
Post a Comment
Read more