Processing this passage of Galatians 3.23- 4.20 I love how Paul contrasts child and slave. The heart of freedom though sonship. Emphasizing that we are no longer slaves, but heirs to the promise is such a beautiful image: That we are no longer bound by laws, pain, and ways of this life but free to dance, sing, and be who we are. To live in the grace that we have with Jesus’ spirit inside of us calling out, “Abba Father!” Wow! The magnitude of that reality, I doubt I’ll ever be able to fully embrace.
It’s been many long seasons of lessons that have allow me to begin to know what it’s like to dance. A few years back during an amazing training I was in, they walked us through an exercise of laying down all that was holding us back. Through that exercise I began to see an image of a little girl.
Like a movie when they focus in on a specific person, I saw an image in the distance that quickly was right before my eyes: a little girl hunched over, laying on a boulder twice her size. She was about 8 years old, light brown hair hanging past her shoulders, stringy and knotted with girt and oil. Dirt covered her body like an extra layer of clothing. Her dress thin and ragged, torn from years of neglect. The light blue flower pattered faded into the background, barely visible to those who had never seen the dress in it’s original state. As I looked closer something caught my eye. A large shackle was hanging around her left ankle chaining her to the boulder in which she lay. It was at that point that I realized this boulder, so cold and hard, had been her bed, the place she sat by day and slept by night.
Looking up, our eyes met. Her sweet brown eyes, moist with tears, quickly averted my gaze and became fixated upon her small clutched hand. My heart leapt and broke when I saw what was in her tiny fist. Poking out from either side were the ends of a key. I gently placed my hands beneath hers, cradling them, willing her small fist to open, to let me free her from this chain, this boulder, she had called her home. Without words we spoke.
“Why are you still here?”
“I’m afraid…”
“Open your hand and let me set you free.”
“I can’t. I’ve tried. My hand won’t open.”
“Then let me do it for you.”
And with that little bit of trust, her small hand opened. Placing the key into the lock the shackle fell off. The little girl looked at me, tears streaming down her face, unsure of what to do next.
“I’m still afraid.”
“It’s because that is all you have known. It’s where you’ve made your bed, and where you’ve placed your head each night. It’s time for you to move on.”
“I don’t think my legs can walk.”
“Just try, you’ll find you are much stronger than you think you are. Trust Him you aren’t in this alone.”
Lifting her head, she saw a trail leading out of the darkness she had been living in. With unsteady arms and wobbly legs she lowered herself onto the dirt path. Slowly at first, calculating each step, she moved forward. Glancing back at me, and at her old home one last time, she continued on. The further down the path she went the faster her pace became, until she was eventually running, arms open wide.
Until finally there she was in a field of wildflowers, dancing in the wind. Something unexplainable happened to this little girl along that path. She was radiant. The dirt that had covered her before had been replaced with the glow of innocence, the sun reflecting off her being. As she spun in circles letting her small hands run along the tops of the wildflowers you could see her winsome hair flowing in the breeze. The vibrant blue flowers on her dress weaving in and out adding their own beauty to the field. Our eyes met as she twirled around, pausing ever so briefly, her smile catching mine, knowing she never had to live on her boulder of fear again.
It was with this image, that I began to see what trust, freedom, and grace were to me.
Thank you Daddy God that we don’t have to live chained to the law… to fear… to doubt. Thank you that you set us free from whatever we are bound to. Thank you that we can dance in the field of your grace, hope, and love knowing it is in you that we can truly live.
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