At the Center

Tonight in prayer, God carried me backward, not to condemn me, but to reveal me.

I traveled to the place where shame first learned the sound of my voice. I was a child again, sitting on my bed, the air still bruised with screams. Humiliation hovered like smoke, visible even after the fire goes cold.

There, in that small room, my heart learned a reflex I once mistook for wisdom, but later recognized as surrender in the wrong direction:

Instead of naming my hurt, I narrated someone else’s.
Instead of grieving, I rationalized.
Instead of sheltering my small, shaking heart, I cradled the one who shook it.

And so that child made a vow, soft spoken, but iron strong:

My feelings must be set aside.
My pain must be buried.
Love breaks if I disappoint it.
I will never be seen, known, and held.
I will carry my strength through silencing my own feelings.

For years, I believed empathy meant erasing myself. I carried everyone’s cross but my own, assuming self-forgetfulness was the cost of belonging.

Yet Scripture names a different nearness:

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”
— Psalm 34:18

Near does not mean distant observation.
Near means with.

And tonight, Jesus disrupted the narrative shame had taught me to expect.

He did not stand at a distance waiting for me to stabilize the scene.
He did not ask me to interpret someone else’s wounds first.
He sat beside the child and did what no humiliation story prepared my nervous system for.

He held me.
He hugged the grieving parts without grading the grief.

Not with words, but with proximity.

“A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out.”
— Isaiah 42:3

And for the first time, I confessed with the honesty of a heart that no longer had to audition for mercy:

I’m afraid people won’t love me if I feel too deeply.
I’m afraid I’ll be too heavy to be chosen.
I’m afraid sadness means disqualification.
I’m afraid honest pain breaks belonging.
I’m afraid if people knew how I feel, if they truly saw me, they would leave.

And Jesus, un-offended, unhurried, unwounded by my weight, stayed near in the quiet. He held me without words to influence my emotions.

He then led me inward, past commentary, past performance, past the instinct to translate sorrow through someone else’s story.

He led me into the black, wordless region of my own soul.

There, in the unfiltered interior, I screamed every feeling out loud…not in rebellion, but in release.

Not to escape God, but because God had made a space safe enough to stop escaping myself.

“Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.”
— Psalm 62:8

In that place, I saw how my heart had spent its strength.

Layer by layer, I had mixed mud and mortar into survival:

• A wall to block shame

• A wall to block resentment

• A wall to block anger

• A wall to block judgment

• A wall to block condemnation

With every confession of pain from others’ words landing, mud walls erected.

They testified:

No one can see your heart.
No one can know you.
You must hold yourself together.

Opaque. Heavy. Earthen.
Walls that left no room for bridges, only a bunker around my heart.

And at the center, where I shut the world out, where there should have been darkness and silence, was me and my God.

My God who is Light.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
— John 1:5

He illuminated that secret place in my heart with His presence.

I feared His silence meant absence.
But His silence was proof of His endurance.

Then He reached for my hand.

The walls did not vanish, they transformed.

The mud boundaries once built to hide me became glowing, translucent boundaries forged from His mercy instead of my fear.

Not containment. Covenant.
Not partitioning. Protection.

“You hem me in, behind and before, and You lay Your hand upon me.”
— Psalm 139:5

They no longer whisper, “You’re hidden now.”
They radiate, “You’re safe now. I am with you. So you can appear.”

His boundaries don’t isolate me from those on the other side.
They filter shame so others can finally see me without it crushing me.

And for the first time, I could inhale my own story without shame choking the breath, not because I never broke, but because Jesus was always right there with me.

His walls filter shame, not belonging.

I once built walls out of fear to hide my heart. Jesus rebuilt them out of mercy, strong enough to protect me, gentle enough to let love through.

He is still at my center, just me and Him and that should never change.
He is who I belong to.

“Abide in Me, and I in you.”
— John 15:4

Now, through His boundaries, I can let others see the woman He has always seen,

without fear that honesty snaps belonging, without fear that grief breaks love, without fear that I must carry someone else’s cross to deserve to be approached.

Now the world can finally reach me, not because the walls cracked, but because Christ holds the space between me and the world.

I abide, not by never falling apart,
but by remaining with the One who never did.

Shame may have learned my voice in childhood,
but it no longer owns the story I speak through His light.