no more plastic Jesus

i'm sitting on big words.

i have been a lot lately. even since i let myself swing open long-locked doors and start to let the river of Story flow out. and it's refreshing, crashing waves on the bank of my soul. but every time i bend to take a drink, i start to become afraid that i'm going to drown.

i told you all the things i wanted to tell you about my story, big pieces of me that came from years of standing in a place of not understand what it was that i believed. i wrapped myself up in what i thought was the blanket of Christianity, only to find out that it was actually something completely different, and it was suffocating me.

i was disillusioned by a plastic faith. my Jesus was dime-store cheap with a wind-up key in His back. and i was the one with my fingers around the key, watching Him toddle wherever i pointed Him. and in the process, i tied the strings around my wrists and ankles and became a wooden puppet with a hand-sewn faith core. 

when i talked about how i can't call myself a Christian anymore, many people recoiled, as i knew they would. how could i say such a thing? many people applauded because i didn't quite fit that "good Christian girl" look that they were going for, and of course, it would be better if i sat this one out. it proved a thousand points in my heart. it validated everything that i'd been feeling.

because i've watched what the Church has done. in truth, i've done more than watch. i was never a stone-thower. i made a point to never do that. but i held the coats and stood on the sidelines. i never picked up a rock, and that made it okay. i wasn't like that. except that i was.

i can't escape this now

unless You show me how.

 demons // imagine dragons 

and i refused to let myself realize it until my story matched up with the ones that were receiving the beating. and it it echoed like a howl across the wilderness. i melted.


this is what makes me want to tell my story. this is what makes me need to tell my story. it's what makes me stand up and say :: He knows what kind of woman i am. and He is letting me touch Him. 

it's why i've thrown my plastic Jesus into the trash and shut the lid. it's why i've ripped off the blue and white label clinging to my chest, the one with the scribbled Sharpie name that says, please don't touch me, you might get blood on my righteousness, and red is impossible to get out.

i'm sitting on big words. huge words. words that used to be lodged deep in my throat, in a prison that i didn't even know existed. and they're trickling out, becoming a brook, and then a stream, and then a river, bursting over its banks and pooling at my feet and there's a Voice whispering, I am calling to you. jump in. 

and this voice is Raw. Alive. Flesh.
there is nothing plastic about Him.

i'm kneeling there, beside the water, and there's mud and blood and messy wildness covering me from head to toe. and the Lion is there, breathing and real and wilder than He's ever been, crouching at my side. and He's whispering still,

it's not really drowning, lioness
when the Water is alive.