truth.

She sits across from me in the booth of this noisy diner. The waitress is about as huffed as I am, shuffling quickly to get orders from tables and food to hungry patrons.

Her eyes are the kind that bore holes right into your soul. Normally I am pretty decent at avoiding them during moments like this, but every time I try and look away my eyes drift back to hers. They are confused as to whether they want to be hard and cold, or soft and inviting. The words that make their way out of her mouth give no indication of either. I wonder if she is unsure of how the words ought to sound. Maybe, though, I am the confused one.

The waitress who took our order comes back to take it for the second time. Embarrassed when we correct her mistake, she rattles off something about needing some coffee and wanders to the next table. We smile at each other from across the table and laugh quietly, a welcomed break from the serious.

My knee is bouncing and every time I get it to stop I last about one anxious breath before it pounds again. My body is tense and I am a bundle of nerves. I don’t want to disappoint. I don’t want to say something, do something wrong. I fumble fingers over a napkin in my lap, along the edge of the table, digging under their twin’s nails. I am shaky and unable to fix my eyes on anything for longer than a few brief seconds. Cars pass and I look out the window, silverware drops somewhere on the other side of the diner and I flinch.

What is wrong with me? Why am I like this this morning? What happened between washing my hair and sitting in this blue leather booth that I became so frazzled? I speak hushed words. A mean remark rolls off my tongue and onto the table before me and I put my face in my hands and apologize, embarrassed and frustrated. The offense may only be slight but the guilt accuses loudly in my ears. The mumbling, the tongue slip, the ‘I’m so sorry’ – they happen over and over again throughout our meeting.

I am walled up within myself. Any semblance of vulnerability has been shackled up in my dungeons with no chance of appearing today. With each uneasy question my comfort level stoops and another brick layer added to my walls.

I sit on my hands and stare at the pages before me feeling guilt laid heavy on my shoulders. The voice that comes from my mouth resembles the mess going on inside of me. The words rumbling through my head lay it on thick, accusing and belittling the little girl who lives within. She is small and curled in the closet, afraid to come out and face painful truths.

She speaks truth. Across from me in this filthy diner booth, her words are those of truth written thousands of years before our first breaths. Hard, painful, make-me-want-to-hide-away-forever truth.

Questions of my own bravery and courage race through my mind. These truths hurt; they poke and prod at the tender parts, and sear away the callouses. But she tells me these truths are good, and that they burn away the guilt like coals on lips of prophets and make the dirty clean. She tells me these truths set free the oppressed and release the captive. That I am the oppressed, the one bound by chains of the past.

Am I chained? Am I bound and gagged and held captive? Am I in need of saving and freedom from this darkness?

What slave wants to hear of their status? Who owned wants to face their captor? Here she sits, pointing my gaze in a mirror to see the ropes around my neck and hook through my nose. She motions to the hills and mentions the temples of long ago, demons I’ve yet to tell off. They sit, crouched and waiting for any opportunity to call me back to their comforts. Though I try to ignore the voices, I hear their crooning and fight the urge to return to the convenient and familiar.

I blink and remember that I’m in the diner. She is staring and we are back to where we started. Her eyes, deep wells of wisdom and knowing, neither soft nor cold – just. Just eyes belonging to someone who has seen my heart and knows it.

And a quick glance, I see His eyes. Knowing. Seeing. Not tender, not hard – just deep wells of life. Seasoned from centuries of work, eons of passioned love for His beloved and called. And so I sit on my hands, heel drilling into the tacky tile beneath, staring truth in the eyes.

The truth that frees is hard, it is painful and it cuts to the most unprepared section of the soul. Words like knives, straight to the center of the heart, penetrating even the thickest of bricked and barricaded walls. The callouses shaved and seared off, no regard given to the burning sensation but a single knowing nod in its direction.

I sit on my hands and stare hard at the truth put on the table before me. To pick it up and embrace would mean certain agony; to leave the offer and walk would be hell.

Fingers fumble over themselves as my hands, against everything screaming in my head, reach out to take hold of that which is before me. Bracing for the impact is useless.  I close my eyes and breathe deep a sigh of relief, knowing that the end is worth the means.