My boyfriend is a gentleman and would never do anything to purposefully harm me. I've been afraid for a long time. I've felt helpless and wary. As a woman I've felt vulnerable and scared. I live in a normal neighborhood, but our house is full of windows and sometimes my imagination gets the better of me.
The other day we were wrestling. He had my arms and legs pinned and he said, if you were fighting for your life what would you do. He didn't realize that that question has been playing in my mind for about a decade. I explained calmly at first that that is a different fight, and I would use my teeth and nails to get free. He put me in a different hold and tilted his head back out of reach and said now what would you do. I turned my head and showed him I could bite his arm. My brain was flipping. It was like there were two sides arguing, one saying get free no matter what, the other saying, it's okay, it's James (name has been changed) you love him and he wouldn't hurt you, don't kill him. A few seconds later, he thought he'd tease me (he didn't know what I was thinking or that I would get like that) and started flirting with me. As he did all of my fears I'd had for years were projected on him. I struggled free. I fought like I'd never fought before.
It took me over three hours to calm down. Luckily he was understanding and let me come to him. It's like finding a wild deer. If you chase it, it will run, but if you sit there and let them come to the conclusion that you're not a threat, it will inch closer.
In a sense this experience was good for me. It showed me that I am not as helpless as I used to think. I also watched a movie today about The Freedom Writers. They live in tough circumstances and are fighting to survive.
I feel too, as I've been defining myself and figuring out who I want to be, and becoming more independent that I've felt that struggle to fight. To fight against what I've always believed to be true about me and about the world. To fight my boxes of thinking and set ablaze the concepts of my Identity. It sounds ironic now that I write it out, I'm burning my confines, looking for a bigger box. Is there a pasture somewhere where I don't need a fence?
Lines of church hymns fill my thoughts:
"There is a green hill far away with out a city wall..." and "Dear to the heart of the shepherd..." both are filled with the theme that we are lambs in His pasture, with Him we are free, we don't have fences, just loving arms to protect us.
I suppose that is the point. We find the freedom we crave in His arms.
