I stood with my back pressed up against the closed door of the castle door for days wondering if I had the strength to walk to the bridge a few steps away.
I really didn’t have the strength, but praise God He did. So much of what I learnt during this time and am still learning is that it is not about me, not about the level of my faith, but about a heart soft toward Him willing to say ‘yes’ (however softly). I was petrified, so fearful of leaving that door and walking towards the bridge where there was no obvious protection.
I knew that leaving the castle was not the end of the journey but only the start.
I knew that I would need to leave the door I was leaning up against and start walking.
God was gently calling, ‘Come.’
Eventually I said yes to God.
Yes to taking my first steps of freedom away from the castle walls. Being the great woman of faith that I am, I ran to the stone column of the bridge and clung to it for dear life. I felt so vulnerable! No thick walls of stone to protect me (other than this column on the bridge). I felt like a duck out of water, aching for the protection that I had built, yet being very aware that I could never go back and wanting to pursue God on this adventure He had called me to.
While in this rather stressed, painful position clinging to the column of stone, I had opportunity to think. I stared out at the road before me. It was a dirt road, nothing special. I could not see where it led to. It certainly did not look like there were any buildings on either side, just an open road going into the distance.
I started, much like the Israelites who left Egypt, to reconsider my decision. Had it really been all that bad in the castle? Is this really the best solution to just walk away? Maybe I could open the door more often and let people in rather than face the absolute unknown??
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I looked back at where my castle had been. I say been because the sight before me caused me to reel for days. The castle had GONE. Not just a lock on the door so I could not get back in, but COMPLETELY GONE. Destroyed – nothing left AT ALL. I stared at the large gapping hole where my castle once was for some time.
Shock and gut-felt panic were the first emotions to hit me as I came to the revelation that I was now stranded clinging to a stone column of a bridge in the middle on no-where.
In that hard place I called out to God. It was He that had called me out of this castle and destroyed it and it would have to be Him that got me home wherever home was meant to be now.
Interestingly I felt relief while clinging to that column of stone. Relief that I had no choice anymore but to walk forward. Relief that I could NEVER enter that castle again. Even thankfulness to God that He alone had removed this prison that had held me back for a very long time. God had removed the castle not because He enjoyed seeing me stressed or suffer clinging to this bridge, but because He loved me and wanted me to know freedom and what real joy and life was.
Something like a glimmer of hope appeared in my spirit, and even curiosity to find out what God was calling me to, what adventure lay ahead.
FINALLY I had left my castle!
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