the Prodigal daughter

When I was much younger I fooled myself into believing that putting limits on people was a way of slowly choking the life out of a young women’s spirit, the slow fade of a radiant light, a violent drowning resting at the bottom of a forgotten ocean of dreams. I began to believe that rules were a result of not being trusted, a sick means of control for the people that had paranoia’s beyond my juvenile and inexperienced soul.  God’s rules were not viewed much differently.  And as the time of age ticked, without any parameters given I tested this false belief with every extreme I could get my hands on.  Walking in the opposite direction of my Heavenly father, I choose to journey alone.  This is the story of the Prodigal daughter, and her journey back into the arms of her Savior.

I became a friends with Jesus at the age of four.  I remember walking and talking with Him just as sure as I have walked and talked with some of you over the past few days.  This relationship was full of beauty and innocence; things only the movie of our minds with the right music and the right setting could create.   I’m not sure at what age it took place, but something very dark that I blamed myself for in the years to come happened.  This perceived sin became the stronghold that caused me to live as an outsider to the family of God for many years to come.  It covered me in layers of punishing behaviours that I choose for myself as an atoning for my sin.  I was attracted to evil as a moth is to a flame.  Eating disorders, cutting, drinking, drugs, and borderline suicidal behaviour became my comfort.  I believed that somehow I could beat my body into paying for how disgusting I was. For how disgusting my sin had been.  At one point, I remember there being two distinct me’s.  Somewhere behind the screaming, hatful, angry girl, there was a lonely crying, misunderstood child longing to be wrapped in her saviours arms.

Between grade 10 and 11 my family moved which placed me from attending a school of 150 to 1500.  My parents looked for a Christian group for my brother, and I was made to tag along.  This group was called Youth for Christ, and this is where my past and present calling meet.  A sort of heavenly appointment where the hand of God so gently pushed me toward the extension of Christ’s love here on earth.  This group of people soon became a very safe place for me to fall. I floated in and out of Youth for Christ for the next three years.  There was still deep rooted acts of self-hate, but now there was a community of believers that cared, and made sure I knew it.  I would be gone from the group months at a time, and when I returned for a visit, they would always ask me where I had been, what I had been doing.  They knew – they could see it in my eyes, smell it on my breath, hear it in my voice.  They loved me anyways.  I continually fought with the two me’s.  One was full of all sorts of hate, evil, and latched onto anything that would pull her down.  The other wanted to believe the childhood stories of a loving saviour, more powerful and beautiful than our souls could imagine.  But I could not be vulnerable, I couldn’t need anyone.  If anyone found me out, in the places I hid, the pit, the soil in which I had laid my head…  They would never love me.  I couldn’t do it. And now the end to the beginning, and the beginning of a new end.

When I turned 18 I decided to go out with a guy that had no interest in me but to get me high and do what he wanted with me.  I choose it.  I choose it because of my self-hate. I choose it because I had bought into the lie that I deserved it.  I lost my virginity to him, and soon thereafter became pregnant.  I remember having the conversation with God about a baby.  The gentle imprisoned Johanna longed for a child.  Longed to love and be loved.  Almost as quickly as acceptance had been thought of, it was stolen away.  I can still remember the place I stood when I gave God the finger and walked the other way. The next day the appointment was booked.  It was to be the ultimate punishment – the ultimate display of how sickly and not valued my life or anything that could come from this body was.  It came from hate, from whispers of a dark kingdom – perhaps from Satan himself.  I don’t remember much between the time I walked away and the appointment.  A death had taken place, a spiritual suicide. It was like the beautiful child I once had been was now laying on the floor of the prison dug out for her, because of one lie.  The true me hung in the balance of life and death during the appointment.    As life was taken and drugs then given to comfort, she knew it would take so much more than drugs to forget this one.  She emerged, exhausted and overcome with remorse, heaving with every bit of emotion left in her broken heart. 

In the weeks to follow her body became infected.  There was so much pain, she dropped out of school.  She hoped she would slowly fade, unnoticed by anyone.  Forced by a friend to go to the doctor, she was hemorrhaging from an infection.  Given medicine, she was told to rest.  Rest was the last thing she was able to do.  She was afraid. The feared that murder would be the end of it all.  She feared that she had walked too far outside of the parameter of grace.  She thought her saviour wouldn’t want her anymore.  She was empty, she was alone.

My journey to forgiveness was a miraculous one. I was invited to a Freedom in Christ conference by one of the Youth for Christ workers.  I sat through two maybe three hours of prayer and confession.  I wasn’t convinced. God wasn’t going to show up – but God had never left.  He ran quickly without hesitation into the pit to rescue this child of His.  Held her hand through every moment as she flirted at gates of Hell.  Covered in every sort of demon, darkness, he fought for her, and carried her lifeless body to breathe her back to life again. Brought her back to the beginning.  Gave her a new beginning.  Filled her to overflowing with all the love, light and truth available to man.   He calls her His own; a child of the most high God.  He freed her for condemnation, works all things for her good, has established, anointed and sealed her to do His good work.  She is now hidden in Christ.  Cannot be touched by the evil one; been given a spirit of power, love and a sound mind… no fear is in her.  She is now God’s temple, a minister of reconciliation, appointed to bear fruit.  She can approach her Father, her God, her Saviour seated in the heavens with freedom and confidence.  He passed her life through the saving power of the cross.  She has been made free. I am free.

Had I known that the limits put on me were meant to protect, and not to snuff out a light; had I known the rules were safeguarding my wandering and innocent heart… I may have listened, I may have obeyed.  I may have experienced freedom sooner.  Putting limitations on ourselves is meant for freedom. Don't buy into the worlds lies that the sky is the limit, the only way this is possible is with the creator of the skies. In knowing the rules, we are free to be whom God originally created us to be; loved beings to share in his creation with Him.  Without limits life is overwhelming, exhausting, and all-consuming in every area.   And as I become closer to my Jesus, rules fade into respect, and instead of a checklist, I experience the grace extended in a relationship.  Instead of being drowned at the bottom of an ocean, I am given the opportunity to go with the creator of the universe wherever he chooses, with Him at my side.  Today choose His Limits, choose life, choose freedom.