With another poke of the proverbial stick of condemnation, she sat alone inside the cage she had built for herself, with the bars of rejection she had received from countless people in her life, whom she thought loved her. As she stepped off the street to get a taxi home to her broken down rental, the words she had heard only hours before, pounded her deeper into the ground of the miserable foundation she had laid for herself. “You useless, pathetic excuse for a whore! I’m not paying you a dime for your ‘services!’ I wonder if you EVER pleased anyone in your life, if tonight was any example of your performance in other areas of your life! Get lost woman, I owe you nothing because you gave me nothing!”
Getting out of the taxi, she paid the driver with the few dollars she had left to her name, and went upstairs to bed. The words she heard that night were the words she had heard all of her life—beginning with her own father.
She grew up very poor. Her mother, at a young age, contracted a rare disease that left her in pain and agony, day and night. Her father watched the woman he so dearly loved, pass away slowly as the sting of death seemed to take its time to pierce the one who had been his life—his everything. With her father losing his job because of having taken so much time off caring for his dying wife, and his little girl, the funeral was very small.
As the weeks continued, after her mother’s passing, her father grew more and more bitter. His bitterness began to spew out upon his 6 year old daughter, for whom he now blamed for his wife’s death. The time came that her father could no longer stand the sight of his little girl, not so much because of his blaming her, but because she looked so much like her mother–reminding him daily of the pain he felt. However, to a little girl, she would know no difference.
Before she turned 7 years old, she had been abandoned by her father who left her in the care of the local children’s home. The memories of being loved by her parents quickly faded, and all she could hold onto were the parting words of her father as he left her that wintry day in February: “Mary, I’ve lost my smile, I’ve lost my smile little one.”
Years later, through one rejection after another, the woman sank into greater despair. From relationship to relationship, and from job to job, she passed her days with denial, and her nights with the haunting words of her father. She never felt she could make anyone smile again. She knew that she failed at pleasing her daddy, or else he would have held onto her tight and never let her go.
Wandering the streets one evening, she happened upon a couple of “workers” of whom she became acquainted. The two woman working the corner of the street that night, asked her why she looked so gloomy. Mary began to tell her story. It only took her about 20 minutes to realize that she knew what she must do. She was running out of the money she had saved from a previous waitressing job, and needed some extra cash to pay her utilities and rent. Becoming a prostitute was her only option, she thought—her only way out of the miserable life she had grown to hate. Her new “occupation” would supply her with all the money she needed and most importantly, supply her with something she had longed for since the day her mother passed away—love. She knew if she could ‘please’ her clients, she would receive the acceptance she passionately desired.
She was empty, lonely, and felt abandoned. All her life she was accused of things she never did. She was cruelly abused by the slanderous words of people she thought were her friends, her family—even the preacher at the church she once attended. She had no where to turn to receive the kind of love her heart ached for.
Approaching her 30th birthday, she began to think back upon the decisions she had made in her life, and how most of them were made out of guilt in order to please the people in her life. The rejection and feelings of worthlessness abounded within her as she probed her corner of the street that night. She stood waiting for any man to drive up and ask her to get into his car. She was accustomed to the routine, yet for brief moments in time, she would long to gain the self-respect she knew she had lost with her choice of ‘employment’ three years prior. Thoughts of suicide randomly raced through her head at times, especially after a night of feeling she had once again, caused someone to ‘lose their smile.’
She lived her life surrounded by walls of bitterness. She knew nothing but darkness, and the guilt she felt had become the warden that kept her securely locked inside of her cage. All of her life, people mocked every attempt she made to better herself. They had left her bruised, and beaten with the words that continuously resurrected the day her father left her. Despondent, fearful and full of hopelessness, she huddled in the corner of her cage in a fetal position, terrified of another attack upon her dignity and self-worth.
While standing on the corner, she longed for her thoughts of being worthless to fade just as the daylight was fading–drifting off to say, ‘goodnight’ until morning. This was the night she would hear the words of her father, “re-interpreted” by a stranger whom she had only wanted to ‘please’. She never received any payment from the man that had picked her up, just one last poke of condemnation that would secure her decision that she had had enough of the cruelty of the world. Battered, and cursed with words of uselessness, she was thrown out of the strangers apartment with absolutely nothing but the tattered remains of the clothes on her back.
Although, thinking to herself to be a “pathetic excuse,” recalling the words that were just spoken to her, she wondered how she ever managed to hail a taxi. Climbing inside the car, she told the driver to take her home where she finally collapsed on top of her worn out mattress that was just as broken down as she was. Lying in bed that night, she tossed and turned as the demons tormented her mind. The air was still and muggy. Her tears soaked her lumpy pillow as she tried and tried to sleep. The demons of her past kept up the torture, screaming at her, “you made me lose my smile. Where’s my smile, Mary? You abandoned me, Mary! You have never pleased me, Mary!”
In her mind, her mother’s funeral played out over and over, a never-endless series of re-runs that reminded her that if it wasn’t for her, her daddy would have been able to continue working to help pay for her mom’s care. Had she been old enough, she could have taken care of her mom, and her dad would still love her—still accept her. Thoughts of suicide bombarded her as the walls of her cage slowly closed in around her. She had become one in agreement with those who had condemned her all her life. She had embraced the guilt of her rejection, and knew that the sentence of death must be carried out as her punishment. She would never be the cause of anothers’ disappointment again. She would never be the instigator of another frown again. All she wanted was to be someone’s favorite—someone’s beloved. The debt, the lack of becoming something of worth in the eyes of anyone, would surmount to a point that she could never ‘afford’ being loved by anyone because of the years wasted on the poor decisions she had made.
The only way out, she knew, and the only way to pay the debt that loomed over her life, was to go to sleep, quietly…permanently. She remembered some sleeping pills in the bathroom someone had given her months ago when she had battled severe insomnia. She figured she had at least 15 to 20 pills left, and that that should be enough to help her become ‘free’ from the inescapable prison she had lived in her entire life. Swinging her legs over the bed in a rapid move of determination, she went to get up. As she pushed herself up from the bed, her arm brushed against something on the nightstand, causing it to fall to the floor. She reached and turned on the lamp to find out what had fallen. When she looked down, she noticed something sticking out partly from under the bed. She reached down and picked up the little New Testament that someone had once given her as she was working the street one night. She immediately recalled the look on the young man’s face as he handed her the book saying, “may this be the key that opens the door to the freedom that you are searching for tonight.” With that, she fell to the floor with uncontrollable tears. Barely able to see through her blurry, tear filled eyes, she opened the fragile, thin pages of the book and started reading.
“And standing behind, at His feet, weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears, and wiping them with the hair of her head, and was kissing His feet and anointing them with the perfume.” –Luke 7:38
As she read the story of the woman who loved much because she was forgiven much, she begin to see herself in a different way. Oh how she could relate to this woman who must have been the greatest of sinners. She felt within herself, the sting that the women must have felt when those inside the house grumbled saying, “if He were a prophet, He would know what kind of woman this is that is touching Him, for she is a sinner.”
In her own life, all she ever wanted to do was to please people. The tears she shed to “wash the feet” of others, never seemed to be good enough. Nothing she could do seemed to please the people in her life whom she thought loved her. She only found out, time and time again, that their love for her was based upon what she could do for them. And when she didn’t perform, she was cast out as a useless rag upon the trash heap of her past failures.
As she re-read, and re-read the story of this woman, she began to realize that the tears the woman shed, that were used to wash the Master’s feet, were not the tears of her good works to please Him, but the tears of brokenness for the life of sin she had led– tears of gratitude for the incredible mercy she had received. All that she had, and all that she was, she poured out for Him.
Despising the shame of those who saw who she used to be, she fell upon the One who saw who she would become. The love she felt for the Master overrode the appearance of the foolishness of waste, as she rubbed the precious ointment into His feet. All that she was before had now become the life she would choose to ‘waste’ on the Master—bathing His feet in such adoration.
With her tears, she would wash the feet of the One who washed her clean from her sins. It was the love shown by this woman, for the forgiveness of her debts, that caused her to pour out her newly resurrected life in front of all who attended the meal that day. Her broken and contrite heart fueled the tears that would become the faith, the evidence of what had taken place within her. By her display of love and affection, the Master said to her, “Your belief has saved you. Go in peace.”
As Mary finished reading the words, ‘Go in peace,’ she cried out, “I WANT PEACE!” And at that moment, she begin to feel a warmth she had not felt before. She somehow knew that if that woman could love Him that much, because she was forgiven much, she knew this One would neither condemn her for the things she had done in her own life. As she sat on the floor weeping, confessing her sins, and releasing the pain she had held onto for so many years, the warmth she felt increased and a soft light began to shine all around her. She knew she had found Someone who would not reject her, hurt her and poke her with the condemnation stick.
Years of pain, regret, guilt and hurt seem to pour out onto the floor, emptying from the depths of her being. She saw herself as the woman in the story–bathing her Master’s feet with her tears. And for the first time that she could remember, she saw within her the cage door opening. And as it opened, she heard a gentle voice saying to her, “your free.”
As she held onto her little New Testament tight, while rocking back and forth on the floor, she wept out-loud. She replied, “I can’t, I can’t!” For so many years, the cage had become her identity, and she greatly feared what life would be like outside it. She felt His incredible love reaching down, motioning to her to come out. At that moment, it became clear to her what that man had said as he gave her the New Testament that night on the street. Looking down at the book in her hand, with her eyes filled with tears, she whispered, “my cage door has opened. Though the key was here all along, I never opened it.”
Looking up again into the light that surrounded her, she said, “I’m afraid daddy! I’ve not pleased you. I’ve let you down.” In the intensity of the moment, and bursting into full tears, she cried out, “I made you lose your smile daddy—I gave you nothing!” And as the words of her father, and the words of the man that had spoken such cruelty to her echoed, resounded inside her head, she felt the debt she owed to become worthy enough of the Master’s love, would never be paid.
She knew of the Master’s great love for her, as the warmth of the light surrounding her intensified. She knew His gentle words to her were true, but years of programming told her they were not. She felt she could never be free from the cage that had become her home. She cried out, “I believe, help my unbelief!” At that, she closed her eyes and fell face down on the floor. Repeating a phrase she had mumbled earlier, she said, “my cage door has opened.” Then she said softly, “help me to fly out of it.”
And in that moment, just as the words left her lips, something wonderful happened. The warmth of the Master’s presence permeated throughout her entire being. Feeling overwhelmed, she began to think about the woman who also sat in the Master’s presence, who had nothing to give but to gaze up at Him in thankfulness, through her tear stained eyes. As she was pondering this in her heart, all of a sudden she heard the Master’s voice saying to her, “Mary, you gave me nothing but your everything, now I give you My everything. You could not afford to pay the debt you owed, now I have paid it all.” And with those words, she opened her eyes, and looked up and saw the sweetest face looking back at her—smiling. “You didn’t make Me lose My smile child, I’ve been smiling over you since before you were born. You can fly now. Your free. Leave this cage, for it is My smile that will become the wind beneath your wings.”
And, as the One Who’s gentle, sweet face seemed to fade, as the light surrounded her began to dim, she cried out, “Master, I’m coming!” And as she saw Him disappear into the fading light, she looked down and saw below her the cage she had once called home. Soaring high, and following Him, riding on the wind of His smile, she knew that she had found the One she had searched for her entire life–the Beloved of her soul and the One whom He had favored with His love and mercy—the One that had come to unlock her cage with the same smile she thought she had made Him lose.
–inspired by my best friend, Abba; life’s trials, and the song, “Fly” by Jonathan David Helser