Note: This is about a process more than an event, and left ambiguous so you can see yourself in the narrative. It is a lesson gained over many years, events, and interactions.
I live like a kind of marionette, bouncing and dancing according to the will of puppeteers, responding quickly to turns and lifts of the cross of wood over my head. I live a frenetic pace, until suddenly, I am set down on the ground. In a tangle of strings, left in a heap on the floor, I struggle to find which way is up. Wasn’t I doing just as the puppeteers directed? So why am I here, entangled in all these strings?
I am flustered as I fight to stand. I become angry at the puppeteers for the awkward situation in which they have left me. I don’t want to be on the floor, but I must rest after struggling against the heaviness of wooden cross, strings, and my own weight. I am trying to rise, and I look down in shame as I struggle. There are people who understand, but I cause some hurt to others because they see my struggle as a retreat. I want them to understand that I came here to dance and I am trying! I wonder, was that pretty marionette real? Or was it a puppeteer all along that made me who I was?
On the ground, I work new muscles. I do repetitive tasks. I hardly create, but I repair things with patience. In menial tasks, I come to myself. One by one, the strings begin to snap. Looking down as they fall, I see they are not light, clear strings, but road-stained tethers. They are my hurts, my fears, and my own expectations, and they are my only connection to the puppeteers and critics. I feel new freedom in the release. More strings snap at unexpected times during sacred, methodical work and service. Grace likes a surprise entrance. Without strings, the criticism and puppeteers retreat in my mind to their inconsequential places: apart from me. There are no limits as long as I remember these things:
I am a child of God.
I am more than I know.
No mortal puppeteer defines who I am.
I always have power to choose who I will be.
And I rise. I believe I will dance again, not because a puppeteer or strings compel me, but because that is what I did as a child, before I acquired strings.