The Door Girl, Part 12

Going to church with grandma was torture. That little Pentecostal church looked so inviting on the neatly kept street it was set back on. But the things I was taught there haunted me. I was taught of fiery furnaces and what a sinful creature I was. I believed it, every word.

Walking out the door one night before a revival, I happened to notice a threading needle on my grandma’s dresser. I quickly grabbed it and shoved it in my pocket being careful to place it in such a way that it wouldn’t prick in to my leg as I sat down. Upon entering the sanctuary, I took a seat in a pew all by myself.

Brother Proehl, the preacher, spoke of the one who had redeemed us and we sang “Amazing Grace” with gratitude that God had saved the wretches that we were.

As I sat there, listening intently to every word, I dug the needle out of my pocket and fingered it delicately.  The skin on my hands felt tough and ugly.  I began to dig away at the callouses, or those that I had imagined.  We sang the words, “What can wash away my sin?  Nothing but the blood of Jesus.  What can make me whole again?  Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”  The more we sang, the deeper I dug that needle in to my fingers.  Red began to seep out of my veins and I tucked my hands under my thighs to hide what I had done. 

This blood was real; this pain honest.  The blood and pain of a man who lived almost two thousand years ago, however, meant nothing to me. 

No matter how many layers of skin I pierced through, there was no way I could ever strip away the iron clad wall that I had constructed around my heart.  And no matter what I was taught in church about the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, no one but me was going to offer up retribution for the sinner that I was.