The Room

I was in a room. It was comprised of cement walls, one door, no windows. Blood was everywhere… my blood.

I was in the middle of the room, crouched low to the floor, covering my head, waiting for the next blow, but it wasn’t coming. I could see his feet back and off to my side. He had stopped. Everything had stopped.

Someone else was in the room. Other feet, beneath a white robe, were right in front of me. I had never noticed them before. I glanced up at a hand outstretched to me and heard the words, “Come with Me.”

I put my hand in His and stood up; it was Christ’s hand that held mine. I turned, I needed to see where my assailant—my husband—was. I feared him, I feared the next blow that was surely to come. He was still off to the side behind me, but frozen in position. His arm was up in a fist ready to strike, but it wouldn’t move—an other force held him back.

We began to walk toward the door, the door that my husband would block. I heard him shuffle behind us. You could tell from the sounds he was making that it was a great deal to do that much; he was desperately trying to stop us.

This room, this torture chamber of pain, was not of my husband’s making. Adults in his childhood had fashioned and built it for him. But instead of seeking deliverance from it, he had trapped me in it—where he could take out all the anger, rage, and pain he was feeling—directly onto me in an attempt to diffuse it. He became my assailant, and I his victim.

As we stepped over the threshold and out into the fresh air I heard him scream. A long, torturous, threatening scream. He was losing me, and he didn’t like it one bit.

He came to the doorway in an attempt to stop us, but could go no further. I was concerned he would come after us, but something still held him back. It was no longer Christ that stopped and held him there, it was the anger and rage that he refused to let go of that held him—by his own choice.

As we continued on, getting further and further from the room, I began to notice the bruises, cuts, and scars were healing. My clothes were no longer torn, but clean and new. I could walk without pain, and my steps became light.

I couldn’t help but wonder why it had taken so long for Christ to come get me and deliver me from that place. He sadly explained that He had always been there, offering the same hand of deliverance to my husband. As the husband is the spiritual head and leader of the home, it was His desire that in leading him out my husband would in turn take my hand and lead me out.

But it was not to be, not when deliverance is refused.

In what I can only give over as to His timing, He eventually, directly, turned to me.

I glanced back one last time before we went out of sight of the room. My husband was no longer trying to come after us. In fact, he had cleaned up and painted the room, putting on an extra fresh coat to the outside to make it presentable to the world. He was standing just outside the door in his best clothes and manner, enticing another woman to enter.

Since then, I have heard he’s tried to get several women to enter that door — into relationship with him. Some have asked me why I haven’t warned them. To do so would require I go back, require I hang around that door in order to give warning. I don’t want to live my life that way. That, I leave to Christ.

I choose to continue my walk with Christ, of deliverance, and to what He beckons me.