Little Alarms

Set me free from my prison, that I may praise your name. Then the righteous will gather about me because of your goodness to me. Psalm 142:7, NIV

IT WAS A NORMAL sleepover party, filled with giggling, playing tag, eating snacks, and talking. Ashley lived five houses down from mine, and my parents had agreed to let me go. I hadn’t spent the night at her house before, but I had played with Ashley what felt like one thousand times in the past year, and I couldn’t wait to go to her party.

When you’re eight, you have intuition. But you have no idea what to do with it. You have hunches and fears and queasy feelings around certain people—little alarms telling you this person doesn’t seem safe. But you don’t know how to trust yourself yet or what those feelings might mean. And if you’re a social kid, as I was, you often override the warnings about others because you don’t want to miss the party.

I wish I would have missed the party.

I woke up in the middle of the night with her brother’s hands in places they should not have been. And I froze. He was trespassing her room, her space, her friend. Me.

I went home the next morning and didn’t ever want to go back again so I rarely did. Her house was no longer a safe place. Instead, I stayed in the loving protection and care of my own. Not too long after the sleepover, Ashley’s family sold their house and moved out of state, and with time, I was able to move on as well.

Some twenty-five years later, I went to a baby shower in my old neighborhood. I was a mom with three kids at this point, and I hadn’t passed by that house in more than two decades. But as I rounded the corner and saw the pale blue house, my teeth clenched and stomach churned. It all came rushing back in an instant, and I knew it was time to face what had happened that night.

I went to see my counselor, who is also a preacher and an advocate for those who can’t advocate for themselves. She is a voice for the voiceless, and that day she helped me find mine.

She asked me to turn to Psalm 142 and read it out loud. Using my voice, I took my complaint to God. I took that night to Him. I took my little prison and asked for the key.

Those verses became my road map to walk through the pain, the past, the prison. Like David, the writer of the psalm, I journaled my complaint. I wrote out what was overwhelming. I asked God to bring my soul out of prison.

I wasn’t free in a moment. The overcoming wasn’t instantaneous. God had a journey to take me on, with Him by my side. But He held my hand and heart. He guided my healing as I released my pain to Him. He showed me how pressing into Him with my pain and turning to His Word could bring the freedom and forgiveness and grace I desperately needed.

If you have been in this same space, I have prayed that this moment would be one when you seek freedom through counsel and turning toward Jesus. By His grace, He wants to give you the keys to His peace.

GRACE REFLECTION: Pray with me, “God, my story is so tender to You. You made me and long for me to be free, not enslaved. Show me how to give You the chapters of my story that feel the most filled with pain, and set me free. Amen.”