by Gretel

Created on: September 26, 2009   Last Updated: September 30, 2009

She feels like she's recently taken up cave-dwelling. This recent injection of friendly venom renders her immobilized for now, although she can sense the imminence of sequestering herself from the latest battery of gunfire as she prefers solitude over the gamble of trusting others. It's a forgone conclusion that she will soon climb into the emptiness; it's safe when you're alone.

Ah, yes, there's nothing like seeking security in self-sufficiency and seeking comfort through indifference and independence, putting up walls of protection or maybe just a privacy fence so no one can see in.

She had a wall once before. It's construction began soon after someone she once trusted hit her and later took a beloved life out of hers. Then the work was rapidly completed after her own blood cast her off forever, without any consideration of hurting those caught in the crossfire and without any desire to rectify the situation, if only for the sake of the innocents.

Oh, what a mighty wall it was! It was a wall of protection, supported with a foundation of pessimism and held up by beams of stoicism. It was impressively impenetrable and stubbornly sturdy.

Then a gentle voice came, not nearly as broadcasted, but just as resolute as Ronald Reagan's when he said, "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

It then crumbled to the ground. This should be the end of the story, but it is not. It appears to be the beginning of another chapter in a bitter cycle. Here, isolation was lost. But vulnerability was gained.

But because of this, it wasn't long until trust was lost and isolation was gained, taking her back to isolation again in a full circle.

She made a huge mistake; it occurred in the third step of the cycle. Trust was lost when someone who was supposed to be a spiritual leader disappointed her. Trust was again lost when someone she regarded as one of her closest friends also disappointed her with her unabashed exploitation and unprecedented disdain.

It appeared that any other tenderness of feeling and all fondness that was found after the fall of the wall were betrayed by disappointment or bitter confusion. Her mistake was trusting, yet it was also not trusting.

Someone once wrote a song about a time when someone in their life did something they felt was totally wrong and as a result, realized that one must find his or her confidence elsewhere. It speaks of the "only One who nobody changes...that will never change faces...the only One left standing when everything else goes down."

Hebrews 1:11 and 12 state, "They will perish, but You remain And they will be changed. But You are the same."

Her mistake was not realizing that is better to trust in the LORD rather than to put confidence in man. Her mistake was perhaps that she put people on towering pedestals as her youthful naivete could not allow her to understand actions backed by motives with which she could never empathize. And it would be her mistake to reconstruct the wall. Now what can be left standing?

"I guess You're the only One."

Learn more about this author, Gretel.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.