I walk with intense purpose through the field. I have to find them, I want to help them.
Living in an abundance of freedom and purpose, having been so blessed with having found such a place, I am compelled to go back, to help those who are still enslaved. And as I shade my eyes with my hand, searching the field, I eventually find them.
Abandoned wheelbarrows sit in the distance, rusted, worn, left behind by those who never should have been trusted with the care of a life. I have become accustomed to approaching them, finding a person inside, pale and cramped, victim to the life of servitude, living locked in undesired chains of someone else’s forging. I approach the wheelbarrows in the distance, and suddenly I start at the sight.
I burst into joyful laughter at the recognition. It’s been a while.
I stride toward a rusted one off in the distance. A head of snarled hair peeks out at me, then quickly ducks back in as the person realizes that I can see her, too.
Walking quickly toward it, I reach the barrow and look at the crumpled form within. I speak.
“Get up, Monica, you’re done with this.”
And she is, but she hasn’t realized it yet.
“…Can…I??”
I’m adamant. “Come on!!”. I reach out and grab her hand, tugging her out of the inferior vehicle. She is hesitant, and whispers something I can’t hear.
“COME ON!! You can do this!!”
She finally steps out of the wheelbarrow and stretches out, setting first one, then the other foot on the ground. Yes!!!
“There you go! Now straighten up!” I admonish. She gives a half-assed effort and straightens up a bit.
“TALLER!!” I shout.
My tone surprises her, and she gets a look of realization and holds her head hgh, chin up, shoulders back. Much better.
“Let’s walk.” And we do, we walk and chat, as I lead her away from the wheelbarrow. The one I know is destined to be her last, though she is yet unaware of this fact. She turns back at one point before we can no longer see the wheelbarrow, and looks at it… not quite longingly, but as a child would look at a security blanket being given up at last, feeling uncomfortable, yet brave and bold in the knowledge that they are growing and that this is a necessary step involved in growing up, in progressing, in being able to achieve and succeed.
“What the hell is going on?” she asks, totally confused.
“You don’t know who I am, do you?”
“I mean, I’m pretty sure you’re me, but how? And why??” She glances back, but at least now it’s just a glance, and the wheelbarrow is just a dot now, a few more steps and we won’t be able to see it at all. I stop and take her hands.
“Monica, I am the possible you. I can be the future you. You can choose me, or you can choose another version of me, but you need to know that this is what’s possible…”
We turn to continue walking and I am telling her about what she can become, all the while knowing damn well that I am the one she is to become. My long hair ripples in the wind, and I firmly speak, with the encouragement borne of one who has come, seen, and conquered.
We are now far beyond the scope of the wheelbarrow, and its dead-end path. I can tell that the more we talk, the more I tell her about the possibility of never getting caught in someone else’s wheelbarrow, not ever again, that she is becoming very excited about the possibility.
And then she does it! She manifests her own entirely new path. It dazzles and gleams in the sunlight, which is now out.
And I step back into her, the dream of what she is to become, the aspirer to a new dream, and later the rescuer of those stuck on a dead-end, dull, gray path to nowhere, overturning the wheelbarrows and setting the captives free to create their own fantastical pathways, into a future of their own creation.
Monica is running for her life.
And I am the evidence that she did, indeed, find it.
*Reference chapters 79 and 80
Worship Leader Gone Wild 