I Am Peace that shatters all your secret fears.

I am not Chris. and I never, ever will be.

Stop your tracks at once, because the road sign doesn't read what you think it does. I love Chris, and he's one of the coolest men of God I've ever known.

This is three years of heart spillage right here, and I've got nothing left but to let it go. The bitterness is eating me alive, and no one wants a lemon for a friend.

The walls were suffocating me the other night and a voice called for me to run away with Him. I grabbed His hand with one grasp and my car keys with another. Tonight was the night.

A laptop and a few loud songs later i was rolling my window up on Little Blue Road when Longview rushed up and caught me by the throat. the wide headlights guided my thoughts and suddenly tears were spilling out of my poorly held eyelids. All the whisperings of my heart were fluttering to the surface, and I could feel Him bending down to listen. He beckoned me to come closer: I needed to hear what she had to say even more than He longed to listen. I was afraid, but He promised it would be worth my time and besides; He would be right there the whole time.

I am not Chris, and I never will be.

That's what she began with, and looked intently at the floor, terrified to continue.

I don't like her very much,she plunged, as a face glimmered into her minds eye. I don't like herat all. I trusted her, I let her see some of the deepest parts of me. Her good intentions have become the worst of her, and they've shredded anything I had left. I've learned quite a bit from her, but only these things: how to discriminate on the basis of gender. How to expect too much. How to play catty girl games. How to walk on glass. How to precast. How to blame students for personal mistakes. How to slice someone off at the knees. I don't like her, and I wont miss her. I hesitate to call her friend. holding it in doesn't help and letting it spill over to places like blogs is inappropriate. But I've let it spill into her ears before, and stagnant nothing took its place.

But it isn't about blame. She looked at me with hard eyes. Blue and grey, like marbles. In my not chris-ness, I felt like trash. and I still am. Everything I say is coated in thick disclaimers, hoping to make myself acceptable. I'm lost in them, and i can't see through the eggshells I'm walking on. If one breaks I'm sure to be cut open and left to die.

Immediately I'm out of the fog and back in the car and voices are already screaming through the atmosphere. "playing the blame-game again I see. Can't you just accept responsibility?" "This self-pity thing is really getting old." "You are quite over dramatic, aren't you?" "Thats just life, friend. You'll have to learn to deal with it."

But weaving in and out of them were strange, new scents. words like "darling" and "lovely" and "wounded". At a stoplight He pulled me toward Him and said "I want to make you feel beautiful."

I gasped and a fresh batch of rivulets started to drip from my tired eyelashes. I...You....You can't. I'm not. I haven't. Why would You want to make a monster feel like a princess? I'm bitter and stupid and blame everyone else for my problems.

He handed me my heart that He had been cradling and gently murmured, "you know...you really ought to listen to her. She's got some worthwhile things to say. We'll work from there."

Perhaps after a while of digging through the proposed villainy I can find the light underneath the eggshells. But I can't fit myself into the standardized well-intentioned mold she's hoped for us anymore, and it hurts too much to try. I've tried to argue for her and I've tried to argue against her and neither has been productive in the least. But I've been bruising my heart for tugging on my sleeve to get me to listen to the fact that she's wounded and cant keep going. I've been insisting that she's overreacting. Instead I'll listen, and allow myself to be held by the only One who can keep me from falling apart. I must find my worth in Him. Because if i don't I'll surely die. It's true.