Today I am Writing: On Vinegar

This morning I sat with Him, the One who knows me.

Yesterday was one of those days that starts out with promise, but is filled with dismay. It was the kind where you are innocently standing on a lawn on a beautiful day and are suddenly confronted with a trifecta of all the things that have wounded you, and you cannot get away. And it ended well enough; I saw the truth quickly enough, I rested in clarity without too long of a swirl.

But there were tears, the emotions catching up with my rational thought and spilled out at the home of the friends who are safe, and then I slept, and then He woke me. Early.

And I sat with Him and He showed me the thorns, embedded in my body, sent by the one who steals, who kills, destroys.

And I heard the word "vinegar," used as ablution as we plucked each thorn out, to wipe away the remaining bacteria just longing to fester in the places those thorns stick me and cause me to swoon, time and time again.

And we talked it out, this One (who parents me, befriends me, counsels me) and I. And I said this one thing that was like sticking my own self with the thorn of my own prizing, and then in that place of mind-spirit eye I saw a whole bucket of vinegar, washing over me. As if He were saying (with one eyebrow raised), "let's make sure that one is good and gone."

I use vinegar to clean my toilet and to flavor my food, but today I use it to remind myself there is no enemy that can prevail when the One who knows me calls my name, and stands as my defense.