Once upon a time, or as most tales go, a young gal with a heart full of love and compassion heard a story that made her very sad. Being two pennies short of common sense, she came to believe that she could fix this problem and therefore set herself up as a shield of protection.
Forgetting the words of John the Baptist, “I am not the Christ.” she stretched out her arms and stood in the gap between those who threatened harm and the one she was protecting. If she just tried hard enough, she believed or fought hard enough, protected long enough, everything would be okay.
Only everything wasn’t okay. The harder she stood her ground, the harder they fought and the more he seemed to need her. The more she did to protect him, the less he seemed willing to do for himself and the less honest he became.
Once she realized that no man carries a burden that someone else is willing to bear or faces a truth that no one is willing to tell him and that he’d grown weaker and not stronger like she’d hoped, she laid down his cross and took up her own.
She meant well and it almost cost her very life. In time she remembered the words of the one in the desert. The one who’s role was to make straight the crooked path, and point believers to the one who would come after him. She remembered that “standing in the gap” means standing in prayer and support, not in self sacrifice.
She found a note one day, written just for her and other two-penny-short friends who mean well. Together, she and her new friends, trudged the road of happy destiny. They laughed, leaned on each other, and stayed under the protective wings of the God they no longer needed to pretend to be.
