To wear a life that fits

I finally feel comfortable in my own skin.  I was going to post this as a Facebook status but then, after pondering my disappointment at the lack of commitment the "like" button provides or friends' attempts at one liner empathy when they really had no clue what I was talking about, I decided that this statement held far too much gravity to be so blithely presented to the world. It's like the way we sometimes turn being born again into a Christian catch phrase that demands people jump on board even when they're on the fence because we've made them too ashamed to admit they really don't know.

I used to burn inside like my skin was a prison and I was meant to pierce a hole in it so the real me could fly out freely, invisibly, into the air.  Like I was meant for more than disease and rotting flesh or the restrictions of femininity, age, intelligence or any other social boundary. Spiritually this was oh, so true but there, in that time, it came out wrong in translation. I felt tied to the pavement like a helium balloon tugging to be freed and doomed to lunge against my string until the day I would run out of strength, wrinkle, and sink.

I didn't know Christ. I heard God speak to me, urging me to seek His truth.  But I felt I was abandoning "good" people to an eternity of suffering. I was their executioner and by believing in Jesus I was throwing the lever, dropping the floor out of the gallows. Even then, while half of me wanted to deny Him and all of me was running, I wanted to be like Him.  I wanted to offer myself as the bridge, sacrifice my eternity for all of theirs but I didn't want to pledge allegiance to a God who would let them burn.

So in my teenage lusts I lost myself.  I made up my own system of right and wrong and dove headlong into driving passions. I lived the street life, not to its extreme but close enough to cast my lot.  I was set on fire inside, voracious, ever eating, never full. I was a pack animal and I fought my way to the front. 

I have always been victorious on the paths I chose.  Inside me lives a warrior who rarely tires.  I'm the kind of fighter who will drag themselves up, down in the fourth round and bleeding freely, and fight like life itself was the prize.

These days my skin fits like it was made for me because God put me in my true purpose.  Now I fight for a reason. The fate of other people isn't up to me.  I am a light. I am a leader. I was meant for this life.  It is the only one like it that I have. There is a mission to be fulfilled before eternity in this form. I am called and I will not wish it away. 

I do not long after the rapture because it will come in God's time and I will be there.  Were it to come now, there are those that would not stand and they are meant to be among us. So I will fight for them because God himself has called us to tug the arms of our brothers and sisters as they follow a tantalizing but deceitful scent. Some will jerk free and go their way, like I did for a time.  Many will try to tug you along, but a few will wake, as though from a haze, blink the past out of their eyes and run with us.

Some days I am still afraid for others. Every day I want to jump in and take their place. I see their cages and watch them try to scratch free of their skin and I wish they could know how it feels to wear a life that fits.