The first glimpse of true grace that I can recall came when I was about 14 or 15. My sister told me that in Hannah Whittal Smith’s book, God of All Comfort, she addressed a whole chapter to the topic of ‘self-examination.’ I picked it up, found the chapter, and started reading things like ‘denying one’s self is not setting the self up on a pedestal and sticking pins into it’ and ‘self would rather be thought badly of than not be thought of at all.’ Hannah wrote that self examination was to be ‘a glance at the emptiness of our own larder, and the gazing back into the God who fills us.’
It was years later that I realized and experienced the full impact of God’s grace and willingness to pour into my own life, but that was, best as I can recall, the first chink in my armor, the first trickle of water that finally washed away the dam holding God away from my deepest heart. Holding Him away, I should add, in the name of making myself worthy of Him, or His blessings on my own, as I for so long believed I had to.
This poem is an expression not only of events along this journey, but also the emotions, the emotional deadness I went through, and the amazing, overwhelming beauty and color and light of finding that God would choose to provide His presence in my life as a free gift, and not something I could earn more of as some reward for making myself presentable or ‘useable.’
PRISONER OF THE GLASS HOUSE
"Don't throw stones" said the sage so well
"If in a house made of glass you dwell"
But a different tale I think he'd tell
If he'd been raised in my crystal hell.
WHERE...
I never felt a breath of wind
No rain, no snow, no sleet
Not even a pebble to stub my toe
No grass to stain my feet.
What secret sin could I commit
In this prison where every inch is lit
And the world can see every time I spit?
While an inch away my inquisitors sit
Peering into my prison of glass.
Prisoners all, through the walls we stare
Quick to judge and unable to share
With our hearts concealed and our actions bare
In our spotless palace of glass.
So our deeds eschew what our minds embrace
We dare not go where our feelings race
Shouting 'TRUTH', a path of lies we trace
And 'holy' we call the best poker face
In this twisted dungeon of glass.
Kept alone by walls we dare not break
Enslaved by chains that we will not shake
Entombing our hearts where they will not break
Immune to the love that we try to fake
Frozen fast in our cell blocks of glass.
In this sterile world, with its pristine curse
My charade grew better and my heart grew worse
Long prayers poured forth from a soul half dead,
My heart dreams crash round me, their wings made of lead.
But I helped build this prison myself.
Yet through our halls one man walked free
Blemished past laid bare for us all to see
Free to hug and to laugh, get annoyed, even cry
If this life was human, then zombie was I.
And TRAPPED in this prison of glass!
Of the touch of his God I heard him tell
And it tossed a rock through my crystal cell
A rock called hope touched my vacant shell
While around our heads, in shards it fell,
That hideous prison of glass!
So I told him my life's tale in all its woe
Fear slave of the God I didn't know
Choking back the emotion I couldn't show
Dreaming of places I dared not go...
Yes, THIS was my prison of glass!
My 'God' was a bully who'd take me to task
His, a gentleman friend-- whom I'd only need ask
And choking up sobs that for years I'd held bound
I begged 'Him' for whatever this friend of mine found.
And I felt rushing LIFE where before-- only glass!
I sob, I laugh, I babble thanks
As walls collapse of rage and angst
My God-- no more in black and white
In vivid colors, warmth and light.
My prison's shattered-- I have flown.
And if as we walk through this earthly veil
At an unseen wall you see me quail...
Rejoice when that relic I finally pass through.
To my newest found freedom raise your glass (or two).
For a ruin is all that remains today
Of my hideous prison of glass!
And if one day as I've left these shards
I meet one trapped in his house of cards
Then joy from my broken heart I'll show
And a rock through his glass prison wall I'll throw.
That the God who is LOVE
We can feel, we can know
I was once past feeling,
I know,
I Know!
Micah Kohler -- 7/21-8/4/09
Micah, thank you. You have described the pain, the trap, and the freedom so very well. And beautifully too.
Micah...what a story. Thank you for sharing your heart.
Micah - my brother from another mother. Your life, your poems, they have reached me in such a place that has been shut up for years. Thank you for baring your soul with pen and helping us heal.
Wow!!! Very moving! And this part:
My ‘God’ was a bully who’d take me to task
His, a gentleman friend– whom I’d only need ask
Really awesome!!!
Micah, I'm so glad and praise be to God that he broke your glass house and exposed you to His grace! Very creative and well written. Our God is good and good all the time!!
Y'know, oddly enough, the image that came to mind more often than not when I tried to define our life in a training center to myself or others was...
a fishbowl.
Thank you for sharing your story with us... I'm so glad you are recovering. Be blessed!
I could totally relate to everything you described. For some in my family and for me, freedom came, oddly enough, through the scriptures and seeing the discrepincies between what we were being taight and what the word actually said.
We were taught to memorize Romans six, but Romans six taken out of context makes no sense. It's not meant to be taken as an isolated passage. I listened to all of Romans repeatedly one summer on CD and realized that if you stop at Romans 6, you miss God's grace, you miss the WHOLE STORY and that He sent His Son to die for us because HE KNEW that we could not be perfect, we could never be good enough, we could never save ourselves.
THAT'S when I realized how much God loves me. He knew I could never be good enough for heaven and instead of condemning me, he sacrificed his beloved Son to cover my sins. Amazing!
I did not learn that through ATI. They left that part out.
Like I said, I could relate to everything you shared. Thank you for describing it so well.
~Sally : )
Sally,
I'm delighted to hear of yet another person who's found their way to the truth, to the Gospel, to the Good NEWS!!! And yes, I remember memorizing Romans 6 while at the OKC TC, shortly before the 'break through' I described in my poem...
I agree with you entirely about the 'what was left out' part. Romans 7 is me at my very best, doing my darndest... Romans 8 is about something so fundementally different than 'me, doing' that it is revolutionary: God, doing in, and through me, what I have PROVED I am 100% incapable of doing on my own, and under my own power.
As someone else said it so well:
"Run, John, run, the law commands,
But gives me neither feet nor hands,
The gospel preaches better things--
It bids me fly, and gives me wings...."
Glad to be on the same path with you, Sally!
Micah
"THAT'S when I realized how much God loves me. He knew I could never be good enough for heaven and instead of condemning me, he sacrificed his beloved Son to cover my sins. Amazing!
I did not learn that through ATI. They left that part out."
Thanks Sally, nicely put.
That's the whole problem with IBLP/ATI in a nutshell- not what good there might or might not be in the organization, but what's left out.
The poem was lovely...and here I thought I was the only one who thought up the "glass trap" feeling. =) God Bless you all for creating this place of advice, testimony and healing. There are more people out there who have been scarred by Gothard's misled and harmful philosophies than you know. Keep the posts coming...
Wow..i am so encouraged that there is healing from the confusion that Bill Gothard's teaching's produce. I was immersed in Gothard's seminor's right after i became a new christian. I was miserable and couldn't understand why. Life just became so much harder and because by nature i dwell to much on my mistakes and shortcoming's..bill gothard's teaching's compounded this to the point i was so tormented. I came to a point i just 'quit' and withdrew. I lost all my friend's who also were in Bill Gothard's movement and to this day they still won't have anything to do with me. God's grace does heal,He does lead us beside still water's and He does maketh us to lie down in green pastures and restores our soul. It is all of grace! You know when i look back on my experience with those in this movement..i never heard how much God loved me and accepted me in the beloved. Never heard that it is He that conforms me to the image of Christ.love is sorely lacking with this group of ppl. I know i will speak the truth about gothard whereever i go and warn anyone who will listen.