Finding the Courage to Escape
“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up… Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm… A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
— Ecclesiastes 4:9–10, 11–12 (NIV)
God created us for relationship—not only with Him, but with one another. We were never meant to live our lives apart from others. And yet, we build walls around ourselves that can sometimes isolate us from the very people God created us to need.
OUR WALLS
When I returned home after giving my daughter up for adoption, I erected an invisible wall around myself. It was 1966, and society demanded secrecy from an unmarried mother. I was well aware that if my secret were discovered, my reputation would be destroyed, and very real rejection and isolation would follow. I had little choice but to protect that secret.
Protection came at a high price—intimacy. Unable to trust anyone enough to let them get too close, I kept a safe distance between myself and others. The wall protected my secret, but it robbed me of the closeness I had experienced in the past and left me feeling alone in a crowd—almost like a prisoner locked behind an unbreachable wall.
I called it my “invisible wall of shame.” But while brainstorming for this blog, I suddenly realized that perhaps it hadn’t begun as a wall at all. Perhaps it was more like a cocoon—a safe place where I could hide from the judgment of the outside world.
But just as that protective shelter is only meant to surround the developing butterfly for a season, mine was never meant to be permanent. The butterfly within yearned to fly free.
I believe some of the walls we build can begin much the same way. They protect us during a season when we genuinely need protection. The danger comes when the wall remains long after its original purpose has passed. What once kept us safe can also keep us apart from the very relationships we were created to need. Behind the wall we may feel protected, but we can also miss the warmth that comes from having someone close.
Your wall may not have been built from a secret like mine. Maybe yours was built from betrayal, gossip, rejection, abandonment, or something else that deeply wounded you. After being hurt, it is easy to decide, consciously or unconsciously, I won’t let anyone hurt me like that again. So the wall goes up.
While we may have friends, they are kept at a safe distance. Getting too close means risking being hurt again, so we avoid the intimacy that requires trust. The wall may protect us from new wounds, but the isolation can become terribly lonely. It is easy to convince ourselves that being alone is better.
But something else can happen when we have no one we trust enough to let behind our wall: we can lose an important reality check. An argument, misunderstanding, or offense leaves feelings raw, and we begin viewing what happens next through that lens. A look, a tone of voice, something said—or left unsaid—can take on a meaning that may not be there. Our imagination fills in the blanks. Before long, the story we have constructed becomes our perceived truth—our reality, whether or not it is actually true.
Dr. Lee Warren offers a powerful example of how convincing our perceived reality can become. In describing his own struggle with PTSD after the Gulf War, he explains that the brain does not always distinguish between actual reality and the reality it perceives. For him, the sound of firecrackers could suddenly bring back the same fear and terror he had experienced when bombs were bursting around him on the battlefield. His brain reacted as though he were back in the war.
What do I actually know to be true? I can hear another person’s words and observe what they do, but I cannot crawl inside another person’s heart and know with certainty what motivated them.
God can.
“People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” — 1 Samuel 16:7 (NIV)
And yet, even though we cannot always know another person’s heart, God did not create us to live without relationships. Almost at the beginning of Scripture, God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” — Genesis 2:18 (NIV)
Although these words are usually associated with marriage, they also point us toward a broader truth—one Ecclesiastes bears out so beautifully: God did not create us to live our lives unto ourselves. We need one another. Sometimes we need their help, and sometimes we are called to be their helper.
That makes the people we allow behind our walls especially important. In my own life, God has blessed me with trusted friends with whom I can safely lower the wall.
I can share what is troubling me and sometimes gain another perspective. Most importantly, we pray together. And when we do, I am reminded that there aren’t really just two of us in that conversation.
There are three—my friend, me, and God. And Ecclesiastes tells us, “A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
THE NEED TO BE NEEDED
During this season of life, I have discovered another way a wall can quietly form. Physical limitations can make things that were once simple require help from someone else. That gradual loss of independence is not always easy to accept. I struggle to ask for help, knowing that others are busy with their own lives. I don’t want to become a burden. Often it is easier simply to do without rather than ask. Each time I retreat, my world becomes a little smaller—and the wall a little higher.
But I have also discovered something that helps bring that wall back down: although I may need others more than I once did, I am still needed too.
There is an old Anne Murray song, You Needed Me, that has always touched something deep within me. Throughout the song, she remembers one thing after another this person did for her. When she cried, he comforted her. When she was confused, he helped her find clarity. When she was down, he lifted her up. He gave her hope, strength, dignity, and the assurance that someone really cared. She had needed him, and he had been there.
And yet, after all he had given her, comes the realization that has always touched me most: he needed her, too. He needed to be needed.
Those words have taken on a deeper meaning for me. There are things I once did without a second thought that I now need someone else’s help to accomplish. But needing others does not mean I no longer have something of value to give.
I need others. But I also still need to be needed.
I sometimes feel as though all I have left are scraps of the full and vibrant life I once lived. Yet I have discovered that one of those seemingly small scraps can be the very thing another person needs at that moment. I can still sit down at the piano and bless others with music. I can still write. There are still people I can encourage and pray with and for. I know how much it means to me when someone calls simply to say they were thinking of me. Perhaps my call can mean just as much to someone else. God has not left me empty-handed.
I believe each time I discover that I am still needed, that wall sinks a little lower. I venture out. I connect. I give what I still have to give. And my world, instead of becoming smaller, begins to open up again.
The cocoon that protected that frightened nineteen-year-old served its purpose. I understand now why she needed it. But even then, it was never meant to become her permanent home.
I once heard it said that a butterfly’s struggle to emerge from its shelter helps strengthen its wings for flight. I don’t know whether the science is quite that simple, but I have never forgotten the picture.
It can be terribly frightening to leave the safety of walls that once protected us. Sometimes it takes great courage just to take that first step. And when we first emerge, our wings may not feel strong enough to carry us very far. We may struggle against fears and habits that have held us there for years.
But perhaps that is part of how we learn to fly. Each time we push against the old fear, each time we venture a little farther beyond the wall, we discover strength we didn’t know we had. What once felt impossible begins to feel possible. And those wings that seemed so fragile when we first emerged can eventually carry us into a freedom we could not experience from inside the cocoon.
I was never created to spend my life inside the cocoon. And neither were you. Like the butterfly, we were created to spread our wings and fly.
Closing Blessing
May the Lord give us wisdom to recognize the walls that still serve a necessary purpose and courage to come out from behind those that no longer do. May He place trusted friends and prayer warriors in our lives who will lift us when we fall, help us hold fast to what is true, and remind us that we do not have to walk alone.
And may we always remember that as long as God has given us something to offer, there may still be someone who needs what He has placed within us.
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