I dreamed a dream.

My friend was in a prison cell. She stood there, eyes looking down, face against the wall, and she was all alone. All her growing up years, her mama was a yeller and when she did something wrong, her mama screamed and came running with those angry eyes and she hit, fists pounding. And this friend, she’d just brace herself, while the blows came, bruising up her back and etching scars into her soul.

And my friend’s heart grew tough like leather, so she sewed it up to keep the pain from leaking out and the rage from seeping in. Or so she thought.

I loved my friend and I missed her so I went down to that prison cell to see if perhaps I could get her out. I found the door was open, just barely open, but there she stayed. So, I went in to that cell and I took her hand. I gently tugged and said, “C’mon, let’s go,” and she didn’t look up, but she came and we walked away.

And I took her to the only Soul-Healer I know, brought her straight to Jesus and He scooped her up. His clothes were smelly like a shepherd and I watched Him hold her close and rock her gentle like a lamb. Then He carried her to the edge of the field where they looked out and saw a cross and He whispered quiet about the day He died for all the bad and ugly and paid the price for all the sins. He pointed to the spot on the ground where His blood spilled out to wash the grime of thieves and kidnappers and killers. And angry mamas with pounding fists.

Then, I held my breath as He untied the laces of her heart and bound it up again with this gauze, all shimmering, made up of tiny threads of grace. His light flooded all the recesses of her darkness and her face grew bright and shining. He tended, tenderly attentive to the raw and thin-skinned places and she painfully but patiently waited. She trusted Him, radically trusted, and came out whole and healed because finally, after all those aching years, His love overwhelmed so she could put her wound away.

We never went back to that prison cell.

Instead, her and I, we laughed, heads tilted back and eyes brimming, we laughed.
And we ran, wildly free, we ran through the biggest field of green.