Last night at plunge the message was about truth. The corner was a set of trash cans, we were asked to throw out something that would symbolize what is holding us down. I thought for a long time about it. I have a lot of things that hold me down, but there are lots and they're vague. I thought back to a period of my life that one of my friend's calls a "self destructive" period... ie a sinful period.

I was at home alone, and I had just finished trying to deal with the effects of my actions on another person's life. Unfortunately I don't live in a vacuum, so what I do, affects almost everyone around me. I felt horrible, broken down, beaten and like I had no way out. I didn't understand why I was doing all these things. It was like I was trying to fill a hole that I didn't understand how it got there. I picked up my cellphone and called a friend, when she answered, I immediately burst into tears and told her everything... not just what I did, but how I felt, how I didn't understand, how I couldn't come to terms with myself, or worse, God.

Instead of telling me I was stupid and to stop (like I secretly hoped she would). She started to tell me about how she knew. How she could tell that something was different. She told me about how what I should be running from is what I'm running to to fill the hole. Instead of  exercising my freedom, I was locking myself up. She said I needed to stop looking for something else to fill me and to realize what was already filling. It was from this conversation that I developed my runaway bride theory.

The bible says that Jesus is our bridegroom. This would make me his bride. In the movie Runaway Bride, Julia Roberts plays someone who keeps trying to marry someone to have something to hold. Thing is, none of the people she marries are what she actually wants, yet, she keeps running to them. When she finally meets Richard Gere, and eventually gets engaged to him, she runs from him as well. There's a point in the movie where she says something along the lines of "I run from my other fiances because I realize that they're wrong for me... I ran from you because you were right". I (and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one) have this same problem. I'm walking down the aisle to the only One who can fill me and yet, I get scared and turn around and run.

The item I drew to put in the trash can at plunge was a pair of running shoes. They looked more like sausages with a scribble on them but I know what they are and God knows what they are. I made a vow to stop running away. To stop holding myself down by running in the oposite direction.