An episode with Mary Beck, my older sister! This one is really special to my heart and I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Below is the poem we referenced!

Can I just go back to who I was
I’m nervous because

I don’t know if I’ll be proud of the new me
I see signs of things I don’t want to see

Doubt, questions, faith unmasked
I wish I never would’ve put forth the questions I’ve now asked

But here I am and its too late
What if I turn into something I hate?
Lost, searching, scared
I wish I never would’ve cared

But I wanted the truth to be more than something that simply stayed confined
Within my self-acclaimed sure mind

So I let myself put a few items on the table
And this left me shaken, uncertain, unstable

Would I join the ranks of so many others I’ve witnessed walk away
When it came down to it would I be held and would I stay

Terrified
I watched as my perfectly preserved faith shriveled up and died

In front of my face
And I would not face

The fact
That I lacked

The power to preserve it
The perfection to deserve it

I had a sword but no shied
So when arrows came I simply concealed

Myself behind a blockade of assurance
Wrapped up in my story of endurance

Through trials and pain
Storms and rain

claiming that I made it
No space to debate it

A champion a victor a winner
No space for the pondering of a timid beginner

I was strong
And getting it right was fueled by my fear of getting it wrong

So I did everything I was supposed to do
Sealing up any gaps where unbelief could seep through

Everything was locked
As I clocked

In but never out
Until I lost vision of what this whole thing was even about

Falling, pleading, please don’t let me go
Is this even real, there’s so much I no longer know

I pull away from what I always believed was in my heart
But if that were true how did I so easily fall apart

Faded-fading
Needless debating

Within my own being
I’m seeing

the unworthy unrighteous, side of me
The debt is due, and I’ve no funds to pay the fee

The pride I wore now seems disdainful
Hanging like dirty rags on this frame of a shameful

Facade
Oh God

Take
this fake

I give you the key
to the deepest places in me

Come
let me unravel, let me be undone

until all of who I thought I was is shaken to the core
and what remains is something worth living for

Life to the fullest-freedom-light
Walking straight into the darkest of night

Not based on rules, but based on desire
With faith that’s being tested true by hell’s fire
-Mary Beck