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by Bethany Beebe

I think all of us have at some time, in some way, shape or form placed walls around ourselves to keep ourselves protected. We think at the time it is the right thing to do. I mean, why wouldn’t it be. It keeps us safe and unharmed. It makes it so we no longer have to worry about being hurt again or feeling that fear or whatever emotion we didn’t like that made us build the wall in the first place. It’s a totally natural response. (Yes, there is a ‘but’ coming.) But it also keeps us from feeling other things, such as love.

I became a master wall-builder. I think the walls I had built around my heart were thicker than the walls of Jericho. And they worked; I kept myself safe from ever being hurt or scared. You see, I thought I had the best excuse in the world for building walls.

I grew up in a very small town. We were comfortable with leaving the car doors unlocked when we went into stores. Sometimes we would even leave the car running while we quickly ran in to buy milk and it would still be sitting there when we came out. I don’t remember my parents ever locking the door to our house because we felt secure. Things in our town were safe.

So it was really nothing to say that I wanted to stay in the car and play with the new toy I has just gotten while my mom ran into the bank. I was only six or maybe younger, I really can’t remember, and she parked so she could see me. The last thing on anyone’s mind was that a stranger might come to the van.

I don’t really remember much, only that I was sitting in the front seat playing with the toy when the driver’s side door opened. I thought it was my mom so I was horrified to look up and see a strange man. He asked me if I wanted something, I think it was some kind of candy or some other treat. At this point I felt something was wrong. I just knew it was. I was a shy kid to start with but I had never really had a fear of people. This man scared me. He scared me more than I think I had ever been scared before. My only response to this was to shake my head and not talk to him.

He closed the door and left. For a moment I was relieved but then he opened the door again. This time he asked if I wanted something else. I don’t think I responded at all this time, I just started crying. He shut the door again. I don’t know why, but I got up and locked all the doors except the one he kept opening because I thought he would grab my arm and pull me out of the van. Then I jumped behind the back seat and hid.

I know it sounds funny but it was a good thing I didn’t try to lock that door because he was standing right there and opened it again, and this time he sounded more desperate. He started to rattle off a lot of things to try and get me to the front of the van. Then everything went quiet.

The next thing I knew my mom was getting in the van. She could hear me crying from the back of the van and asked me what was wrong. At the sound of her voice I started crying even harder. I was so relieved that the man was gone. I tried to get out what had happened in between the loud sobs and the deep breaths. Somehow through my stammering she got the picture and she was able to see what the man’s truck looked like before he left the plaza.

We went to the police and my mom told them what kind of truck she saw and I told them what he looked like. A few weeks later they caught the man and saved another child from being taken.

Needless to say, I think this was a very good reason to build a wall. I didn’t want anyone whom I didn’t know well to get close to me. Living in Vermont made that rather easy because we naturally have a three-foot ‘bubble’ around us. You get any closer than three feet, we step back. Mine, however, was a little larger, very selective, and I would only let those I felt really comfortable with into the bubble.

This bubble remained until it hit me, “Hey look, boys are cute”. This made that part of my life really hard. I mean really hard. I put that wall up so that no man could scare me like that again, and here I was getting crushes on people I was once afraid of. But all through high school I kept boys at a distance, just to be safe.

Then I went to college, a Christian college. These boys were friendly and safe and a few became really good friends. Then I let myself slip and the wall came down a little and I let myself like one guy too much. I opened up to him more than I had any other guy. I thought and prayed that he would be the one; until I saw him look at another girl in a way he had never looked at me. The little part of my heart that I had let show shattered into a million pieces. So I built a thicker wall. This time I was determined not to let myself bring it down again. I did a very good job, until…….

I came to work at this really crazy place (WYSIWYG) where they do all these really crazy things like hug you when they see you and tell you that they love you and so on. I fought it for a long time. I gave halfhearted hugs and mumbled stuff back when they said they loved me, but I was determined not to let them break through my wall.

But slowly, brick by brick, the walls started to crumble. The constant barrage of hugs and complements broke it from the bottom up. They chipped away at the foundation, breaking down all the things that were supporting my walls.

Then about a year ago, God hit me with a realization. It is okay to be hurt. It doesn’t feel good but it is okay. He took the stripes on His back to heal my wounds ~ even the emotional wounds. I know that it will be okay to open my heart to people now. I will not fear getting hurt because God will give me grace and strength. At the risk of sounding very cliché, I will survive.

My walls are down and yeah, I have been hurt but what I gained was way better than keeping myself safe. I gained the ability to receive love, and better yet, return it.

Bethany Beebe has worked with Christian WYSIWYG Filmworks in set production and prop-making.
She currently is working with Final Cut Pro, editing a DVD series.