The Promiscuous Angel

This morning has been a day of many tears and much inner reflection as I prepare to leave Baltimore in a place of newfound humility in how I have wrongly judged others by the outside. And this realization comes from seeing a wound within myself in this very area.

When I was young, under a prison of religion I thought that I was bad if I had sex with anyone before marriage because that’s what I was taught. And when the unforbidden took place, I felt worthless and ruined. After weeks of drowning in my own tears and writing dark poetry in the name of shame, I had a weak moment one night and tried to take my own life. I was too young to understand the heaviness I was carrying and only knew what I’d been taught. I say that as if anything has changed – and in this moment, I am convinced that the weight of those teachings still follow me today.

A girl I met months ago who lived very differently than me – quite a promiscuous women was brought into my path again last night. I remember feeling uneasy that she was with me and even triggered by her as I sifted through the conversations we’d had in our first encounter. I don’t know much about her except she has a broken relationship with her parents and she’s very open in the subject of sex; even in bragging to me about how she chooses to have many sexual partners throughout the globe that she periodically hooks up with. This felt dirty to me – sinful, I guess for lack of a better word.

Last week, I met another young lady who is undergoing hard times as she is working in a place she doesn’t live, forced to often sleep inside of airports because she has no friends or support in her new job. She ironically, popped up also last night – looking very differently than I’d seen her recently. She looked rested, happy and full of joy and I studied her wondering what had changed. Towards the end of the night, I asked her, “Have things gotten better for you?” She answered swiftly, “Oh yes, Leann has taken me in and lets me stay at her place. She’s been so kind to me.”

It’s amazing how LOVE seems to often come in packages we don’t expect. The woman who I judged harshly in the same way I’d been judged throughout my life is the one who stepped up to help another girl she knew needed it. In our upbringings and our failed religions we perceive people who are different than us as different when we can’t see what’s on the inside of them. By focusing on their looks or acts that we consider bad or wrong, we miss so much. Only God can see the heart.

Today I see myself in Leann – a woman who also has throughout my life felt let down by my blood family and I’ve longed for love and often turned to find it in whatever ways was made available to me. And I’ve judged myself because I’ve carried the hurtful words of others but how often has God used my broken heart to love others? Quite often indeed.

Maybe the broken things are the very vessels that carry a blueprint of love that’s unmatched by what society deems “pure” and maybe this lesson today is put in my path to help me see the beauty in myself I can’t seem to find with my carnal eyes as I count all of the things I think I’ve done wrong in the convictions of religious doctrines placed against me.

I know it’s not freedom. I know judging myself and others is a pit of hell and I don’t want to live there anymore.

Today I’m thankful for the promiscuous angel who helped the young girl and the beauty I see inside of something my eyes had considered wrong – seeing a speck of myself in her and unable to love that part of me.