When I got naked

I discovered my past was dictating my present, and I wondered if it were setting my course for my future too.  I don’t know if I had to get naked for that revelation.  But I definitely was when it came to pass.

I went to a massage therapist that had a reputation for prophetic massage. It sounded so interesting and I was up for dipping my toe into something other wordly good while I got a rub down.

She asked me what I did as I turned in my completed forms to reception.  I responded that I provided child care for busy families so that they had good options for their children.

And I took off my clothes.

She started her deep well soul work by asking out loud, “God, what do you have for Peggy today?” while she kneaded knots in my shoulders.  It was a short trip to shame that I didn’t even know lived in my heart.  She pushed me to identify the very first time I knew that shame.  I knew.  I turned my head so she wouldn’t see me begin to ugly cry.  Automatically, I started to think, and she shook my arms to bring me back to my body, keep me present in the emotions, and disallow my mind from locking away what I had worked to keep hidden from myself.  I think that was part of what made her so brilliant.  She could read on one’s body when a cry of retreat had been heralded.

I was in early Elementary School at a babysitter’s house. Her younger sister showed me their father’s pornography and when we played house she would use words like whore and hickey and pretend to hit me.  She also touched my body in ways I would never want my daughters to be touched. 

It was the first time I learned to keep a secret. It was the first time I felt dirty and ashamed. 

Back on the massage table I spoke the shame through my ugly cry.  “I never said anything to anyone.  It’s not like my working mom had any other options.”  The massage therapist replied, “How interesting that what you do now is provide good options for parents.”

I did not know then, but I can see now that my 15 years of running a nanny and babysitting agency was a tool for my blemished childhood and my stolen innocence to be redeemed.  It was me encountering what it was for that part of my life to be saved.  It was the salvation of that part of my person being worked out.  

And I am so thankful.

…..continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling…

Philippians 2:12