Playing with Fire

You know you shouldn’t do it. I was taught that at a young age - “Don’t play with matches.” 

When I was a little girl, I used to have a healthy fear of fire. We had a big open fire in our living room and I would spend so long watching the dancing flames. There was something enchanting about them, something mesmerizing, captivating my soul, but I would immediately get scared calling my Dad for help if suddenly a piece of wood would crack and jump out of the fire, out of its boundaries. It was common sense, so clear to me at a young age not to go over my boundaries, not to touch the fire. It as simple, I would get burned, get hurt!! 

I don’t remember the exact moment of crossing, but years later I as far over that boundary, a life full of pushing the boundaries led me to now be standing physically and spiritually in that fire. It’s called fire throwing, it’s a gamble – a gamble with your life – you can keep the fire in the air, it looks like you’re doing good, but one false move and you are badly burnt, but it’s a thrill, like a roller coaster ride. Sure it’s dangerous, but what have you got to lose?

I remember that thrill, a pounding heart, a surge of excitement as you are in control – like some amazing power, nothing can stop you, it defies all gravity like flying!!
I guess that was how my life was one risk after another, one roller coaster ride after another. A fantasy with all the thrills and excitement that comes with living for your good feelings.

I thought about reality, and deep down I longed for a place where real love existed, a place where people could be themselves, free from selfish gain and be accepted for who they really are. I longed for unity and peace, and real friendships, but nothing seemed real around me, reality was too hard to face anyway, like day light. I would pretend it wasn’t there and hide under the covers. When you’re in the dark you can totally hide from all that is real, you can be whoever you want; you don’t have to face up to who you really are, when its dark, no one can see you!!

I didn’t want to face reality; I guess that is why I had the image to go with my reckless life – Yes, the whole new age-hippy thing – tie dye, ankle bracelets, dreadlocks, drugs, and free parties. I was lost in a sea of good feelings, just dancing all reality away to the loud music which echoed, Boom, Boom in my chest – nothing else mattered!!

I remember one time I was at a club, so full of confidence as I had created the perfect image, the perfect mask to cover my lonely desperate life, to cover any inch of reality; I was putting on such a show. I remember watching this man throwing the diablos around. He was very good at keeping them in the air, so good at control. I remember thinking as I watched him how fake he seemed, how he was so full of his ego, I wondered who he really was deep down inside, and I saw that his image was just a show too – one big show, and I saw how my image brought the wrong attention.
That was it, I wanted out, I was tired of throwing the fire around, I couldn’t keep it up anymore, I was losing control, I was growing weary and tired of the life I saw around me. I desperately wanted to find something real, something, pure, something I could put my trust in.

As soon as I got home I cut all my dreadlocks off and another image came upon me, I wanted to find purity, that was the meaning of my birth name, that’s what I wanted to be, pure and real, to find peace and security, I wanted to be free from the dirty smoke of the fire, free from the lusts and selfishness of life. I wanted to somehow break down the walls of separation around me and love from a pure heart.

For a time I felt happy in my new image, I felt like I was changing. That summer I went to Glastonbury Festival with a few friends, I guess I was still attracted to the free spirit and false sense of unity that went along with the scene and also everyone else was going too, but somehow I felt such a distance between me and my friends, I couldn’t totally enter in, I knew I wanted something different, something more than just another lost weekend at Glastonbury, I wanted to get out of the smoke from the fire, but it seemed impossible, I walked around the festival that year hoping to find something, some distraction from the emptiness I felt inside – I had never felt so alone amongst a mass of people as I did then, no one could understand, I mean who really wants to break away, who really knows and wants to admit in their heart that all of this carry on is wrong!

I came home even more determined to become real and find some sort of purity, I was living in a house with two other people, and as the reality of daily living took its toll on my life it became clearer to me that I could not do it anymore. I could not love people in my own strength! I had ways in me that hurt people that separated me from others - I was trying to be pure in an unclean world. I asked myself so many questions; was there any hope left? Did real love exist? Did real friendships exist? Can we really break down the walls we build around ourselves? Is there such a thing as unity?

I was growing desperate seeking something, I wasn’t even sure what. I remember feeling hopeless, lost, unsure of what life was all about, unsure of why I was alive. I sat on a bridge one time overlooking a railway, it all seemed too easy to jump, I felt like that little girl again, scared of the fire, of getting burnt – I couldn’t see that it was my own choices that were burning me, I was too blind to see that I was separated from everyone because of my own actions, because of what I gave myself to. I could have easily jumped, but I knew deep down I didn’t just want to die and end it all – I wanted to find what my heart desired!! I got off the bridge leaving my tears to fall on the track below.

I remember crying out one day, I think it was to God. I didn’t believe in God, I never found any hope in any churches, the whole Jesus idea seemed so ridiculous. I didn’t see any witness of a different life in the Christians I knew, but here I was crying out with all my heart to God for him to show me what was wrong with my life. I wanted to know why I always ended up in the same mess each time growing more and more trapped. I just knew there was something more to life than what I had experienced, I knew m soul was dying and I couldn’t save it!
The one truly good ting out of all of that was the free paper I had held onto, it had caught my eye when I saw a friend of mine reading it at the festival, I asked if I could borrow it and he gave it to me ( he happened to have two on him). I didn’t really read it then, I just flicked through the pages and put in my bag, but now I remembered it and started to read. It talked about the earth and creation, how the selfishness and destruction of man’s heart was the biggest pollution, how it was already too late to try to fix the state of the planet. These things appealed to my heart as I remembered the mess everyone was so blind to at so many festivals. How it all seemed like an outward expression of what was deep in my heart and everyone else’s too, trash!!

The paper talked of hope of a new social order where everyone is wanted, where no one has to be alone, a place where love exists, a place where no one turns their backs on each other when times get hard, it talked of a place where the chains of fear and guilt are being broken down. It talked of so many things that spoke to my heart. I looked at the photographs of people looking so happy and free. I just had to come and see.
My friend and I hitched across England the farm at Stentwood – I still remember the warmth and love that greeted us in form the cold rain outside, it was a genuine hospitality that greeted us, it was so real.

This community in now where I call home, I knew I had found what my heart was searching for, when I heard words of life from the people living here. I heard of a way I could be set free from the mistakes I kept making, a way I could be forgiven from all the hurtful, selfish ways I was. I heard about Yahshua the son of God and how he died for us to set us free from our selfishness. Now I live for him, I gave up things of the past and entered the new social order. I now have more than I ever dreamed of, I have friend I can really trust. I have a husband and two little sons who don’t have to grow up making the same mistakes I did.