It's a big, big wall...a very, very BIG wall!

I feel like I'm trying to break down the Great Wall of China with a plastic spork!




I know that the walls that I have constructed around me need to come crumbling down and I know that they need to come down sooner then later, but I also know how well they are built and it seems like this process of knocking them down, a little at a time, is utterly pointless, time consuming and a whole heck of a lot of back breaking work.

Cities built walls for protection. They built walls to make themselves less vulnerable to attack from their enemies. Why then do we feel it necessary to break down the walls around us and make ourselves vulnerable and exposed? Without the walls around us, aren't we more susceptible to enemy attack? Aren't we more likely to be injured and destroyed? Why would we purposely do that to ourselves? Why would we purposely break down the walls we have built for protection?

What if the problem is not the walls themselves? What if the problem is what material the walls are built from? We build our walls from the remnants of betrayal, unforgiveness, indignation, anger, hatred, grief, malevolence, ignorance, shame, criticism, humiliation, embarrassment, resentment, envy, jealousy, discouragement, cynicism, discontentment, loneliness, rejection, disapproval, abandonment, discouragement, guilt, disrespect, fear, pride, lies...the list goes on. Each time we are forced to deal with one of these things we hold onto just a little bit of it to add to our ever growing wall of emotional protection. Eventually we have built the Great Wall around us and we find ourselves trapped inside...alone.

But we need walls. We need to be protected from the enemy. We can't be vulnerable and exposed to attack.

Maybe it's not walls we need. Maybe it's an army. Maybe each of us needs an army of friends and family. People who can protect us when we are under attack. People who are stronger then we are at that time. People who know our weaknesses and are willing to use their strengths. People who will fight for us before we ask and even if we don't ask.

And that's the reason we build walls. We build walls because it's easier to protect ourselves in isolation then depend on an army of others to protect us. We fear that they will fail us. We fear that we will fail them. We fear.

I feel like I am breaking down my walls with a plastic spork and it's time-consuming and back-breaking. And I'm praying for an army!