You’re safe now.

My core value rose to the surface this week, during an unlikely event.

Creative Mornings is an organization I joined as I started freelancing, to provide an extra dose of community to an otherwise isolating adult experience of going freelance. And they more recently started “field trips,” which are small gatherings to help the community connect over common threads. This week’s was called “Compassionate Time Management”—because, wow, doesn’t that sound nice and idyllic, compared to the frantic pace I’ve been running recently thanks to a new client onboarding, which was described as: “like jumping onto a moving train.” A fast one, too.

The second half of the title was “Unlocking Procrastination with your Inner Child.” While it may sound woo-woo, I’ve had some of the best experiences in meditation and writing while picturing my inner child.

That’s because my childhood self was quiet. Painfully shy, others described me as. Introverted, a word I wouldn’t know until college, and still wouldn’t believe for a few more years. Evangelicalism didn’t praise introverts; it praised extroverts. Evangelists. Pastors. Missionary. People who spoke for a living.

So I became one of those things, crash landing onto the green carpet stage of my church. Microphone in hand. I went from a silent pre-puberty kid to a missionary-to-be, outspoken girl in the youth group. The women in jean dresses praised me, and I fawned with red cheeks beneath their approval.

Still, I only said what I was supposed to. What I should.

I fizzled from a girl with opinions into a girl who knew what she should do with her life. Who knew what she was called to.

A girl who knew who she was supposed to be, more than she knew who she was.

That girl who had a brief stint in modeling faded from view, a closed smile on her lips, as if forced.

That’s who I found this week, visualizing my inner child. The little girl in too-much makeup, eyes shaded by dark, full eyelashes. The backdrop is a light green, almost minty. And she has pin-up girls, pristine, everything she always wanted her hair to be. Shirley-Temple-esque, one of her many old movie heroes. She has on a hat, somehow acentuating the curls even more, with flowers and ribbons. Are these Easter photos? Or just the random modeling agency her and her sister somehow joined. Barbizon Agency. I only remember the sketch strip mall. But she’s in there, lit up by lamps and happy. Blissful taking more photos once we’re home from the strip mall, still gussied up. Wanting to be beautiful. Wanting to be seen. Still, sometimes feeling alone.

That’s where I encounter her, somehow in-between the beauty and the pain and trauma about to unfold. Grinning at the camera, and, at me.

The task was to take her hand and ask her questions about why I’m stuck on a project— trying to type out an Advent study that I’ve already handwritten. You’d think this part would be easy. Just read and type, right? And yet, I’ve been so stuck.

So I asked her.

Why do I feel stuck?

Here’s what she said:

“Actually putting my new faith ideas out there is SCARY.
It doesn’t feel safe when I haven’t been allowed to speak up.“

I wrote in blue, all-caps letters to answer her. Not to yell, but to strongly affirm. As if I could take her by the shoulders with strong care:

YOU CAN NOW. YOU’RE SAFE NOW.

And I added, more calmly, blinking back tears–because I believe this even if she can’t yet:

“I’ve created space and community where we can speak up now.”

I believe that. Here, in this blog that a handful of you click-through to. On Instagram, where I irregularly post but always connect. And in emails, where I bare my heart even if it’s not for everyone.

I’ve created space and community. Friends whom I’ve hugged and whom I haven’t met yet. Long-distance messages that reach out like hands to hold. All so that we can listen to each other. Meet each other where we’re at. Talk about faith and life and pain in ways we’ve never felt safe to do in a church building or on a mission field somewhere.

I’ve created that. Not perfectly or without challenge. But it could never be about perfection. My inner child wouldn’t feel safe there, and I imagine yours wouldn’t either. We deserve more than perfection anyway.

We deserve to be heard. Plain and simple. We deserve to be heard.

I hope you feel heard here. I feel heard with you here.

You’re safe now. This is a safe place we share.