The Space Between

“I don’t even consider you my brother!” She throws her words at him. Heavy tears stream down past her jaw and onto her lap. The hurt surprises her and she can tell it aches him, but at this moment, she is unflinching. She feels it ringing deep in her bones, like hundreds of stress fractures threatening to break. His absence in these last six years. His silence when she needed him the most.

Growing up, they were close — even sweet with one another — and in a demanding and turbulent home life, they were each other’s safe place. But as time scraped by, each of them began to cope with the abuse in their own ways. In high school, her brother busied himself in relationships and work, while Debbie began to develop a dangerous eating disorder that left her weak and fragile. Both siblings reeled and grasped in their own attempts to regain a semblance of control over their lives, their bodies and their realities. Together, but separated by a crawling rift between them.  

When she goes to college, her self-destructive tendencies begin to unravel her life, while the chasm between her and her brother widens. Her parents pull financial support from her due to her reckless lifestyle, and almost overnight, she is free falling. Broken and abandoned, she turns to her brother in a moment of raw desperation and vulnerability.

But, he isn’t there to catch her.

She internalizes this judgment over herself: No one is here to help me. Like eschar over a wound, it festers with the appearance of healing. “I often convince myself that things are not problems. I’d rather brush it away until I feel okay or stop thinking about it. When I was hurt by people, I never allowed myself to properly heal.” Early on, Debbie forms defenses around her in efforts to protect herself. In efforts to placate herself of the pain.

“No matter what I do, I’m not enough. This belief shaped me.” Her head lightly nods as she recounts her story. Her hand gracefully moves the hair away from her face. The wind brings it back again.  

Years later, when she returns to the west coast, Debbie cautiously attends Ekko. At the encouragement of friends, she enrolls in Ekko’s five-month-long introduction to discipleship known as Orthopraxis. And as she moves in the ways of Jesus, God invites her deeper into her life as a new creation.

To become someone who lives without walls, without calluses. He desires to heal her of the wounds she thought had long scabbed over. 

“…God starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of… You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

— C.S. Lewis

In Orthopraxis, as participants are taught how to be more like Jesus in specific and concrete ways — through an assignment coined The Jesus Move —Debbie hears the question: “Who do you need to forgive?” 

“Who is God revealing to you and how do you plan on apologizing to them and seeking reconciliation?” Pastor Isaac asks early on. No one comes to her mind. She blankly scribbles in her journal.

She has brushed the pain away so much, it is unrecognizable. But there is something in that question that starts to crack at the walls she has formed around her. 

The next week, Debbie and her brother erupt in a fight that rivals their worst. “You’re just absent!” she cries “You’re supposed to be my family, but you weren’t there!” As if she’s shouting across the ocean that has risen between them. For so long, she had held back and internalized any hurt she experienced, but now, she aches for connection and is startled by her own honest anger. But he doesn’t snap back at her. Instead, he apologizes. And he explains why he’s been absent all these years. Despite his gentle explanations, her pride threatens to keep her guard up. The second week passes, and the same challenge comes. “Who do you need to forgive?” She steels herself. Her heart remains tight.

But she hears God inviting her, nudging softly. Debbie, how do you plan on seeking reconciliation?

The same question comes the third week, but this time, the faintest whisper answers with her brother’s name.

Michael.

She feels God calling her to repair and rebuild this relationship. Grace wells in her spirit and tempers the hurt still fresh on her heart. The call to be more like Jesus stirs in her being. The call to active reconciliation. 

That weekend, Debbie teeters on the edge of the unknown. Years and years of self-preservation created a formidable defense of bitterness and resentment around her. This is how she learned to survive. How could God ask her to lower her walls completely? To be this vulnerable? In the car together, the sounds of rolling asphalt and small talk punctuate the silence between them.

His voice warms the air around them. “How do you know God is real?”

She feels her heart finally unfurling.

“God was really pushing me to open. As if He was giving me the chance to have these conversations I never had before. To tell my brother what happened in my past and my story with God,” Debbie says. For the first time, Debbie shares with her brother the testimony of how she came to God. Who He is in her life and how she knows He’s real. 

God was preparing her for this moment. To be able to be raw before her brother, whom she loves so much, and to share her story that she had hidden away from him for so long.

After years of distance, misunderstandings, fights and tension, Debbie and Michael bend toward one another, confessing their hurts and asking for forgiveness for the hurt they incurred upon each other. Without defenses.

The walls she had held up for so many years start to melt away.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

— 2 Corinthians 5:17-19

Debbie and her brother’s reconciliation began to unearth other issues that she had suppressed for much of her life. The healing that she experienced with her brother, became the first step in being candid with the other hurts she had unconsciously hidden away deep within her heart.

“I’ve started to get more honest with myself and where I’m at emotionally, mentally and spiritually. I’m allowing myself to go to those uncomfortable places because I know that this season is so necessary. I am starting to understand why I am the way I am and how certain traumatic moments in my past have influenced who I am… I think this season is really for me and my family to grow and repair.”  

In the journey of following Jesus’ way of life and following in His footsteps, Debbie finds herself steeped in the healing process and becoming whole – in ways she didn’t know she needed, nor thought was possible. Through reconciliation, she is realizing that in order to properly heal, she needs to go into the hard places she has avoided for much of her adult life. 

But through it all, she finds comfort in knowing she’s not alone and that God is orchestrating her steps. “I know that God is walking this journey right alongside me, and my brother has stepped in to really guide me and encourage me through this season.”

“The traumatic memories don’t go away and sometimes I feel like I might be stuck like this forever, but I’m really holding onto my faith and believing that God is able to change circumstances. And that even the most broken relationships can be healed.”