Getting Close to Christ

    At times I participate in a healing-prayer kind of counseling. Yesterday was one such session.  Some deep and dark emotions had been stirred up by a "perfect storm" of bad "luck" (perhaps I'll tell you of that story tomorrow).  For now I want to pass on a simple but wonderful picture of myself with Jesus.
    In these sessions I ask God to show me where I first felt these strong emotions associated with a current event or relationship.  At this point I was feeling hatred of myself and self-rejection. After we prayed together, in my mind's eye I went back to being a baby again. I saw myself standing in  a thick sticky river of tar.  Jesus picked me up out of it, but I couldn't get next to him. I wanted him to embrace me, but I discovered I was wearing a plates of steel. Armor covered my torso.  It kept me from being pierced by arrows or wounded by stones, but I couldn't get close to Jesus with it on. I knew it symbolized my defensiveness, trying to make myself appear right to God and others.  I asked Jesus to take it away.  He did.
    Now could I rest my head on his shoulder?  No, he had on armor now!  "But, Jesus, I want to feel your skin, be warmed by your body!"  He reminded me that under the armor was his bare chest with wounds and blood from the nail holes in his hands.  Getting next to him would be messy.  His sticky blood would cling to me.  I decided I wanted it. It was wroth confessing my neediness, my guilt and giving up self-vindication.
    Then I was next to him, resting on his body and his blood, and his armor protected me from others.