The Setting Free of Stella | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: The Setting Free of Stella | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jennifer Wennekamp
10/28/07
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As she pulled up to the church, she asked herself yet again why she was here. She hadn’t come to this place since she was a young girl with her grandmother. Grandma would always come and pick her up making sure she was in her Sunday best and take her to church. It was Stella’s one opportunity a week for peace. A time she could come and sit in Sunday School with Mrs. Sutter and not be afraid. Here she could see and feel love and not be afraid of the loud voices, not be afraid of strange men who would come to her house and then to her room, not be afraid of the drink that seemed to make nice people turn mean. When she came to Sunday School she could believe there was hope and good in this world. That God really might forgive her for all the bad things that had happened to her, and most of all that he might really love her.
All Stella knew was that she could no longer live this way. She could barely leave the house anymore without fear that something else would go wrong. She was afraid to see people, afraid they could see the shame and disgrace written all over her face. That they would know the way she had been used all her life. Afraid that they may be the next one to use her. She was afraid of going to work and the boss suggesting she could maybe do a few things for him to get a little further up in the company. She was afraid of talking to her friends, that they would abandon her if they knew who she really was. She was afraid of getting in the car and driving, that she may get into an accident and be left alone to die. She was afraid of everything, but especially of dying. What would really happen to someone like her when they died? She didn’t want to die, not like this. Not this broken person with no hope and no God.
Then it dawned on her that is why she was here. She longed for that feeling that she had found in Sunday School. She yearned to not be afraid anymore and she hoped beyond hope that if she went through that door, she could again find that God who would forgive her for all the wrong and sin in her life. Maybe he really did love her; maybe he would look at her with eyes that said no matter what is happening in your life, you are still loved, like Mrs. Sutter did in Sunday School. Maybe, just maybe, walking through that door could break the chains of fear that were strangling her and wouldn’t let her go.
As Stella got out of the car her heart felt like it skipped a beat. Anticipation began to flood her soul. Could this really be the day that her life turned around and something right really happened? Could she really go back to that God that she sensed in Sunday School? For the first time in years she felt the flutter of hope. The hope of the butterfuly. Maybe she was in an ugly cocoon right now, but what if just maybe she could become a butterfly. What if this feeling of anticipation was from God just for her? Stella began to walk faster, went through the door into the church and didn’t even look around. She went right to the room where she sat in Sunday School all those years. She fell to her knees on the ground and began crying out to Jesus right there. Pouring all the hurts, disappointments, and fears out to God. And she knew that from that moment, kneeling in that Sunday School classroom, she was breaking out of the cocoon. She was on her way to becoming a butterfly- set free from the bondages that held her captive. Life could be more, and she was sure she was about the truly find that out.

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