Out of Prison | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Out of Prison | Previous Challenge Entry
By Donna Martelli
03/09/21
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I had to get out of there! My parents were repressive and backwards. My dad made me keep my High School grades above average, or else he would take me away from ballet classes and from performing with The Birmingham Ballet Company. From the beginning of my junior year, I planned my escape from the prison-life of my father’s house. I saved all my lunch money so that I could go to New York, the place to be for ballet dancers, when I graduated. I would be eighteen then and the law said that meant I was an adult, in New York, anyway. However, I lived in Birmingham, Alabama.

My Christian parents were old and stodgy, definitely out of touch with the real world where I lived. Sure, I believed in God and I knew He would help me achieve the fame that I craved. I wanted people to watch me, love me, and exalt me. To secure God’s favor, I attended church when it did not interfere with rehearsals and I even tithed.

With only two weeks until my High School graduation, I won a regional contest in dance sponsored by the National Society of Arts and letters. My prize was a one-week all-expenses-paid trip to New York City where I would represent Alabama in the national competition. I really did not care about that competition, but during my free time there I took classes at every ballet school in the city.

One of my projects while in New York was to attend a professional audition for the sole purpose of experiencing it. To my amazement, I was awarded a scholarship to the trainee program of the newly formed Harkness Ballet. The minute I got back home, I triumphantly announced that I had a job and would be moving out as soon as I graduated.

God had given me a grand escape that included all expenses paid plus a living allowance. My life was joyous, and it became even more so when I was asked to join the touring company. Still only eighteen years old, I toured Europe and North Africa dancing in a variety of roles. It was glorious, for a while. The directors hardly noticed me, I had no real friends in the company, and I experienced depression for the first time in my young life.

I had escaped but to what? I decided to go home, figuring that it would be different now that I had been out on my own. I was wrong; it was the same prison-life. Disappointed, I moved into an apartment with a friend so that I could live as I desired. Escape had become my lifestyle. It would haunt me for many years until I met Jesus. With Him, I am settled. Saved, healed, and delivered, I no longer have that wandering spirit that imagines what God wants and then needs to escape when it doesn’t work out.

If you are like I was, restless and always trying to make life work and then having to escape when your plans fall apart, you can find your way. Just like He did for me, Jesus will rescue you, forgive you for trying to do it without Him and He will settle you into a new and eternal life with Him. Just ask Him, He loves you!

“For whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.” Romans 10:13 (NKJV)

By the way, my parents were not old, stogy, backward, or repressive; rather I was the one who could not see their awesome life in the Lord. Blinded by the glitter of this world, I had created my own prison

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