I’d been here before but they didn’t know. A lifetime ago I lived here. One young year spent on this campus, playing tennis, and spending a rare snow-laden day sledding on trash can lids. I had walked sidewalks, hallway passages and even a dark tunnel punched under the road. It was kind of creepy dark ’bout the middle way and I’m not sure it remained open all these years since.

During the forty-minute drive I remembered the college campus of before. A life dropped behind me like yesterday’s news. A city we moved away from. I hadn’t planned on coming back, but here we were driving toward it, just a homeschool field trip with friends. Why were butterflies flipping my stomach?

I imagined it didn’t amount much.

Benign memories flooded my mind, seeming almost real. My sister, who lived those memories with me, lacks even one memory of before. She only remembers the place from after–away from abuse. In a way, her life was born at 7 because she only knows it from there. We lived here while my parents schooled, until separation saved us from a different life.  

My boys curiously eyed the building of mostly brick and one part all glass labeled Rec Center as we passed. It looked much the same as before. We turned the corner onto a college campus my little legs used to run.

“Can we go in there? That looks neat!” Questions interrupted my memories of racquetball games, swimming lessons, and tennis with a sister.

“Not today.”

Moving back to these parts brings foreign nostalgia to surface in pieces of a childhood left much the same, yet different.

Our field trip took most of the morning and concluded with growly tummies.
We decided to walk. As we passed secret familiars, my boys ran ahead squealing in glee while my eyes scanned the past. The bad is buried and ugly is dead. All I remember is familiar and good. My sure footing had already been paved by another Who stepped here before me. How can I tell of hidden sessions ministered and healed by a Holy Counselor?

Uneventfully we drove away as I pondered the impact of memories and the mystery of their harm. I think of buildings and their danger by memory’s haunting.

But no evil haunt invaded my visit.

My moments of giving toward forgiving was how evil was put to rest. I remembered the good, how it trumps the rest and mercy triumphs over judgement. How mercy was nailed to a tree, my very own Christ still giving the thing of forgiving though judgement deserved me so. And I know He is the whole, the sum I need, the parts to fill any absence.

How does trauma slip obscure if not by a miracle secured? All the things with power to bind were crucified to Him, put down in death, and resurrected a grave jolted by Life.

I walked where fear tread, a dangerous lurk without the stench or the smoke of it’s furnace. No king or courtiers need now witness these places He’s walked me in because a King of Kings walks with any who hold his nail-scarred hand. There is only One deliverer who stands among us in the thing created to destroy us and I saw Him there that day.