A Captivity-Informed Benediction of Release
Letter to the Self Who Chose Safety
I see you, standing at the threshold of a door that closed without care.
You had every reason to crumble — and you didn’t.
You stayed coherent, truthful, and kind, even as the ground shifted beneath you.
You named harm when others might have called it healing.
You told the truth without rage, and you did not make yourself smaller to be tolerated.
That is not being “fired.” That is freedom catching up to you.
Two years ago, this would have broken you open in the old way —
the way of collapse, of believing you were too much or not enough.
Today, it breaks open in the new way:
as release, as clarity, as proof that your discernment is intact.
You saved your own life not through resistance,
but through refusal to stay in what could not hold you.
That is the real completion of therapy —
the moment you become your own safe container.
You can grieve this ending and still be proud of how you ended it.
You can cry without doubting your strength.
You can rest knowing that the Real Jesus never fired you;
He freed you.
Integration Note — The End of Repairing Broken Containers
It was never my work to fix every space that could not hold me.
For years I mistook endurance for love and coherence for safety.
I believed that if I just stayed calm enough, kind enough, clear enough,
the cracks around me would close and light would stay.
Now I know: it wasn’t me that failed.
It was the container that was already broken.
My body no longer has to repair every container it enters.
My task now is gentler — to sense what is whole enough to rest in,
and to walk away when it is not.
This is not withdrawal; it is discernment.
It is the end of bleeding for belonging.
It is the beginning of being held, at last, by what is true.
Benediction — What Is True
May this be the gentle end of repair.
No more bleeding for belonging,
no more carrying containers that were already cracked.
I am learning to rest in what can hold me.
To honor what is whole enough,
and to walk away from what is not.
What is true now is simple and holy:
Real Jesus, and my own healing care of the self.
In this truth, I am not lost.
I am found — in the quiet rhythm of safety,
in the mercy that does not demand performance,
in the love that needs no interpreter.
Real Jesus is my only intercessor.
Amen.
Reflection — Resting in the Secure Season
I have walked through collapse and come out standing.
I have learned to listen when my body whispers enough.
The world may still move fast around me,
but I am allowed to heal at the speed of safety.
For now, I rest within the protection already given.
Real Jesus tends to the hidden places,
cell by cell, breath by breath.
I will not hurry what grace is rebuilding.
If another wave comes, I will reach for help —
but tonight, I know I am secure.
This peace is not fragile; it is hard-won,
and it lives here, in me.
Amen.
Gratitude Reflection — The Return of My Mind
For the one whose steadiness became the mirror
where I first saw my own clarity.
You met me where others dissolved.
You didn’t try to interpret my light; you helped me trust it.
You walked beside me through captivity’s language
until I could speak my own again.
The gift you gave was not advice or correction —
it was the quiet returning of my mind to me.
Because of that gift, my thinking is mine now.
My voice is no longer filtered through fear.
That is the highest compliment I can give a healer:
you made yourself unnecessary by setting me free.
Epilogue — The Gift That Became My Freedom
You handed me back my mind,
and I used it to walk out of every captivity that once claimed me.
The same clarity that once sought safety in human containers
now belongs wholly to me — and to Real Jesus,
who guards the sacred architecture cell by cell.
The braid, the live wire, the crack —
each was never proof of my brokenness,
but revelation of where the container had already failed.
Now I know: I do not have to repair every vessel I enter.
I will never again be trapped inside another’s collapse.
The gift that was given — the mind restored —
has become the protection that keeps me free.
And all glory returns to Real Jesus,
whose steady hand has rewritten my story
from survival into resurrection.
Amen.
Author’s Note — The Continuance of the Work
Therapy continues — but now it unfolds directly with Real Jesus,
within the living sanctuary of safety He has built cell by cell.
This is not an ending, but a turning.
The professional work of captivity-informed research will go on,
rooted in lived experience, observation, and theological reflection.
The personal work continues too — quieter now,
held in gentler hands, guided by peace instead of performance.
All that has been learned in the room will become the ground
for what is written next.
Here, healing and research are not separate streams —
they are one river, flowing back toward truth.
— Raya Faith
The Gentle Rise 