katie shaw ficker

Her beautiful long lashes scrunched up as she tightly closed her large brown eyes, and let out a high-pitched, “NO, NO, NO!!!” while shaking her head vigorously.

It was hair-washing time in our evening bath routine.

And while this spunky little youngest daughter of mine had only even gotten soap in her eyes a couple times – and even then, it hadn’t happened for months – it was traumatic enough to not be easily forgotten.

“Babe, I don’t even have the shampoo on my hands yet… pick up your head, open your eyes and look up at my eyes… please?”

As my request was met with the still-vigorous side-to-side shaking of her head, I got down on my knees, cupped her face in both of my hands, and told her again, “You are okay. There is no soap near your eyes. Open your eyes and look at my face, sweetie.”

One eye opened so slightly that I would have missed it had I not known to look for it. And then quickly shut again with more head shaking. It took a couple more minutes of coaxing before both eyes opened and she looked at my face, calmed down, and finally trusted me enough to surrender to the shampooing process.

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After a whirlwind trip Stateside, my husband, I, and the kids caught one of the last flights back into Guatemala before the president shut down all commercial flights in and out of the country in light of the effects of covid-19. It was our first night back at home, and I woke up at midnight with that clutching feeling in my chest and that sinking feeling in my stomach. It was a little over four years since I had left the hospital, and it had been a couple of years since I had experienced this anxiety; through my restless prayers, the confusion and questions came, “I thought I was past this?! I thought I had worked through all of this! Why am I facing these fears again?!”

But just like soap in my eyes, the sting of loss and trauma was not easily forgotten in my own life either. The next two weeks of the required quarantine in isolation forced me to confront again memories and wounds and beliefs that I thought had been long healed and righted with Truth. But during those weeks, I hit the realization enough times that it could no longer be ignored: there were deep places where I still did not trust God.

Like any great Truth, it is one thing to have a revelation and quite another to let that revelation transform us. And so, I prayed for God to teach me and help me to trust Him more… and to show me what that even looks like.

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It was a few weeks later that I caught a glimpse into what God was teaching me about trust. Because I am a little dense and seemingly often preoccupied, it took a few nights in a row of washing my daughter’s hair before I realized that my own words strangely echoed the voice of the Father that I had found interwoven in the Scriptures that had been running through my heart and mind…

“Open your eyes, babe… look at me.”

“I lift up my eyes to the hills; where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

“You are okay. The soap is nowhere near your eyes right now… look at my eyes, not the soap.”

“A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.” Psalm 91:7

“Open your eyes and look at me. It will be okay if you keep your eyes on me and obey my voice.”

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths” Proverbs 3:5-6

Sometimes, the scariest thing to do in the middle of the darkness of pain and confusion, is to open our eyes for fear of what we might find. There I had been, shaking my head vigorously, hands raised in defense and eyes clenched shut, my own fear of another sting of pain and my own refusal to open my eyes being the very act that was placing me in the midst of complete darkness.

And there was God… gently tugging my hands away from my eyes, softly calling me to open them and look into His own.

I spread my fingers, squinted my eyes slightly open, and started to let in bits of Light: meditating on the Word and character of our God; soaking in wonder at the creativity and beauty found in the creation around us; letting songs of Truth and peace flow in, over and out of those dark places. Sometimes, my eyes would instinctively clench tight again as a stinging memory approached, but as I would venture to slowly open them once more… I found that His gaze had never, ever left me.

And it suddenly seemed so obvious: I had been struggling to trust Him in these wounded places because I was still seeing Him through the filter of my own pain and loss, my own flesh and sin, the darkness of where my eyes were still shut off to Him and His Truth and Light. There I was still forcefully shaking my head “no,” petrified of future stings that I was certain would follow if I opened my eyes, and so afraid to let down my guard for even a second, that I could not see Him clearly.

His eyes – pools of refreshing water inviting me to go deeper and deeper into the Truth and Freedom I would find in Him.

His eyes – gentle and kind, never wavering in their gaze, exuding deep confidence in His ability to walk me through anything.

His eyes – strong, true, constant, yet full of grace and mercy, inviting my heart to let Him wash away the pain, and trust Him again.

 

Opening my eyes.

It sounded like such a passive act, and yet as I watched my daughter struggle to trust me with cleaning her hair, I realized what intention it actually requires of us.

It was a first step, opening her eyes.

The first successful night of stingless shampooing would certainly not negate the process that would still need to happen for her to continually trust me with her eyes open. Undeniably, she would have to continue to keep her eyes on mine and not shake her head in fear, or the dreaded soap would surely go into her eyes again.

But, it was a start.

A first step to seeing clearly.

A beautiful, good, freeing first step of moving out of darkness and into the light of Truth.

A choice we would both now make to open our eyes, look into the eyes of the One taking care of us, and believe in the goodness that we would find in the gaze and in the cleaning process that would follow.