The House with Many Rooms

[This story is for all who have experienced things that none of us should ever experience]

There once was a person who lived in a house with many rooms.

From the outside, the house looked whole. The windows were intact, the door stood upright, and smoke still curled from the chimney. But inside, it was different. Some rooms were filled with noise—rushing winds of anxiety, echoing footsteps that never quite settled. Other rooms were heavy and dim, where the air barely moved and everything felt slow and far away.

The person did their best to live in the house.

When the winds grew too loud, they found ways to quiet them—sometimes by pouring something warm and numbing into their body, sometimes by pressing everything down, sometimes by simply leaving the rooms altogether and floating somewhere far above them. These methods worked, for a while. But the house never quite felt like home.

One day, exhausted, the person met a quiet guide.

The guide did not rush to fix the house. They did not try to silence the wind or force open the closed doors. Instead, they said something simple:

“Not all of this belongs to who you are today.”

The person didn’t understand at first.

So the guide walked with them down a long hallway and stopped at a small, closed door. From behind it came a sound—not loud, but constant. A kind of trembling.

“Would you like to see?” the guide asked.

The person hesitated. They had spent years avoiding doors like this. But something in the guide’s voice felt steady, so they nodded.

Slowly, the door opened.

Inside was a child.

The child was small and frightened, eyes wide, body braced as if danger could return at any moment. The room itself seemed frozen in time—everything arranged around a moment that had never fully ended.

The person stepped back.

“That’s not me,” they said quickly.

The guide shook their head gently. “Not all of you. But still yours.”

Over time, they visited more rooms.

In one, there was a teenager burning with anger, pacing, trying to make sense of something that had never made sense. In another, a younger child sat very still, having learned that stillness was the safest way to survive. In yet another, there was only emptiness—a place where feeling had once been too much, so it had quietly disappeared.

Each time, the person reacted the same way at first:

Shame.

Frustration.

Sometimes even disgust.

“Why are they like this?” they would ask. “Why can’t they just stop?”

And each time, the guide answered with the same quiet truth:

“They are not trying to harm you. They are trying to protect you in the only ways they ever learned.”

This was the beginning of something new.

The person started to see that the chaos in the house wasn’t random. The winds, the silence, the numbing—all of it was communication. Each room held a younger part who still believed the danger had never ended.

And slowly—very slowly—the person began to change how they stood in the doorway.

Instead of turning away, they stayed.

Instead of judging, they wondered.

Instead of blaming, they listened.

One day, standing at the threshold of the smallest room, the person spoke differently.

“It wasn’t your fault,” they said.

The words felt unfamiliar. Heavy. Almost untrue.

But the child inside looked up.

Something softened.

So the person tried again.

“You didn’t deserve what happened.”

“I’m here now.”

“You’re not alone anymore.”

This became their work—not fixing, not forcing, but returning. Again and again, they walked through the house, sitting beside each younger self. Sometimes in silence. Sometimes with trembling words. Always with a growing steadiness.

And something remarkable began to happen.

The rooms changed.

Not all at once, and not perfectly—but gradually.

The trembling quieted.

The frozen air warmed.

The emptiness began to fill—not with noise, but with presence.

The younger parts, who had been braced for so long, started to notice something new:

The adult had come back.

And this time, they were staying.

There was no rushing them. No demanding they “get over it.” Just a consistent, gentle offering:

You are safe now.

You are allowed to feel.

You are loved exactly as you are.

Over time, the doors stayed open.

The child no longer hid in the corner.

The teenager no longer paced alone.

The silent room began to breathe again.

And the person realized something they had never known before:

The house had never been broken.

It had been waiting.

Waiting for someone strong enough, kind enough, and patient enough to come back inside—not to escape the rooms, but to gather them.

To see clearly.

To understand deeply.

To love without condition.

And so the house became whole—not because the past disappeared, but because every part of it was finally met.

The winds still came sometimes.

The quiet still returned now and then.

But now, there was something else in every room:

A steady presence.

An adult who knew the truth.

And a love that no longer turned away.

Perfect love, Jesus love through us, casts out all fear....and shame.

Ric.