The Blood Is Enough

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by Sarah Mattioli

When a person becomes a Christian, the blood of Christ is applied to their life. This experience makes you part of an incredibly large family. It’s quite phenomenal how this process works, because everyone desires to be the friend of someone. Here is my story.

It’s lunchtime, the bell has just rung and everyone is scrambling through the hall to get a good spot at their table. I was one of the ones considered cool enough to sit wherever I wanted. The group I had bonded with just happened to be the ones who grew up to become the popular crowd. I don’t remember the exact moment it shifted from innocent laughter and fun to relentless slander and “clowning.” As my vocabulary increased, so did my caliber of insults. The conversation may start off with a crack about the new girl’s plaid pants but end with obscene digs about her mother. If she conformed and gave it back harsh enough, she may even have become an excepted member of our clique.

I was taken from the recess playground to the streets of my small suburb south of Chicago. Gangs are more organized forms of cliques. Although I was never officially sworn into any one gang, I started running with people that were in Jr. High. I had become a malicious word sharpshooter. I found that violence was rarely needed if I was hard enough with my glare and tongue. At the beginning of my first year in high school, I had an idea about how I could establish my reputation for the rest of my years there. I chose an innocent senior girl to start a fight with in gym class. I began by taunting her as we walked around the track. I finally got the reaction I was waiting for when I took it a step further by throwing gum into her hair. The moment she put her finger into my face as she screamed I used it as my excuse to charge. I began kicking and punching her at the same time. The fight was broken up quickly and I was suspended for three days. God has revealed clearly to me now why I did it that way. My fear of the gangs and hard kids at my school caused me to become violent and mean as a defense to preserve myself. In the “cool” groups I ran with, we would not only attack outsiders but we would rip one another apart from within as well.

When I met Jesus, I cried out to Him to change my heart and for real. I have found that those cliques are counterfeits to the real kingdom family that He has designed for us to live in. Becoming a part of the body of Christ and WYSIWYG has shown me how Papa has set up His divine family to work. It is the opposite of the world’s ways. I am called to forgive everyone when I get offended, which still does happen in or out of church. And also to be angry and sin not, and not let the sun go down upon my anger. I am expected to bless those that curse me and pray for those that use me. If someone hates on my outfit, I bless them and buy them lunch the next day.

There are many key things the Holy Spirit has taught me in my times alone with Him and through others who follow hard after Him, such as my mother. Together, my mom, my friends, and I have learned to overcome by the blood of the Lamb and Jesus’ body broken for us. Jesus said, “As often as you do this breaking of bread as they do on Passover, remember Me.” Often the early church did this together in their homes enjoying fellowship with one another. I have made the choice to do it as often as twice a day. One good reason to do it often is because I can bring all of my offenses to the table or “get all my skunks out on the table”, as my friend Adam would say. If I offended anyone or if anyone hurt me, I just put it all under the blood. I remember Christ’s forgiving those who lead Him to the slaughter. I remember all the ways he bled, starting with sweating drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane to later being pierced in His side, causing blood and water to flow. The simple truth is that the blood is enough. It was enough to transform an angry, scrappy, young fifteen-year-old into a merciful daughter of the King who is learning to walk in love at all times, with all people. It was also enough to break the power of rebellion and bind me together with my kingdom family in the Lord.

Jesus’ heart for us is that there be no divisions among His children as we are all part of one body. He doesn’t want us to separate into denominational, racial, or cultural cliques. Right now, there is a move of God in our midst bringing a corporate revelation that His blood is enough to unite us that we may be one as Jesus is one with the Father. It is now time for us to honor His blood as one big, powerful family. WYSIWYG is like working with family because we are all perfecting our love-walks by operating in these values. It’s all part of the perfecting of the saints; praise God that we are all in this together.

Sarah Mattioli is a new intern with Christian WYSIWYG Filmworks and is now working in childcare.

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