Sunday, August 21, 2011

This fragile life

It could have been yesterday, or ten years ago by this world's clock, but this story exists outside of time, outside of any dimention we are familliar with as we rush around in our busy lives. It could have happened in your own neighborhood, but would you have known it?
It was a dark night here on earth, clouds covered the sky and a new moon hid from sight far in outer space. But still, a worried father looked down on the broken heart of one of his children crying in a dark corner where she thought nobody would hear her. She'd never known her mother, only the picture she had found in the back of the basement gave her any idea what she had looked like. The day before had been a hard one, her father had come home drunk again, the bruises on her face still showed evidence of it. Scars on her wrists, still unhealed were a not so distant reminders of the pain she could not escape from no matter how hard she tried. Tonight, she was determined to escape. She trembled in emotional anguish, trying to block out the screams in her head. At fourteen years old, many would consider her still a child, but she had experienced more pain and hardships than most women four times her age. She looked down at the bump just beginning to show under her sweatshirt. Tonight marked four months since that horrible night in the basement, all she could really remember were the smells and sounds vividly emblazoned in her mind. There had been at least 4 or 5 of them, maybe more, she had lost conciousness long before it was over. She was too terrified to tell anybody, her father threatened to kill her if anybody found out. She took daily abuse at school by her classmates calling her fat, if only they knew the story behind the scenes.. if only.. if only they knew that she was being thrown into motherhood far before she was ready, in a world that many of them would do anything to pretend didn't exist.

She ducked her head as a few raindrops began to fall from the cloudy sky, nearly ignoring the way she was shivering from the cold. She had nothing left in her to feel anything anymore. No joy, no pain, just emptyness.

Underneath the tears she was a beautiful young woman, eyes that could win a person over in a moment if they had ever gotten the chance to sparkle, a smile that could have charmed a king, but it never got to show itself to the world, a heart as big as a mountain, that never knew love.

She stood up, turned down another ally and aimlessly wandered toward the river. She was out of options, she didn't know where to go. Another tear rolled down her cheek as she pulled her long dark hair to cover her face. She was so full of emotions, so inextricably tangled in thoughts running through her head, yet at the same time, empty and emotionless. She was at the bottom of the barrel, the end of the road, there was nobody to listen to her.

She came to the side of the river, a heavy rainfall all day had swollen it to it's brink. She stood there, staring into the dark, silently crying for help. A pair of headlights pulled up from the darkness of the forest across the nearby bridge. The driver turned to look at her, and drove off quickly with a look of disgust at the dirty clothes, the unkempt hair, the wild look in her eyes. She turned away, and with her heart racing, she walked off the ledge into the dark swirling water below, embracing the cold water as it closed her in, tossing and tumbling her tiny frame through the floodwaters. The pressure crushed upon her lungs, and before long they were filled with the icy cold water as her life slowly slipped out of her body, her unborn baby along with her.

My friend, that driver just might have been you. Two lives could have been saved that night if you had only let go of those judgemental thoughts, if you had only listened to that quiet voice in the back of your head. That child shares the same Father as you do, He wispers into your spirit to help out the helpless, but will you take the time to listen? This story doesn't have to end tonight, perhaps tomorrow you will come across that little girl, but will you take the time to stop?

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