TITLE: BBNB1-The Light Of Day By David (The Goliath Assassin) 12/09/07 |
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Brother Larry looked around cautiously
He tapped at that old book and placed his elbow upon the Other
Brother Larry asked us all for an honest opinion, which I gave without hesitation.
While intellectually satisfying, the material wasn’t personally challenging at all.
He’d be better off supporting his talk with the Book beneath his elbow.
This was exactly the answer Brother Larry was looking for
And Brother Stephen thanked him for being more flexible than his college professors.
Brother Larry then wrinkled his face and asked us all to be open-minded.
He shared the topic that had been weighing down on his heart all week…
A two-year-old girl washed up on the beach today.
Evidence gathered from the autopsy suggests
She suffered a torturous beating from both parents, leading to her death.
They put her in a plastic bag and left her in the shed.
Over a week later, they threw her into the river.
Finally washing ashore… Finally seeing the light of day.
Brother Larry looked up at us all with tears in his eyes
Telling us instantly the testimony that would follow.
Brother Larry has a two-year-old granddaughter
And the thought of someone…
To just FORGIVE, like the Bible says…
“For all vengeance is mine.”
But so very human indeed, the desire
To end it your own way.
So what’s the point of all this?
Why did God send her here to die so young?
With the innocence of a master’s dog?
The morbid irony perfectly clear
That if they hadn’t killed her, she’d have grown up
Still loving Mommy and Daddy, even though they hurt her.
Why was she sacrificed?
Why was she the example?
Whom and what was this tragedy supposed to teach?
Well, it taught us all something today.
It taught us all that graves can be unearthed.
Hinges can be broken and closes ripped wide open.
Other people’s skeletons were found hiding in the closets of the innocent.
That is not the first child to have ever died for violence.
Even more tragic are sometimes the ones that live.
I opened-up to my church for the first time in the two months I’d been there.
Due to my past… due to the places I have lived…
Now let me preface, that it is genuinely appalling WHAT happened to that little girl…
But I’m not surprised at all THAT it happened.
Survivors of childhood abuse are never really whole again.
But never without repair.
After all, it’s mostly the superficial that gets torn away.
Patch the bleeding around the bones, and you’re slightly better off.
Missing feelings you’ll never have again.
Vulnerability more costly for you than the rest.
But a gift comes in that “overwhelming sense of awareness.”
You’re now a brutal guardian, wise to the ways of The Offender.
I told them all that I have both gratitude and regrets.
But I’d never change who I have become.
“Having been through so much, I’m confident
In my ability to weather any storm.”
The people I love will be safe.
So what’s the lesson?
Perhaps that you never know what skeletons a person hides.
Or how many people those skeletons could potentially belong to.
Perhaps the lesson is that man truly IS pure evil without Guidance.
Or that we take for granted what little time we have with each other to show affection.
Whatever the lesson is for all of you, it has taught me a great deal more…
About human nature. About myself.
About the worthlessness of hiding skeletons that don’t even belong to me.
Not all children die of violence. Not all abuses leave a bruise.
Not all abuses are allowed to enfold in their entirety.
Which might leave the victim guessing
“What if it had? What was in store? What did she suffer for my cowardice?”
And so one abuse may mutate itself into another.
Perpetually self-inflicted.
And then clouds rise up into fields of view.
Rancid clouds of filth, billowing from the skeleton’s decomposition.
The only remedy? Let the bones see the light of day.
Witness all, that my bones have been battered, but never broken.
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