Working with kids who have been physically, emotionally or sexually abused has its moments. Some are moments frozen in time, some are etched in your heart, some are anguished and seem to last an eternity of seconds.
I was sitting on the hallway floor, my legs crossed. I'm leaning forward slightly to hear the soft voice of the fourteen year old girl who is also sitting on the floor, leaning with her back against the wall. It is getting increasingly difficult for this 275+ pound, fifty-something preacher to get up and down from such positions as this and between the discomfort of a very hard floor, the arthritis settling in several joints and the intensity of a moment needing to be seized, I was pretty much immobilized. It was just my eyes moving, and my mind racing. My eyes were searching her face. My mind was stretching past my training and reaching for that waft of the spirit that transcends logic and reason, bypasses emotion.
"Reverend, I heard that my mom may be dying of cancer and I'm glad." She is staring straight at me, her eyes locked with mine. I don't respond. "Is it wrong that I'm glad?" Oooooh boy, "Do you wish you could feel sorry that she's dying?" I asked softly. Her eyes have pooled with tears, now they begin to slide down her face. She still has her eyes intently upon my face. "She used to tie me to the table so guys could do things to me. They would pay her."
Still looking deep into my eyes she asks "Is God mad at me?" I begin to slowly shake my head no. "God isn't mad at you. His heart is broken that you have been hurt so badly." She begins to bite her lip and cry.
About a week later she asked me to help her find some scriptures so she could "figure out if God was mortal or not..." She also wanted to know exactly "what kind of sins are included if God does forgive me" and what if "I mess up and do stuff again that God has already forgiven me for before?" I take a Bible and we look at John chapter four, then Romans chapter seven and finally, 1 John chapter 1. She is ready for me to pray with her. She looks over at me (I'm sitting in a rocking chair this time) and smiles. It's not a big smile, more just a look of being at peace. "Reverend, I think I'm kind of sorry my mom is dying."
I explain gently the philosophy a man named C.S. Lewis had expressed about "doing unto others" and "loving our neighbor as our self." We don't always like our self, we don't always have to like our neighbor, nor our mom. We do want things to generally work out good for our self, so we should want things to generally work out good for our neighbor, or our mom. We don't always deserve good things, but then neither does our neighbor, nor our mom. She understood.
I wish you grace, peace and forgiveness.