Girl of Light

She was so filled with light. 

That sweet girl, with the big, bright smile, and the deep brown eyes. She had a big personality, and a big heart to go along with it. 

She was so hopeful. She didn’t believe in Monsters - even if there were Monsters, she knew that her God was big enough to stop them. She was invincible, she was safe, nothing could hurt her. She had the Mighty Word of God on her side - the Sword of the Spirit and the Shield of Faith. If she needed to fight off dragons, if she needed to fight off evil, she was equipped. 

Her God was Mighty. Her God was invincible. Her God lived inside of her, and she was untouchable. 

But the world did - touch her, that is. 

There was a deep darkness that laid beneath the surface of the green grass she once loved. There was a creeping evil that hid underneath the dirt, crawling up. Its roots began wrapping themselves around her ankles. 

She looked down, in panic. She frantically searched the beautiful, clear blue sky. She cried out to her Mighty God - where was He now? Didn’t He hear her? And here, she learned, there were Monsters. And even though her God was Big enough, even though He was Mighty enough, she quickly learned that it didn’t mean she was invincible. 

…

I miss her - the girl filled with light, overflowing with life. The girl who believed her God was so Mighty and so Good that He would defeat everything in her path; that she didn’t even need to worry about the existence of Monsters. But that girl lived her life in ignorance; her privileged upbringing had protected her from the Monsters that were there. She didn’t need to worry about Monsters because in her privileged life, they didn’t exist. 

But in the real world, Monsters were everywhere. They creeped around the schools, in peoples’ homes, around neighborhoods, and throughout all of the cities. She was so blinded, and because there weren’t Monsters in her life, there just weren’t Monsters. She was asleep. And she was about to wake up. 

The Monsters made their mark on their prey - they pounced on her big, blind, naive heart that made her so easy for picking. They knew that she believed she was invincible, that she believed her God was so Mighty that He would keep her from all harm. She was sick in her body, but her mind was impenetrable. 

So when an impressive 24-year-old man expressed interest in her light-filled 18-year-old heart, she closed her eyes, and she jumped. She didn’t know he wasn’t a man. 

She didn’t know he was a Monster. 

She never thought she’d be “her.” Maybe abuse existed, but it would never exist in her world. She never thought she’d be “her.” She prevailed through life with a smile on her face and such optimism. She loved people so hard and so deep, and she never second-guessed the love that she gave out so freely. 

Then, her Monster latched on. He slowly began to consume her. He was like a fire, and she was a pile of dry leaves. One touch was enough to set her ablaze, and she was burning, she was screaming, she was in excruciating pain…

But that fire was so beautiful. The flames jumped off of her in a way that captivated her. In the midst of her pain she couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by it’s beauty. The fire was so beautiful, so overwhelming, so captivating, so consuming, that the pain started to fade. It became dull. But it wasn’t that the pain was dying - 

she was becoming deadened to the pain. 

The beauty of the fire was enough to convince her to stay. When the pain would grow too great, when it started to overwhelm the beauty and she would think, “Wait, maybe this isn’t right,” her Monster would find a way to douse the flame. Maybe he would tell her she was beautiful, that she was smart, and that he was lucky to have her. Maybe he’d surprise her at college with a big, beautiful bouquet of red roses. Maybe he’d sweep her up into his arms and make her laugh. And then once again, she’d be set ablaze. 

I wish I could tell you why she stayed as long as she did, but I don’t understand it myself. I’m an onlooker behind a glass, watching the relationship play out over and over and over again in my mind, wanting to scream at her to get out before she’s burned alive. I’m pounding and I’m pounding and I’m pounding on the glass. I’m trying to get it to shatter, to warn her, get out now! He’s a Monster! Don’t you see it? My hands are bleeding and bruised. I’m breaking my fingers. I slide down the glass and I’m curled in a ball and weeping. 

The girl of light was gone. There was nothing I could do to get her back, no matter how hard I pounded, no matter how loud I screamed. She wasn’t there anymore, and no amount of ointment, no amount of bandages, no amount of gauze was ever going to put her back together again. Those scars would be there forever, and she’d be left walking through life knowing that Monsters were real. 

I wish more than anything that I could go back in time and warn that girl that there were many more Monsters in her future. I wish I could set her on a better path, remind her that she was worth far more than her first Monster made her believe. I wish I could heal those scars and put that light back inside of her beautiful, beautiful soul. But I’m an onlooker, forced to watch from the outside. I’m forced to watch her walk through six more years of torture, and too many more monsters than I wish to count. 

After those years, after the fires finally went out, there was nothing but ash. She was dirty, she was soiled, she didn’t even know where to start to clean herself up. She was burnt and blackened down to her very soul that was once filled with so much light. The fire was gone, and no beauty remained. 

Her God could make beauty out of ashes - but where was her God?

She felt so abandoned by Him. She had cried and she had cried out to him, when she finally understood what was happening to her. It took her so long, so many years, and she now looked back over those years trying to find His footprints, His fingerprints. She remembered calling out to Him in the middle of the flames, when the pain grew too great. But the fire was so loud, even if He was talking to her, it drowned Him out. She couldn’t hear Him over the roaring of her Monster. He covered her ears with his ugly claws - she tried screaming just to feel his scaly hand clamp itself over her mouth. She was silenced. 

If her God could make beauty out of ashes, then where was He? If she could be beautiful again, renewed - if that light could come back inside of her soul, where was her God to do it? 

Six years and four months after being set ablaze, she went on a Hike. She put on her boots and she grabbed her backpack, and she started up that same Mountain that so many great men and women had climbed before. Deborah, Moses, Ruth, Esther, David, Mary, Peter, and Rahab. Men and women who had stumbled on their way up just like she was going to. Judges, liars, prostitutes, queens, apostles, adulterers, deniers, prophets, and prophetesses paved the path before her - led by the exact same hope: that their God could make beauty out of their ashes. 

If they could climb this Mountain, she was sure in her heart that she could, too.