Dear Child,
I know what happened; I was there. Your innocent heart was like a rosebud, a pure white flower in a crystal vase. Then an evil hand came and smudged one of the petals. In your innocence, you were soon able to forget and go on with your play.
You didn’t know this wasn’t normal, you didn’t know this was wrong but you kept it to yourself, why?
Maybe because it made you feel uncomfortable, maybe because you were afraid he would find out and get upset. But it continued, one petal after another was smudged then crushed until one day the flower withered and died and the water of joy that had been feeding it had also drained away.
As a young child, you soon learned to be afraid of—him. By nature, you would have been carefree, but a shell that some called shyness was developing around you.
Time passed and you gradually became more aware of right and wrong. You saw younger children still carrying the beautiful bud of innocence but yours was gone, faded and dying. It was then you began to realise that the delicate vase that was in your heart had also been crushed and the broken pieces were piercing you, causing much pain.
Is that the end: a broken heart, a dying flower?
It seemed like. In fact, the cuts festered over the years as you learned this was not normal and many were going through life happy because no evil monster had snatched away the flower of innocence and left a broken heart.
By now, those pieces have embedded deep into your heart but you observed others were acting ‘normally’ so pretended to do the same. How can a person be ‘normal’ when the slightest memory brings pain and bad experiences would cause the old wounds to start bleeding away?
How can you go on like this? But you did, year after year, you raised a family, had a caring husband …and prayed…
I keep ‘seeing’ the Great Physician hovering over me while I write; He wants me to remind you how He removed those crushed shards one by one and poured in the healing balm of love.
I know and am grateful for what He has done, but there are
I may have lost that flower of innocence at too young an age but it’s okay, now, because the Great Physician gave me what feels like a Garden of Eden in return
