Of Pain

Image from: http://harmanjit.blogspot.com/2008/12/two-criminals.html

She lied to me about the scars on her wrists.

She said they were from nurse training; something about carrying a board. But people don’t carry things on their wrists. They use their hands - she should have had scars on her palms. She didn’t.

She had tried only once; all the scars were the same color and height. She had cut herself at least three or four times on each wrist – not just once or twice self-deprecatingly. She had been serious when she tried.

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I was sitting in science class on a Tuesday morning. Right next door, a student was using the white phone on the secretary’s desk. She was talking quickly, frantically and then she stopped.

“Her phone went dead” she shrieked. “Oh my God, She – she was screaming. ‘The tower is falling!’ and her phone went dead.”  

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One day when I was seven or eight, a family friend and his son came over for dinner and I asked where the mommy was. My father quickly and quietly motioned for me to hush.  When I was older, my mom told me that Mrs. Gordon was a cocaine addict and would disappear from home. My family would sometimes watch her son while her husband went to look for her on the streets.

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How far you fell, Adam.

"When will all things be restored?" Even the hope of an answer is grace.  And there is an Answerer . . .  

So with the stars in our eyes, His breath in our lungs, and the earth in our veins,

we cry Abba,

 Father.

 And we shall live to see these days restored.