“… And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:20
HE was always right there…
Right next to me…
Although, I didn’t see it.
I was too busy clawing the sand…
While trying to climb out of the pit.
I’d write in my journals of morbid things…
Of sadness, despair, and death;
And all the while, HE stood right there…right next to me,
Yet, I never felt HIS breath.
I’d write, “I’m alone, with not one to love, and
I’m sure that no one loves me…”
Then I’d look in the mirror, and ask myself,
“How could all of this be?”
“I’m not a bad person…I have a good heart.
I like to help people, I have love to impart;
But, I’m always alone; I feel tired and old.
I want to share something with someone…
I want someone to hold!”
Then, I’d pray for the courage to do myself in…
But something always stopped me…
It must have been HIM!
When I felt pushed into the corner,
My back up against the wall…
Ready to die and just end it all…
I’d hear HIS faint voice,
Like a light, slashing through the fog in my mind.
I’d hear HIS call…so quiet…so kind.
And thus I survived for thirty-nine years…
Smiles one day, and the next day tears.
Now, I can hardly remember those days;
They seem like a blur…a foggy haze.
Until I read in a book one day,
Of a girl with an apartment, overlooking the bay.
******
This girl wasn’t on welfare, a prostitute, or drug addict…
She never acted crazy, went to jail…or was erratic.
NO! She went to the gym, and hosted parties…
She was respected!
But her diary revealed things,
No one ever had suspected.
She was jealous, she was lonely…
Felt unwanted, and abandoned.
Had many lovers, but little love…
Felt like a castaway, alone on an island.
“Who is going to love me?” She wrote in her diary.
“I want to cry and sleep forever…”
Her message was as clear as could be!
Then one day, her body died from wounds caused by a knife…
But her heart had died, long before that day
She decided to take her own life!
Still…HE had been there…right by her side…
But she, like me, didn’t see it.
That quicksand of loneliness, drug her
Down…down…down…
Deep into the pit!
As she wrote in her diary of despair and death,
HE stood right there…right next to her,
But she never felt HIS breath!
And at the end, when she took that knife,
And held it tight in her hand…
HE called to her and showed her HIS wounds…
But she didn’t understand,
That HE had always loved her…
Loved her so much that HE,
Had died for her, long before she was born,
Just to set her spirit free.
So, on that day, when she suddenly died…
HE stood beside her, and HE wept, and HE cried!
For long ago, on that cruel tree,
HE poured out HIS love, for you, and for me;
But some people like her, never do see;
So they die alone…in their agony,
While HE cries, and HE weeps for Calvary!
******
I’m glad for the day that I came to see
Everything HE had done for me!
While having thoughts of suicide…
HE stood right there…right by my side!
Now, years later, while reading that book,
It finally occurred to me…
That if I hadn’t heard HIS kind, soft voice…
That girl I was reading about…could have been me!
Anita Mondragon October 2005