Choices

She was blessed- Good home, parents loved her, provided for all her needs. A good school doing well, headed for uni for sure, life looked set.

Then Oh fateful day! A party, A ‘cool’ guy, A relationship, first of a long line of very bad choices. Oh choices. What they do to us! He was into drugs, hard stuff, and soon so was she. Her parents, pained, tear-washed pleadings, to break it, seeing her standing atop a slippery slope. But pleadings availed not.

Hooked on the guy, worse on heroin, downsliding health, alcoholled nights spent shooting up. Drawn of face, nourish-starved skin, dry and marked, pinholed and bruised with needle stick, festering wounds struggling to heal.

Missing shifts at the part time job, then losing it. Money short, so petty crime to feed the habit. Still not enough so dealing it was, and a body for sale. Then pregnancy shadowed all the rest, and the not so cool Guy shot through. Oh choices. What they do to us!

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Abandoned in her dark, grubby ill kept dungeon, pregnant, guilt wracked, tear flooded cheeks. Falling bedward. A stick-starved figure, grimy skin, scarred, matted hair, gaunt of face, and hollowed eyes empty- and so, so alone.
She slept.

Oh choices. What they do to us!

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How many hours she did not know, was it day or was it night? A cold Darkness anyway-Abandoned, gaunt of face, shrivelled, grimed, torn rags, she awoke, or did she? It was more like a dream, an unreality.

A darkness, but she could see a shimmering presence. But not the guy. This figure exuded warmth, a sense of a beautiful goodness. She could just make out hands that held what looked like a pure white cloth and a bag.

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The figure drew near and started, so gently, to remove her filthy torn rags. When they were gone, He, for she thought a He, took the cloth and pushed into what seemed to be an indentation in His side. As he withdrew it she gasped, for it seemed to be soaked in a redness and He started to oh so tenderly to bathe her scarred, wounded, shrivelled, sickly, body. As He did so a soothing, cleansing “Redness” spread over her. And inside

She marvelled at what she saw. For as the tide of red passed over her, the wounds, the scars, the marks of so, so many wrong choices, faded and she was left without spot, blemish or wrinkle. New energy and hope coursed into her small, frail, damaged frame.

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Then He reached for the bag. She gasped again, for out of it He drew a spotless, pure white robe, and dressed her, YES He dressed her in pure dazzling white. But something else, . . . . . . . . . . .

Yes there was something else. What was it-it was so, so long since she had felt it- then she knew-the great crushing, black guilt had gone and in its place an inexpressible, exquisite JOY!

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From the shimmering, now fading like a dream, a voice came, like the voice of God “It is finished! You are clean”

She cried out! How can I thank you!

And in a now growing brightness- two last words. Follow Me!

Oh choices. What they can do for us!

M J B

Easter 2015