In the Wee Hours by Susan L.

  It's just before two thirty AM. I don't know if I forgot to take my meds, a rare event, or if it is simply more of the sleep issues that have become part of my life again over the last few weeks. Rather than turn off the light and hope for sleep, I decided to do something I haven't done for a long, long time. Over a cup of lemon verbena tea which will hopefully take the edge of the wide eyed wariness that has become part of every night lately, I'm going to have a chat with my Lord.
  I don't feel safe. It's not that there's anyone around. A country road at this time of night has an abandoned feel about it. The doors and windows are locked tight. It's my mind that keeps betraying me.
  I close my eyes, on the verge of sleep then, "Pow!" From some gray and wrinkled corner of memory, unwanted, unbidden, awful events replay themselves in full, glorious Technicolor. There's no need to go hunting for them. There's no need to think back trying to remember details. They pounce and I open my eyes, afraid to shut them again.
  Lord, You know the last couple of weeks at church have been hard for me. Learning about relationships between men and women, learning about marriages, has stirred up much I would just as soon forget.
  The boots. My ex found it highly amusing to wear his barn boots into the kitchen where, especially in the winter, the muck would run onto the floor. He would lift them long enough for me to put a piece of newspaper under his feet, laughing like it was an amazingly funny joke no matter how frustrated I got or how often I asked him to take them off at the door.
  This one, often repeated, act has come to symbolize that relationship.
  I don't think I am bitter about it. Sad, yes. Sad for the woman who was so brow-beaten that this blatant disrespect and display of power and control could even happen. It took twenty years of careful training on his part. My training. I learned my lessons well.
  I know I am not her any more but she is me. She will always be part of me. Her life is my memories. Yet, even then, when depression wrapped it's cold, dark waters around my heart and mind, in another gray and wrinkled corner of my mind, a fragment held the vain hope that there was something better, something More to life.
  I have found that Better. The One who loves me regardless of the newspaper, regardless of what has happened in the past. Regardless of how I sold myself off piece by piece for the illusion of being loved.
  Can I forgive those who took this most basic human need for love and corrupted it? Who mocked it? Who used it for their own gain? Who shaped the memories that haunt me?
  I try. I continue trying.
  I cannot and will not hate.
 
  Can I forgive myself?  Can I forgive myself for so desperately needing to be loved that I would do anything asked of me?

  (A startled laugh bursts through the tears I've been fighting back for a long while now.)
  Except have buffalo on the farm.
  Thank You, Lord, for reminding me about that. I told my ex I would leave if he brought them to the farm as yet another animal for me to look after. They are extremely dangerous wild animals. He didn't buy them but I paid a price in silence.
  In that, Lord, I know You gave me strength to go against his will. Because of that small, terribly brave, moment of rebellion, You kept me safe so that umpteen years later, we could have this chat.
  And I think I can finally go to sleep.
  "Blessed is the (wo)man You choose, and cause to approach You, that (s)he may dwell in Your courts." Ps 65:4