Peace. Be Still.

Hey Bud,

I think we've known each other long enough and shared in a durable-enough friendship for me to say to you what I'm about to! But first, a confession. Years ago, when we were introduced, you casually held my hand and remarked that my fingers and nail polish were beautiful.  I fell in love---with you---then and there! It may have been an offhand compliment, but I sensed your honesty, sensitivity, discernment, and just plain good taste.  (If beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, so is love).

Seriously, I have one basic question from which others may derive.  First, don't you think it's time to divest yourself of the imposed shackles you wear? The restraints probably are unnoticed by most people, but I see them clearly.  You wear them around like a Slidell Penitentiary inmate, the bonds tied at the waist, and clanging to announce your presence. Sadly, your heart, soul, and spirit are tethered to that ball and chain as well.

First and foremost, Friend, I am not and cannot minimize your decades of accumulating pain, misery, and trauma.  To have been brutally shorn of your innocence by a trusted and presumed-safe friend of the family is enough, more than enough, to wound, maim, and imprison every moment of your life! Even worse, that despicable,  destructive adult threatened your life, which created fear of everyone and everything when you weren't old enough to understand.  Dastardly doesn't begin to describe the wretchedness you've tried to submerge beneath an iceberg of grief and loss.

Yet, you've tried.  You've valiantly attempted to look and act "normal," when that term had been excised from your life.  And oh, the hell it has put you through. the life it's extracted from the very marrow of your being.  I've watched you try to reconcile what happened to you and wrestle with the multiple "whys" that haunt you.  You became preoccupied with questions that had no satisfactory answers.  The Rolling Stones wailed:

"I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no satisfaction
"Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can't get no, I can't get no"

Struggles have taken their insufferable toll over and again. This brings my next question.  Haven't you relinquished enough of yourself, enough of your life, hopes, and dreams already for the punishment of being in the wrong place at the wrong time for the wrong thing to happen? Haven't you? Haven't you?  I'll answer.  Yes.  You.  Have!  Does that sick predator have the right to cut off another piece of you? Haven't you suffered grievously enough? Yes. You. Have!

You must be exhausted, empty, depleted. You've been left with porous possibilities and bankrupt balances.  Enough, already! No, you can't get back what he took from you.  Yes, you'll continue to mourn the loss of innocence that he capriciously snatched from you.  No, you don't know how to recover or how to stop mourning, nor would I expect you to.  Yes, you can do something about your sorry situation. What can you do? I'm glad you finally asked, Bud!

I want to introduce you to a Friend of mine.  Actually, I'm not His only friend, although He treats me as though I were.  What's His name?

"What a friend we have in Jesus
All our sins and griefs to bear
  What a privilege to carry
Ev'rything to God in prayer!

Yes, Jesus.

O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear
All because we do not carry
Ev'rything to God in prayer!

But don't ask me how He'll do it.  That's way beyond my pay grade.  Plus, it's none of my business! I can say this about Him, however; what happens between you and Jesus stays with Jesus. You're not in  Vegas, Bud; you're in the safest place,  His bosom.  With Jesus, friendships rest with the Maker of Friends. Jesus honors friends and certainly knows how to keep His counsel.  His word is true, reaching from everlasting to everlasting.   Ever since Jesus came into my heart,

"Amazing grace shall always be my song of praise,
For it was grace that bought my liberty,
I do not know just why He came to love me so,
He looked beyond my fault and saw my need.

Yes, Jesus.

I shall forever lift my eyes to Calvary,
To view the Cross where Jesus died for me,
How marvelous the grace that caught my falling soul,
He looked beyond my fault and saw my need."

Love you, Bud!