BP140
A dream Bethany had . . .
I am walking through a forest on a narrow trail. The canopy of branches above me screens out most of the sky except occasional slivers of blue sky and white clouds. The pine needles crunch beneath my feet and birds are singing brightly in the forest. A warm breeze caresses the skin of my face and arms. The world around me is peaceful but my heart is restless, unsettled. I do not know why. Until . . .
The path curves to the right and I see her suddenly as if she had appeared out of thin air. She is walking toward me in a white dress, maybe thirty feet away. I normally don’t stare at strangers, but I can’t take my eyes off the woman. I only look at her face. It is not young, but neither is it old. Her expression is one of blissful contentment, but it is her eyes that capture me. They shine. Literally. They are not scary eyes, but beautiful and mysterious.
She looks familiar to me. I know that I know her, but I don’t know from where. Oh, who is she I keep asking myself as I rack my brain for an answer.
When she gets close, she stops and clears her throat. Immediately, I know that she wishes to speak with me. Even more than that, I know that the reason she has come into the forest is to see me. She is on a mission, and I am her objective. Could she be–
Even before she speaks her greeting, “Hello, mother,” I am weeping.
I brush away my tears and whisper in a voice husky with emotion, “Who are you?”
“You know who I am,” she says.
I shake my head and reply haltingly, “You look familiar, but I cannot place you.”
She gets to the point quickly. “I lived inside of you for 121 days.”
Her words hit me like a ballpeen hammer right between my eyes. I actually shriek—I’ve never done that in my life—and fall to my knees.
I begin to stammer something. She gets down on her knees next to me and looks at me with those eyes. I cannot return her gaze.
“My name is ‘_______’, the woman says. She utters a word I try to pronounce even as I struggle to remember it. It won’t stay in my mind when I try to rehearse it. I try to say it once, but it flies off my tongue like an ephemeral butterfly and disappears into the trees.
“You won’t be able to say it,” she says. “God gave it to me. It is a name that lives only in heaven.”
I stare at the ground in front of me and begin counting the acorns scattered on the path. I don’t want to feel or think or look up into the penetrating eyes of the child I—rejected.
“I’m not here for me but for you,” she says matter-of-factly.
I clear my throat and glance into her eyes that are so deep I cannot see the bottom of them. They just keep going on and on and on into . . . well, into eternity.
I wipe away more tears and look away. “I’m glad you have a name,” I mumble. “I—never gave you one. I didn’t know even if—if you were a boy or a girl.”
I pause and shake my head, trying to clear it of something that is making my mind foggy. “I didn’t want to know what you were–who you were,” I stammer between sobs. “I just wanted it all to go away. It seemed so much easier for me to get rid of the interruption—get rid of . . . you.”
My daughter is silent. I am in agony.
If I am honest, I am waiting for her to soothe me or tell me I had no other choice or that so may mothers have done what I did. I want to do what I’ve been doing for the last two years—rationalizing and denying truth.
When she says none of these things to make my choice less dark, less accusing, a wave of anger crashes through me. It is meant for her—my own daughter–as if it is her fault I am feeling ashamed. How can I be angry at the baby I spurned? I bury my face in my hands and hate myself.
She finally speaks, but not the words I want to hear.
“People choose the path that appears easier but in truth damages their souls for the rest of their lives. They feel a burden of shame and self-hatred deep inside themselves. They carry it within them like another embryo. They direct their rage at anyone who intentionally or unintentionally touches not their baby bump but their shame bump.
“The truth is that you can choose to carry God’s creation in you to full term and birth him or her, or you can kill your baby and instead conceive something else that will grow inside you until the day you die. You may never consciously admit it or choose to believe it, but something will inhabit you that manifests in depression, anxiety, defensiveness, even anger toward God, others, and your own self.”
“I don’t need a lecture!” I abruptly snap, the words rushing from my mouth seemingly before I thought them. My fiery eyes dart to her glowing eyes for a moment before I am forced to look away. I am still crying, half from grief, half from rage. This is my daughter! I love her and I hate her. What a grotesque creature I am!
Before I can even think, more words rush from my mouth. “It’s my body, my uterus, my choice!” I scream. I cover my mouth with my hand, but it is too late—I have already spoken harsh words to the child I sacrificed on the altar of my—selfishness and fear.
The woman in white sitting next to me who should only be two years old in earth years and whose life interrupted my own, clears her throat softly and says, “Mother, all thoughts are thinkable, but that doesn’t make them livable. You can believe and insist on whatever you wish, but that doesn’t make it true or compatible with joy and a life well lived.”
I try to find words to say, but they will not come. My throat is closed by strong emotions that strangle me.
“I am not here to moralize or crush you with shame,” the woman says quietly. “Godly sorrow would be healthy, but you’re not in a place to receive the truth that would induce repentance at this time. You just want to do what works for you and not be under any authority. Your heart is hard, mother. Calloused. You need to be softened.”
“No one tells me who I am or what I should do!” I yell. “Those are for me alone to decide!” This time, I dare to stare at the woman for four or five seconds with defiance in my eyes.
“Exactly,” the woman says, nodding her head slowly. “As I said, it’s all about your right to choose. You are not receptive to correction even if it is gentle, loving, and it will extend the length of your days in this world.”
I raise my hand to slap my daughter, but she has already gotten to her feet. I cannot believe myself. I am willing to physically assault my own daughter! It strikes me then that I already am guilty of ending her life. I begin a free fall into darkness.
I feel a hand like that of an angel rest on my head and then I hear her say, “I have much I could tell you, but you are not able to bear it now. So, I will simply tell you that we would have been good friends had you allowed it.”
An unbearable ocean of grief fills my heart and I look up at the woman who is my daughter. She says, “And one more thing, had I lived, I would have saved your future son, my brother, from the alcohol addiction that will claim his life. There is yet another way to prevent his premature death—if you love him with a love that only comes from Jesus. If you do that, your son, Daniel, will save you all.”
I am mute. I am crushed by everything she is saying. Could I be softening?
“Do not despair, mother. Jesus knows you and came with mercy and great love to call you out of darkness and into light, to deliver you from the power of Satan to God. He will forgive you and I will see you again one day if you turn from your hardness of heart and choose Him instead of your sovereign right to choose.”
The woman looks down on me with her eyes that are from another world and says, “I will be waiting for you and looking for you–mom.”
I close my eyes against the dissonance inside of me, then struggle to my feet. When I look to where she had just been standing, she is gone. I scan to my right and see her walking away from me into a fog that has suddenly appeared in the forest.
As I rack my brain for her name so I can call after her, I awaken. I am no longer in the forest. I am babbling . . . and weeping on my bed.
I place my hand on my forehead and sense a great battle within me. If I do not do something in the next ten seconds, I will simply slide back into my groove—my rut—that I have been in for years. Nothing will change if I ignore this wakeup call.
Maybe there will never be another.
I get out of bed and walk to the mirror on the wall. I stare at the bump in my abdomen and say, “God, you have my attention. May I not repeat the same mistake. What do you want me to do? Help me to keep and love my son–Daniel.
“I cannot do it on my own.”
Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations” ~ Jeremiah 1:4,5.
On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help” ~ Proverbs 22:10,11.
To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God by walking in his laws ~ Daniel 9:9,10