The Dove

Look into these childish eyes opened wide in innocence. Peer within her soul and see, as fine paper carefully torn and shredded, the remains of her mind and spirit. This the shadow left behind of the personal destruction, not wrought by the random act of a deranged stranger, but by the hand of he who was meant to protect and provide for her. These murderous blows have left no physical mark but the inner devastation may never heal. The perpetrator of this secret crime enjoyed each artfully placed remark and each twist of natural affection; relishing his superiority and the entertainment found in these mind games. He is an emotional vampire, not feeding upon the blood of his victims but upon their pain and raw emotion. Long ago, he shut himself down emotionally and can only experience feeling vicariously through those weaker than himself, especially his child. In her he sees what he needs to see in himself, godlike power and strength reflected back to him by the helplessness of his victim. The knowledge that eventually his source will be destroyed by his feeding is of little consequence to him. In his eyes one may see the inner torment of one who has long lived in opposition to his own conscience and the innocence that remains in the eyes of his child drives him on to her destruction.

The child grows and is filled with rage that she turns inward in self-destruction. She has been well trained in bearing the sin of others as she has always born what her father could not bear to see in himself. This child that should have been cherished, loved, and honored as her own person has not yet grown into her own person but exists merely, as her father's sin eater. She is the reflection of his own dreaded imperfection. After fifteen years, the child cannot bear to eat the sin of her father any longer and castes herself headlong into the world. There she is met by others of the same type as the tormentor that she sought to leave behind. She has been educated in a manner that fits their purposes exactly. Each in turn, they amuse themselves with her and feed upon her childish gullibility. They pass her around and feed her the drugs that she learns to love as they are the doorway of the only escape she has ever known from her emotional pain. When she is bitter, sick, and broken they toss her away as so much garbage. She is a broken play-thing with nothing left in her by which she might survive.

At eighteen, her eyes reflect as in splintered glass the image of her shattered soul. The drugs that eased her pain have turned on her, and imprisoned her, and her heart is devoid of hope. Yet, deep inside she is still but a child; a child that has never been. This young woman who's life has been shaped by the cruel hands of others and the drugs she used to escape them, is but a shell surrounding the true person, the dove that fearfully, hides within. This dove is the innocence that could never be touched by all the abuse that the outer child survived. The innocence that she was not even aware of and no other could see, called out for rescue in indiscernible whispers of hope laced with pain. It was the dove that Jesus recognized as His own and it was to that dove of innocence that the Holy Spirit called. The innocence that empowered her to believe and call upon the Name of the Son of God. This Name that days before meant nothing to her had in an instant become her only hope. Her childlike gullibility no longer a deficit but a treasure to the One Who values children and knows what makes them strong. It is Jesus Who makes them strong and it is Jesus who took this battered child close to Him; and into all the cracks that threatened her with eternal death and destruction, He breathed His life and with patient, craftsman like care, undid all that the evil one had done.

This child is an old woman now but still, she is also, forever, a child. The dove of innocence still resides within her, protected, nurtured, and cherished by the One Who saved her and restored her to what the Father desired her to be.