Chelsea Rogers peered out between the cold, metal bars onto the concrete floor. The light was off again in the basement dictating the long hours of night. As she began to shiver she pulled her one, thin blanket over her legs trying to warm herself as she began to uncontrollably shake trying to meet her small body’s desire for warmth.
When the morning came Chelsea could not remember sleeping, but now she had to go to the bathroom and when no one came to remember her, she peed on herself in hopes that someone might come to clean her up soon, but more often than not soon never came.
You see, Chelsea Rogers did not have a bed, a mother’s hug or a nice warm meal. Chelsea was kept in the basement of her parent’s home in a 2x3 dog cage. It is even presumed that the cage may have been smaller.
When I think about what Chelsea’s parents did to her I think that she is going to need to do a lot of work and invest a lot of time to heal in order to find herself in a healthy place from such an awful, violating past. I wonder who is going to love her and who is going to understand that sometimes she’s going to feel fear, find it hard to trust and find it, harder still, to know what love really feels like. Wouldn’t it be amazing though if someone could see Chelsea, understand her pain and love her in spite of it all?
I think most of us want to be loved. I think a lot of us are afraid to find where love will meet us because we have been hurt, or wronged by someone that should have loved us but didn’t. We wait still and the longer we wait the more it hurts when no one finds us and sometimes, the more lost without love we become.
I remember meeting someone once that told me he was not sure that ever having love was important to him. He was a self-made millionaire, handsome and seemed to have it all. He was also recently separated from his wife who he fought for only to have her ungratefully leave and try to take everything they had earned together as a family. It was obvious to me that David was deeply hurt by her.
David and I enjoyed some time together during a vacation away from home last fall near a beautiful beach. Lying on the beach one afternoon he turned to me and said he wanted to share something, but didn’t know how to say it. I told him that he could trust me. He turned to me and said that he felt loved. I was very surprised. Although David had said he wasn’t sure if love was important to him, I found it revealing that it was important enough to him to disclose the feeling of love in that moment.
I think there is a place inside of all of us where we want to be loved. For some, there is a nested desire for someone to reach deep into us and love the best and the worst places of our being. We wish for someone to wrap their arms around every inch of who we are and what is important to us. We need someone that will accept that sometimes we will fail and sometimes we will be afraid. We need someone that won’t give up. We need a hug. We need love.
“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality.” – Viktor Frankl
“Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.” – Robert Frost
1 Peter 4:8 - Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
“If there is love, there is hope that one may have real families, real brotherhood, real equanimity, and real peace. If the love within your mind is lost and you see other beings as enemies, then no matter how much knowledge or education or material comfort you have, only suffering and confusion will ensue." - Nagarjuna
"Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
but to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain,
but for the heart to conquer it.
Let me not look for allies in life’s battlefield,
but to my own strength.
Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved,
but hope for the patience to win my freedom.
Grant that I may not be a coward,
feeling Your mercy in my success alone;
But let me find the grasp of Your hand in my failure.”
by Rabindranath Tagore
No comments:
Post a Comment