The Child Within

For many years I would lay awake at night listening to the sounds of a child crying. I did everything I could to try to keep the voice silent but could never tell where it was coming from. It grew worse with time as the crying became louder and I was beginning to sense the child's pain. No one around me seemed to hear the child, so I knew that for my sake I had to keep it to myself. Somehow, for unknown reasons, this child had selected me.

Silence and the night were becoming as tormentors. It was then that the child would come to me for help and deliverance but I could do nothing. I was forced to listen and to know the hurt and anger. Why was this happening to me? I begged the child to show herself so that I could hold her and protect her, but there was never a response. Always the same, the sounds of a soul that had been left to die. A heart full of love and gentleness somewhere isolated and forgotten.

For a time, I didn't hear the child. I realized that silence was worse as I believed the child to be dead. Feeling like I should have done something yet knowing that there was nothing I could have done, I decided to not feel anything for anyone again. All feeling and emotion I was determined to leave behind.

A few years passed and I created the person I thought I should be and buried all else very deep. I avoided silence for fear my walls would weaken. I stopped one day to enjoy the peaceful beauty of the sky, not realizing I was walking into the realm I feared the most. Soft and distant cries broke through the silence and I knew the child had returned.

I stood on the shore and yelled as loud as I could, "Damn it, you have to show yourself or I can't help you." Suddenness of pain from a heart once closed tight, forced me to my knees. After a few moments, I lifted my head and saw for the first time the child. I looked in her eyes and saw the tears just as a teardrop hit the water. It was then I realized that I had been looking at a reflection of me.

(c) 1997 Shaunda Clifton, His Image Ministries

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