IT ISN'T OVER

When I was two,
I saw blood splash on the floor.
No one explained what was happening.

The next thing I heard was a siren,
and a few men dressed in black and blue
running through the house,
breaking up somebody.

Yes, he looked like a man I know,
holding a woman down,
holding her to the ground so hard.

I did not understand.
But I knew something was wrong.
When I became six,
it became clear to me.

I had lost the woman who mattered most in my life.
And not only had I lost her,
I had lost the man who was supposed to be my shield.

The man who was supposed to protect.
The man who was supposed to love.

The woman who meant everything to me
was taken by the very man
who was supposed to protect her.

They taught me in children's church:
"Christ loves everybody."
But I couldn't understand a love like that.

So I asked,
"Why me?"
Again.
And again.
And again.

When I became ten,
I made a promise to myself.
I wasn't going to let anyone come close to me.
Especially not a man.

Because if I let someone close,
I would become vulnerable.
And if I became vulnerable,
I could be hurt.
I could be disappointed.
I could be abandoned.
Or worse,
I could lose everything again.

So when I became fifteen,
I closed the door of my heart.
I thought a heart that couldn't feel
couldn't be broken.
So I chose stone.

I built walls around myself.
I locked the gates.
I put up every defense I could find.
I told myself:
"If I don't want to be broken,
I cannot have a heart of flesh."

But I didn't understand something.
A heart that cannot feel cannot fully live either.

Then I became twenty.
And I found love
in a Man who died thousands of years ago.
Jesus.

But I wasn't ready to believe it.
I said, "No. This cannot be true."
How could someone love this much
that He would give His own life?

I had seen love in real life.
I had seen what people could do
with the very people they claimed to love.
I had seen someone who was supposed to protect
become the reason someone needed protection.

So I couldn't understand a God
who would willingly give His life for me.
I had spent my life learning to fear
the man who could take a life.

And now I was being introduced
to a Man who gave His.
So I said no.
I wasn't going to believe it.

But then I became twenty-five.
And I finally understood.
Jesus loved me first.
Before I knew Him,
He knew me.

Before I could call His name,
He had already called me His own.
Before I understood what love was,
He had already demonstrated it.
He loved me while I was still a sinner.

And suddenly, I understood.
The love I had feared
wasn't the love Jesus came to give me.
The man who hurt me
had taught me to associate love with pain.
But Jesus taught me
what love actually was.

One destroyed.
Another restored.
One left me with a heart of stone.
Another gave me a heart of flesh.

He began tearing down the walls
I had spent years building.
He opened the gates
I had locked shut.

He showed me that vulnerability
wasn't always weakness.
He showed me that love
didn't always have to end in loss.
And most importantly,
He showed me that
He is not like the one who hurt me.

I may never forget what happened
when I was two.
But now, when I look back at that little girl,
I don't only see the blood.
I don't only hear the sirens.
I don't only remember the loss.

I look past two.
And I look back
two thousand years ago.
To another Man.

A Man who didn't take a life.
He gave His.
A Man who wasn't supposed to be my shield
but became my salvation.

A Man who wasn't supposed to know me
but knew me before I ever knew Him.
A Man who loved me
before I could even understand love.

And because of Him,
my story didn't end at two.
It didn't end at six.
It didn't end at ten.
It didn't end at fifteen.
It didn't end with the walls I built at twenty.
And it doesn't end with the pain I carry.

Because Jesus gave me a life
I never thought I could have.
So yes,
I remember.

But I am no longer defined
by what happened to me.
I am defined by the One
who loved me through it.

And if you're listening to this
and you think your story is over,
look again.
Because your story is not over.
Mine isn't either.

©Favour Obaseki