“My stepfather raped me 3 times. I’m going to kill him!” said this teen girl who was talking to Dave Roever, a motivational speaker, and to her high school counselor.
Roever later said, "I know the difference between a promise and a threat. This was no threat."
"I realized that all of my training in college level psychology and sociology had not prepared me for this confession of pain."
"I didn’t know what to say..."
His own excruciating memories blasted in--
"I lost 40% of my skin and 60 pounds of flesh to a hand grenade in Vietnam."
"She lost...to a rapist of a step-father along with her trust, faith, and...protection."
"I didn’t know how she felt and I wasn’t going to fake it."
"Not now."
--
"What could I say?"
"I began to weep..."
Then, suddenly, this distraught young girl
"reached across the table, nervously wiped the tear from my face and said,
'Nobody’s ever cried for me.'”
"I lost it...started crying and threw my arms around her and soaked her sleeve with tears."
"She patted me on the back and tried to comfort me, saying,'It’s okay, Mister. It’s okay.'”
The girl's counselor sat quietly, waiting.
--
The girl "dried my tears, and then I allowed something I would probably never allow anyone else to do except my...doctor..."
This traumatized student touched the man's severely scarred face, tracing every fissure...
"...only the deepest empathy...She spoke quietly, 'Mister, your scars are all on the outside;
mine are on the inside.'"
"But if you can make it, I can make it, too!”
"...the pain always bleeds through in tears of broken lives...'
By Dave Roever
Unknown Source Article
--
What a powerfully deep true story.
So many Annie's* and Jim's out there...
Whether in Syria, Iraq, or down the street in any major U.S. city, when “the night comes on,”
the Ocean of darkness...
Weep with those who suffer, with those wounded, with those so tragically scarred.
Reach out and help each individual in need.
Please touch their faces of hurt, wounding, and suffering.
Touch the heart of this hurting world.
Heal their wounds. Touch their scars with empathy, compassion, and caring.
Work for a more humane world, one filled with truth, goodness, and beauty.
*"For Annie"
No one ever noticed Annie weeping
People all around, but she was all alone
Mama's got her meetings, Daddy's got his job
and no one's got the time so Annie's on her own
No one ever knew her desperation
People couldn't hear her cry out silently
Locked inside the bathroom she grabs a jar of pills
The medicine that cures becomes the poison that kills
[Chorus]
And it's too late for Annie, she's gone away for good
There's so much we could tell her and now we wish we could
But it's too late, it's too late for Annie
--
If only we had known her situation,
We'd have tried to stop this useless tragedy
Annie's lost forever, never to be found
But there are lots of others like her all around
[3rd Chorus]
And it's not too late for Annie, she could be next to you...
--
PETRA
Songwriters
Robert M Hartman
Published by
DAWN TREADER MUSIC
In the Light,
Daniel Wilcox
