Survivors in the Night

Restless, you wake up tired. Sheets entangle you from head to toe. They’re wet with sweat. So’s your shirt.

Slept in your clothes again, didn’t you?

You get up to use the toilet.

You can’t bear the thought of going back to sleep, where terrible things await, ready to continue tortures you never asked for.

The things you know you don’t deserve.

They’re waiting even so, and there’s no way of stopping them. You can’t even go back to the bedroom.

The memories flood your consciousness. You can’t stop those, either. Those are the things that you can never forget, the source of your nightmares: helpless, taking the torture, crying, wishing you were dead, yet having no way to escape it all.

The crack of leather on skin, imparted with force, driven by rage.

The sexual assaults, then rapes as you grew older but still not old enough to stop them.

The public humiliation. Your face is constantly hot, making you wish you had none.

You know people stared. They don’t now. Now they look away.

You just had another birthday. It’s been so long since it all happened, but years turn to decades, and still, you remember everything.

After waking, minutes turn to hours. What have you done?

There’s nothing. Maybe you went outside to smoke a few times. But you’re scared. You don’t know what could be out there. Something to cause new nightmares?

Perhaps, but the old ones would still be there. Who needs more? After a while, you decide that it might just be better to go back to sleep.

There are some things you can never forget. There are wounds that never heal. You know that. You’ve lived with them for so long.

So, you rest again. Back to the darkness. Back to sleep. And there’s one thing that you need to do, and never could. Maybe now you can.

You’ve trusted God before. Trust Him now.

He has forgiven you.

Forgive yourself.

You know that He loves you.

Love yourself.

Only then will true rest and true peace come to you.