A Thorn Among Roses

When I left home to go and live with my pastor and his wife, I
thought God was saving me from a life time of abuse. I genuinely
believed that I had been offered the chance of freedom and happiness,
this was my escape. I was wrong.

* * *

"I hate you. I wish you'd never been born. you are the most selfish
person in the world. You're so ungrateful. If you move out then you
won't have a family anymore, you can never come back and I'm never
talking to you ever again!" The words spin round inside my head like a
record gone wrong. As I throw my clothes into the suitcase that my Mum
gave me as a 'leaving present'. I know I have to go.

I arrive at the Church, still not quite understanding what the
consequences of my actions may be. Feeling a little apprehensive, I
walk up to my pastor and his wife; Tony and Sandra. "Are you all
packed? Have you got everything?" They enquire. I nod and they smile
reassuringly at me. I take my seat next to Sandra as the Church fills
up with people and Tony takes the service. Throughout the hour and a
half, all I can think about is 'what have I done?', I wonder if I must
be really awful to have left home, and walked out on my parents like
that, but don't I deserve to be happy?
As the music plays, the words tug on my heart and I am overcome with
loss and sadness that this is the way it has to be. I look towards the
door, longing to escape, but not wanting to draw attention to myself by
walking out. Sandra looks at me and takes hold of my hand, someone has
recognised my pain. It is then I fall on her crying, covering my face
with my hands, wishing I could disappear. She holds me and tells me it
will be okay, I nod.

Its weird living at Tony and Sandra's house, everything's different.
They get up at 7am and don't go to bed until 11pm, my whole routine
changes to fit in with theirs. I learn to become independent, and to
look after myself. I do my own washing and ironing and I increase my
hours at work to pay for rent and food. I feel free, yet I am still
tied to the roots of my problem; everyday my Mum sends me text
messages, blackmailing me, trying to make me come home. I try to ignore
them, I try to forget, but its always there, where-ever I go. I feel
myself sinking into the depths of depression; is there no way out? As I
mope around the house, Sandra tells me to stop feeling sorry for myself
because that's a sin. Confusion overwhelms me, I don't understand, I'm
not feeling sorry for myself, I'm broken, like a bird with clipped
wings.

The weeks go by and I feel so alone. Tony and Sandra are hardly ever
around and when they are I feel as if I'm in the way, as if I'm
intruding. They don't seem to notice how uncomfortable I feel. One
night I sit crying at the kitchen table unable to take anymore. They
walk round me as if I wasn't there. I want a home, I want to belong,
instead I have nothing and no one . I feel as though nobody wants me
and I have no where left to go, no one left to turn to. I have
exhausted all my options, until there are none left.

The house is empty, I glance at the bottle of red wine on the wooden
dressing table. I stare at it for awhile, until it seems to jump of the
shelf towards me. I glance at the packet of pills on my bedside table. Temptation is too strong, anything to numb the pain.
The next thing I know I feel myself falling backwards against the
bed.

When I come round, I look at my watch and its 11.30pm. The wind
whistles through the window, making a horrible screeching sound like
somebody screaming. I cant sleep, I grab my duvet and quietly tiptoe
down the stairs into the lounge. I set up my bed on the setae,
shivering from the cold. I lift the curtains to the outside world, its
pitch black, the floorboards creak underneath my feet as I pace back
and forth. I don't sleep a wink and just long for the night to be
over.

When I hear Sandra in the kitchen, I stumble out of bed. "I don't feel
too good. Do you think I should ring in sick today?" I ask her.
"You look fine to me" she replies. "What's wrong with you?"
I find myself confessing the words of what I did the night before and
as soon as the words are out in the open I wish that I could take them
back again. I see the anger flash in her eyes and she goes to get Tony.
As he storms into the room, fear floods through me, I'm scared of what
he'll do. "What do you think you're playing at ?! We let you into our
house and you mess about playing silly games like this? like your
mother! I hide under my duvet, trying to block out the anger and hatred
I see in his eyes, trying to pretend this isn't happening, like so many
other things in my life that shouldn't have happened. "I'm sorry, I
really am" I murmur, hoping that he'll believe me and leave me alone.
"That's not good enough" he shouts back at me. "You're being selfish
and manipulative and you wont get any sympathy from us! And you can
stop acting like a little girl! Do you like putting on this big act?!
Grow up!"
I try not to cry, I don't know what to do, I long to escape, to walk
straight out the door, but I know I have no where left to go. I glance
over at Sandra, hoping that she'll say something, anything to make him
stop shouting at me, that she'll tell him I've suffered enough. She
says nothing, instead she sits quietly eating her breakfast
cereal.
"If you don't decide to change, you can jolly well pack your bags and
leave!" I nod now, hoping that if I pretend to agree with what he's
saying he will shut up and leave me alone.
Finally they both leave, and I am left alone in the house once again,
to pick up my broken pieces.

A few days later I fear they are still angry with me. So I pluck up the
courage to go and ask them "are you both still cross with me?"
Tony looks up at me from his paper and then puts it to one side. "I was
never cross with you" he says. "I don't care what happens to you, I
don't care if you die, you can kill yourself if you want to. I just
don't want to have to go to the bother of burying you and doing your
funeral."
A voice in my head repeats the words 'he doesn't care, he doesn't care,
no one cares!'. "You don't care?" I ask, challenging the thought,
thinking I misheard. "No. I don't care". I feel like my heart is
breaking in two. He's my pastor, and I'm a member of his church, and
I'm living in his house, and he doesn't care?

Before, Sandra had said to me how I was like a daughter to her, that
they were like my second parents, and that she loved me and I was
special. Her words had meant so much to me, because my whole life I had
longed for someone to love me, for someone to want me. Something
changed, they changed.

From the whole experience, I was left with the feeling that I wasn't
important, that I was trouble and that everything was my fault, but
most of all that God didn't love me. How could he, when it was his
church that had rejected me? I left the Church and my house group
leaders kept ringing me up and trying to get me to go back. They said
that I should forgive Tony and Sandra or else I would become a bitter
and twisted person. They said I was rejecting God because I had stopped
going to church. I didn't care, they could think what they liked. I
wondered if my Mum had been right in the first place, if I should never
have gone to church? One of my old friends said to me that they didn't
understand how I could give up on God so easily, but couldn't they
understand? It wasn't God I was giving up on, it was people. I was left
wondering if all churches were like my Church, or if I had just found
the thorn among the roses? Only time would tell.