Ogre in the Shadows

"What happened to you?" I ask little, bleeding Axelito as he attempts to slip by me unnoticed.

"Pelota," Axelito blames his blackening eye and multiple battle wounds on a soccer ball.

So caught up in my game of hide-and-go-seek with Noe and Marcos, I didn't even think to second-guess him... until Noe.

"What happened to Axel?" Noe asks me as we share a watermelon between rounds.

"Soccer," I answer as I cut another slice.

Noe rolls his eyes and scoffs, "Pelota?! Ha!"

Come to think of it, the amount of bleeding gashes doesn't really add up to a soccer ball wound... Unless he was playing a pretty vindictive version of dodgeball.

Later that evening, one of our adult educators unlocks the medicine cabinet for me. My mothering heart always finds such joy in being the privileged person to clean out these boys' wounds, even if the process is slightly painful.

"Which one of these would you rather have," I hold up a bottle of rubbing alcohol alongside an off-brand neosporin as I sit down next to Axelito. "This one will hurt, but it may be more effective, and this one won't hurt... or at least not much."

"That one," Axel points to the cream (the one I said wouldn't hurt).

Gently, I rub a little bit of the ointment onto his split-open hand.

"Oww!" he winces. Oh no, I didn't mean to lie!
"I'm sorry!" I apologize and withdraw. "I didn't think it would hurt."

Axel grins, "Just kidding," and sticks out another cut-up limb.

"You can tell me the truth, you know," I say as gently as I dab. "How did you get these wounds?"

"Pelota," Axel repeats. But this time I noticed something I hadn't before in his downcast eyes--a twinge of fear. He's hiding.

I nod. The boys know that if there's anything I don't like, it's lying.

"Well, Axel, if you did get in a fight, I want you to know that that's not how I see you," I say with a compassion that surprises myself. "I have seen you growing in maturity and patience day after day."

Axel looks forward with a straight gaze, lost in thought. And yet, as I speak, my words are finding him somewhere inside. I know this, because tears keep coming to his eyes.

"I see a good, righteous man inside of you who is coming out more and more all the time," I say as I spread some of the cream on his eye. "Covered by the blood of Christ."

After cleaning Axelito up, I hear from a tear-filled friend. More news. Heartbreaking news received from afar. A trusted adult has taken advantage of a child. I've been in that friend's shoes--I've been in that place. Receiving that news. Trust broken, heart broken. Anger, confusion, pain...

And then I think of Axelito. Afraid of the monster he is afraid he is. Masking himself with lies, trying to be who he wants to become but can't, and so catching himself in the cycle of destruction he defines himself by... So long as he is living in the dark.

Becoming an "adult" is not the magic solution. Layers of wrinkles and facial hair are only masks for a crying boy's heart. Either these abused kids will treat their wounds or they won't. And if they don't, their vicious cycle will repeat, and they will become the abuser we all so quickly condemn. For good reason. There is nothing okay with abuse. Nothing. Our brothers' blood cries out from the ground: vengeance. But the abusers were abused, too. So what do we do with that? How do we hold the cry for justice towards the abuser and the compassion for the abused in the same hands when they are found in the same person? The hands of the abused and the abuser... We need blood for blood. A sacrifice. We need Christ.

What if God hates not you but your persona?

The image you created to mask your inner ogre

Screaming, hiding, buried deep inside

Everything that’s dead feels hauntingly alive

And yet something within is desperate to be known

But so long as you keep faking, you’ll always be alone

Come to the light, Come to the light

If everyone’s a monster, is that the key to being free?

Change the rules together, quit fighting the inner demon you call “me”?

Tell me, just tell me, just tell me I’m okay!

But even if I do, your conscience knows another way

Come to the light, come to the light

Maybe, just maybe, you aren’t the  “you” you fear you are

But you’ll never find your “you” by hiding in the dark

The secret that you loathe will leak or it will shed

So nail it to that tree and leave it there for dead

Come to the light, come to the light

Your life is hidden, but not inside of you,

You’ll finally be free when you find yourself in Truth

So why not let die what is already dead?

The sentence has been written, but Christ has taken it instead

"For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God."

Colossians 3:3