Another entry from my
recently resurfaced 1970s journal, that I had forgotten about. I was the campus
minister at IL State U at this time…
Christ In Winter:
Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter--
Elaine finally had her
baby. Holding her hand in the labor room, I longed to be able to touch her soul
as well as her skin, to let her know how much God really does care about her. I
suspect God weeps more over a girl of 22 who is having her 2nd child
out of wedlock than He does over most of us pedestrian sinners. [1]
Poor naïve thing. I’m sure
she loved both those guys who were mature enough for sex but scared to death of
marriage. They ran away. Her parents literally locked her out—changed the
locks. My family and I, we’re all she has. For 7 months we have had her with
us. [2] During that time she felt that tiny life within her, too. Now it’s out
and gone, and we are all she has.
To some lonely, childless
couple, she has brought great happiness. But she herself has only emptiness.
What will she do? Can she ever trust a man again? Will love ever find her, get
behind the ever growing wall of pain?
We’ll know one of these
days. When we look out the window and see her leaving us, because we are the
past, then our love will have been successful. Others who were supposed to love
her turned their backs on her. When she can turn hers on us, knowing we still
care, then we shall know that love is before her, as well as behind.
John Robert McFarland
1] In 1970, we—or at least
I—had not become sensitive to using the male pronoun for God.
2] Not in our house. She
was in an apartment already when her second impregnator brought her to us and said,
“Now she’s your problem.”
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