THE HANDS OF MAN                             

Once I came of age, I read, it’s a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of God. But given the choice, King David chose God’s hands because he did not want the hands of man touching him. He knew eventually that God would extend mercy and man would not.

I was thinking, it’s a terrible thing to fall into the hands of man as well. I further thought, it can be quite daunting to pray to God while enduring the hands of man. I didn’t say prayer was not fruitful, but we live in a world of time and space, so God doesn’t wiggle his nose then all of a sudden the abuser drops dead. No, we live in a world where those two components may have a way of diminishing faith.

And what about the babies who are abused and don’t even know what prayer is? To a degree, that establishes my train of thought because once my abuse began, I was young enough to pray to my mother for her to come back from her grave to help me.

It’s funny when you are young and being abused, because of your interpretation of the unknown. My first nine years were protective. Beatings? Tend to babies? Bad clothing? A grown man’s penis? Totally foreign. You don’t know how to interpret the unknown. I guess I thought physical discipline was different here and my abuser loved me like always.

When the beatings started, which was immediate, before the sexual abuse, I was young enough to be scared, and knew to develop a fake smile to things that wasn’t funny. I was like a punching bag that just kept popping up. She would beat me and I would pop back up smiling and craving for some type of acceptance, some type of love because I loved her and she was supposed to love me.

I had no idea how dreadful it could be to fall into the hands of man, family or not. I had no concept of what was being concocted, what they were devising, to their delight, this person I loved. I pretty much just kept popping up with this fake smile on my face as if I was still this normal kid. Love and innocence does that.

I was reading an article. It said being loving and trusting makes an easy target for the irresponsible. That emotional vulnerability is the only leverage that’s needed. It goes on to say, there are mothers, women who encourage it.

It’s a terrible thing to fall into the hands of man. And although there are some distinct differences between the two, it was a terrible thing to fall into the hands of woman too. Some women are reaching for the glass ceiling. While others are increasingly raising the female count on the abuse of children. It is most definitely an equal opportunity employer; it is an institution that will hire anyone.