Little Girl Giggles
Sitting at the table shaving cold butter off the block, I noticed the overhead solar light was having trouble keeping the darkness at bay. The room was cast in greyness. The butter was too stiff to spread on my wheat bread since I had put it back in the fridge after dinner. I’ve been baking more bread lately, and since dinner was 6 hours before, our bellies were way over due for second dinner. {Yes, I am a night owl.} My too-low chair was making me feel short beneath our too-high dining room table. Sitting there eating slices of buttered bread, I was wondering what to blog about.
“The girls sure are cute, aren’t they?” David interrupted my stream of consciousness.
“Yep.” I smiled. He asks me that question every day.
“I love it when they giggle. They giggle all the time. You kiss ‘em, they giggle. You chase them and they giggle.”
Little girl giggles are sweet.
My thoughts were carried to a distant village and the scene of a tragedy last week. In my mind’s eye, I could see a gravel courtyard with women washing clothing, pounding millet, and drawing water from a deep well. Brad, a colleague rode his bike past the courtyard. He takes the same bumpy dirt road every day, passes the same houses, says hello to the same people. As he passed the house with the women, he heard a frantic woman screaming for help. Someone had fallen. Brad stopped his bike and tried to piece together what had happened. If someone had broken a bone, he could use his police and EMT training to help.
As a crowd gathered around an opening to a well, Brad realized that a lady had fallen into it. He and other men quickly grabbed a bucket, threw it down to her and pulled her to safety. Once out of the well, Brad saw the woman was about 5 months pregnant. Slipping into and out of consciousness, he checked her vitals and wrapped her cuts. Once she was safely on her way to the hospital, Brad began talking to the other ladies in the compound. The woman hadn’t fallen into the well. She waited until she was alone in the courtyard and jumped headlong into it. She saw no other covering for the shame she felt for being pregnant out of wedlock.
Brad writes,
“As Americans, we don’t always fully grasp the power shame has over a person. We understand the concept of shame and the effects it can have on people, but shame is a living part of this culture. This woman would have rather died than carry the burden of shame in her family. But if only she knew the depth of God’s love for her and the forgiveness she can find in Him. Christ tells us that “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” God has given us this way out through Christ!
Though the woman survived this trial, unfortunately, her baby did not. Pray that God will begin to speak these truths into her life and that she will begin to see His light in this dark place. Pray also that we can be examples of this light in her life as we go and visit and show her that there is nothing she could do that could separate her from the love of God.”
I thought a lot about the sweet giggles that family will never hear. I thought, “Lord, I would have taken that baby. There are so many people who would have taken that baby.” Had she known the love of Christ, she may have found solace in Him instead of suffering in her situation.
“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38, 39
