After my mom and dad were divorced, and after my grandmother died, my grandfather came to live with us.

He needed to be needed and we needed the financial help. Two problems were solved at the same time.

I didn’t have much to say to him, but I always liked having him around. He didn’t say much, but he didn’t yell or hit me either. Ours was a quiet relationship.

There was one question however, that he would always ask me.

I truly never understood why he kept asking the same question over and over.

I never asked him why he kept asking.

I always felt shamed by my dad whenever I asked questions.

Just one simple, confusing question.

“Are you a good girl?”

So here’s the story.

Mom had to work to feed all of us, and she worked hard. She worked long hours to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table, even with grandpas’ help.

I was just about eleven or twelve then with lots of free time on my hands.

I made up for my dad’s absence with acting out in school. I never stood still and never ever stopped talking.

In my earlier years, I acted the same, that’s a different issue, but at least I got my school work finished.

Now I only did enough school work to get a passing grade.

My classmates never gave me any time without tormenting me about something.

This only agitated me more and brought on more activity and loud talking. Kinetically speaking, I was all over the place!

It seemed the principal’s office would be my second home.

My mom was at her wit’s end. She didn’t know what to do with me.

She called my bio-dad. He said he would be glad to help her out.

So I got all packed up and shipped off to his house.

The dynamic at this house was very different.

Although the number of people was the same, I noted closeness between the kids that I had not known with my own siblings.

Bio-dad had a girlfriend too. She seemed only about twenty or so to me.

Even at my age, I knew her to be very young as well.

It seemed odd to me, but I didn’t know why.

By the third day of my arrival, I knew that my time here was to be like nothing I had experienced before.

Stories of odd occurrences were told to me by the other kids that lived there, and a harrowing incident with a puppy took place.

These other kids, my half siblings, appeared nonplussed by the whole stream of events.

This all seemed quite normal to them, a part of everyday life.

I had to wonder what kind of a normal this was.

Little did I know that abnormal for me was about to get worse.

Early morning visits from my bio-dad were my new norm.

I would tremble and shake with the fear of his appearing, and his making me do things I did not understand and that caused me great pain.

I was a hopeless child in a circumstance I had no power to control.

In all the stories my half siblings told me, this one was not included.

I’ll never forget the words he said to me.

At sometime during my visit, an older half-sister of mine found out somehow that I was there, and she contacted my mom and told her to get me out of there.

I do not know what she told her exactly, but I didn’t stay there more than a month, but alas, it was already too late. The damage had already been done.

I had no understanding about what was going on, but at the same time felt guilt for leaving, or for being taken back out of that place.

The guilt was for the fact that even in my naïve little heart, I knew that the others would be back in line after I was gone.

I had no opportunity for a while to see my Grampa, but sometime later, when I did, there in the kitchen, by the frig, he asked me that fateful question,

 “Are you a good girl?”

Instantly my eyes hit the floor between us.

I finally knew what that question meant, and I really wished I didn’t.

Has something taken place in your life that you were powerless to control?

Do you feel guilty?

Do you feel shame?

Do you wonder where God was?

Or why He allowed it to happen?

Of course you do. You would not be normal if you didn’t have these questions.

I have some things to say to you;

You are not guilty.

    The enemy of your soul saw to it that you would be overpowered by evil.

The shame does not belong to you.

              It belongs to the one that was party to such evil.

Know that God was there.

              It’s a bit inconceivable and a bit maddening at first to realize that He

              could have allowed it, that He knew about it.  That it was not a surprise.

You can be mad at Him if you want.

He is big enough to take it.

Then you will have a choice to make.

When you’re done being mad, you can crawl up in His lap, and He will show you just how important you and all of your history are to Him, and to someone else in the future who will need your help.

OR

You can walk away mad, and perhaps someone else will not be helped because your voice, your special voice, was the only one their ears could hear.

God was in the same place when His Precious Son Jesus was crucified on the cross. God knew, and Jesus did too, that the future of countless many was at stake, at the moment of Christ’s torture and death.

Evil tried to overpower Him, but it could not win.