(Based on true stories)
*****
One.
Two.
Three.
How will she ever forget?
On this side of her decision, it’s hard to tell what she’s in search of this time, seated across from the preacher again.
The first time, it was almost as if she had been seeking some kind of blessing or reassurance.
The price for her choice would be the life of her child.
Now, what did she seek?
The preacher had been a voice for the child, begging, praying, pointing to other paths….
In a matter of days, one, two, and then a third dead child came from her.
She’d been carrying three children and had not been aware of it.
Now, inconsolable, she is seated across the preacher counting, but only to three, like a broken record stuck in a loop.
One.
Two.
Three babies.
Three lives.
Three destinies.
“Do you wonder where they are now?” the preacher asks.
She shakes her head and starts to cry again, “I know where they are”.
“In heaven?”
“In a place waiting to testify against me for what I’ve done”.
When the preacher did not respond, she continued, “I saw them. Countless numbers of them waiting to testify against their parents”.
When the preacher said they should pray, she asked that he’d pray for strength to be a voice for these children whose lives have been stolen. “All they asked”, she told the preacher, “was for me to tell the world to stop sending children to this dry place of waiting.
“I want to do it”, she said, “I want to be a voice for them”.