Unkind ( Short story)

Day 5 Theme: God

It was 1 am. Either way looked at it, it was too early or too late to be up. That didn’t matter to Chika. She was frozen on the bed. She did not know how long she had sat there but she knew the pain gathering in her heart was unbearable, the thoughts churning in her head like pricks of needles.

She beat her hand over her chest as if to massage the pain out. “Lord, pleasssee”. Her hands were quivering, her shoulders shaking as she tried to keep her voice from rising enough to wake her roommates. “Lord, please”, she gripped her hands together. “What have you done?”

She felt stifled like an invisible hand was strangling her. She could not breathe. She pushed herself up, and out to the hostel compound she ran chanting, “God, please, please”. The sobs were coming now. “Why! Why!”.

She was barely burst out of the building when the tears started. Her voice broke. “You were supposed to heal her. I prayed!”. Her hands were slashing at the beautifully arranged flowers around the hostel.

“You said if I asked…”. The hand on her throat moved to her legs and she collapsed on the floor, her heart shaking with pain. “You’re mean, Lord. You’re so mee..an.”

Her hands started pounding the floor, her nightgown soaking with her tears. “First, was cancer. She shouldn’t have had the liver cancer.” She burst out laughing, “I had faith, didn’t I?”. Then she was crying again, “After all, things would work together for good for me…what have you done!”

She jumped to her feet, “You did not heal her! You could have healed her. You didn’t because you didn’t want to…How could you. Why?!”.

Chika swiped at her tears. Enough. Not after what he had done. She would not cry. Her younger sisters would need her. She had told them not to worry. That God wouldn’t let anything happen to mom…now see.

The pieces of her heart she had been trying to pick, fell through her fingers like water.

“I can’t anymore. I can’t… You want us to listen to you all the time but you don’t listen to us.” She felt her heart constrict. “No! you don’t! Don’t say you do cause you don’t. I know the thoughts I have for you…blah blah”, She laughed. “You don’t even know anything”.

The tears were starting anew, so she swapped them off again. But they would not stop coming. Her voice broke, “I prayed…you’ve killed my mom. What do we do now…?”.

Chika walked to the hostel’s garden love seat and slumped on it. She sat there for hours silent, thinking, sobbing. The tears had refused to listen to her. She was swiping at them for the 100th time when she heard the low notification inbox from the phone she had forgotten was with her.

A classmate had texted her: God’s unfailing love is as vast as the heavens; his faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds (Psalm 36:5 (NLT).

One look at it and she was was sobbing afresh.

This time, her tears were like a cauterize to a raw wound deep in her heart…like oxygen.

She still did not understand. She was still confused but she knew she was not alone.

In deep pain, we often doubt God’s love for us. “If he were so good, why does he let us hurt”, we ask. We may not always understand the events of life but we can trust in God’s love for us. It’s a constant.