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He held a girl down, a merechild, and he was going to rape her. Is it a sin to stop a predator in its tracks? To save their prey?

He is Your child as much as I am, but?—

Forgive me, Father, but I don’t know anymore.

What Idoknow is that I should come to You with a penitent soul. My shame overwhelms me as I prostrate myself before You, spilling words that I have uttered to You twice in my life now. But nothing in these miserable thirty-one years has prepared me for this encampment.

For years, I’ve subsisted in this cell. Scraps for food, enough water to survive, a rotten bed, rusty bars on the walls for a ramshackle window. The ground is alive with insects that feast upon my flesh. Staying sane has boiled down to reading the Bible the rebels left me.

I knew Your Word before, but that is nothing to now.

If someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn and offer him the other cheek as well.

That is Matthew’s guidance, but the rebel in question, Farid, didn’t strikemycheek.

If he had, I would have followed Your gospel.

How am I supposed to love my enemy and pray for those who persecute me when they aren’tmyenemy? They are brothers in Christ who are fighting in Your name to spread Your blessings over this land. But, despite their claims, their blessings are not Yours. They are purely self-serving.

I am so lost, Father.

I care not for their punishment, be it a beating or this cell they lock me away in.

Their persecution of my person is nothing in the grander scheme of things. Yet not a word of Your gospel could have prepared me for the crimes these monsters commit.

I rest upon this infested floor, my knees bleeding from their beating, from the insect bites, my heart open for You to read.

My shame is there—I took another life.

I could lie on the floor and let the bugs eat me alive.

Would that show penitence?

Do You need me to repent when my brothers in Christ brought a child of Allah here and tortured her before me because I wouldn’t do as they wanted?

They leave this miserable camp and rain chaos over Algeria. They rape and they torture and they murder—they do not repent. Then, they expect me to absolve them of their sins.

My purpose here istheirabsolution.

I have said no.

A thousand times, I’ve refused.

I’ve welcomed death with open arms, but my passing wouldn’t serve them.

And so, they brought that child to force my hand.

It didn’t.

Again, I refused, but this time, I broke. I absolved them to spare her.

But I don’t know what to do, Father. Please, guide me.

Show me the path ahead.

I stopped the child being hurt by that one animal, but there were dozens more ready to take his place.

I didn’t save her.

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