Page 23 of Falling in Love with A Tiny Bat

It’s not a big deal.

Everyone is dangerous, so when we act like it for some and not others, it’s insight into our prejudices more than anything else.

People these days are too sensitive.

Something occurs to me halfway through answering Wade’s email. Now that I’ve claimed Alexios, I’ll be able toseePila and Terra, not just hear them. Beyond that, I’ve alreadybeento Faerie. Monsters just last night paraded supplies through my living room and up my stairs.

A swallow sticks in my throat.

All the disembodied voices I’ve been subjected to my entire life…will no longer be disembodied.

My stomach knots, and I drag my attention off the email to recall that I’m in the kitchen, leaning into the corner between my counter and my fridge, answering messages instead of making breakfast.

Now, I’m neither answering messages nor making breakfast.

The crippling understanding that the creatures behind some of the voices I hear will bevisiblenow that I’ve claimed a soulmate plunges through my chest, congesting it with a past I fight every day to ignore.

Sometimes, I’m successful and can flush the memories out of my brain with external noises, business, people.

Sometimes, it’s too quiet.

Sometimes, I am stuck alone with the stuff I’ve never before been able to face.

Who knows if seeing my monsters will make them more surmountable, or if it’ll cement the insanity I’ve been accused of far too long.

“Peace,” I whisper to myself as I abandon my phone on the counter and get some tortillas and cheese out of the fridge. Humming a hymn, I contemplateWhat Would Jesus Doforbreakfast?

Certainly he wouldn’t make unhealthyquesadillas.

The question is inane, of course, but it’s the kind my mother would impose upon me at every juncture when I was eight.

What Would Jesus Do, Zahra? Always think about what Jesus would do.

No.

That’s wrong.

Hewould actually dothis; He would do itmyway. But you’re only eight, so you don’t understand how I use Jesus to pressure you into doing thingsmy wayyet. And trying to understand how I can read so much Scripture, yet miss every point, will haunt you for the rest of your life.

Fighting for a breath, I lift my face toward the ceiling, remember that mercy sent me the answer to a prayer I stopped praying a long time ago, and remind myself that it iscruelto use Jesus as a weapon. It iscruelto shove the expectation of the Perfect Ruler of the Universe onto a child, then fault them for every mistake as they—obviously—fail to live up to those impossible, ever-shifting standards.

Train up a child in the way they should gomeans teach them to seek God’s wisdom and kindness in all things.

Even when they would rather scream and run the other direction, like Jonah.

It doesn’t mean make God impossible to reach.

It doesn’t mean makeshamea constant companion, to such an extent I can’t make breakfast when I’m stressed because I can hear voices telling meI’m wrong.

God told us that nothing can separate us from His love.

But, if anything could separate us from feeling it, I think it would probably be the constant reminder we are failures.

Ineedto be a good mom.

Ineedto figure out how to lead with love, and example, andkindness.

I need to breathe. I need to eat. I need to calm down.

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