In the hallways of my battered psyche a little child is running, looking for help.
Silent screams, silent tears, a body heaving in agony.
Looking for keys.
The entrance hall has six doors, labeled:
Abandonment, Abuse, Betrayal, Faith, Hope and Love.
The first three doors lead to dark hallways and scary, dark rooms.
These rooms have no windows and they are filled
With dusty and gloomy furniture and many boxes.
The second three doors lead to bright hallways
And big, open rooms, filled with light.
For many years the little child has been roaming through the darkness,
Not realizing that she was trapped there because of things that happened to her.
Not knowing that she did not deserve these things.
She never gave up the search to the light, however, and,
By grieving her losses, and by acknowledging her pain now,
She is slowly learning to close the doors to darkness and to open those to light.
But before she can close the doors to the dark, she has to go into the scary rooms.
She has to face everything that is in them and sort out the mess.
She has to decide what she wants to keep and what needs to be thrown out.
The cleaning up takes a long time,because there are many things to look at.
The work is very difficult and tiring,
Because, hidden in the rooms,
Together with the lessons from her parents,
Are all the emotions that have been denied for so long.
And there are her survival skills which don't work anymore.
There are many times that she wants to give up,
And there are times that she wants to die,
Because the pain, the grief, the terror and the panic, are just too much to take.
But every time she wants to give up, she receives the strength to go on.
And she meets her Creator through her friends.
And every room that is cleaned, looks less scary.
The most important thing, however, is,
That space, taken up by the dark, now can be given to the light,
And that together with the light, there is more space for
Peace, joy, freedom, faith, hope and life,
But most of all, for love.
Elisabeth Leonore
Copyrighted 2001
