The Still Small Voice Within

I was at a great loss. I needed answers. I needed a purpose. Wondering why, I just crawled into my bed to try to escape the pure misery of the feeling of hopelessness. I wanted to die. How can you be gone? How? My room was dark, and I literally drenched my pillow with tears. The heartache and sadness was too much. I thought, I am going to lose my mind. I wanted to die. How? How can my sweet, precious sister be gone from Earth? She was too young to die! I was so lost. I will never hear her sweet voice again. Round and round, my mind went. I just could not understand how or why. Then all of a sudden, I saw a dim light from the corner of my room. It grew brighter. I lay there, frozen. I could not move, even if I wanted to. It was such an intense situation. Every part of my being wanted out of that room, but I could not muster the strength. Fear had gripped me. Then I heard a soft voice. It called my name. “Abigail. Abigail.” I told myself, This is not happening. This is not happening! Then I heard these words. “This is not your moment in your life. And something beautiful is going to happen in your life.” Now I was thinking, If I run to the light and turn it on, maybe it will go away. Mustering all my strength, I rolled out of bed, thinking, If I stay close to the ground, I’ll be safe. But I still need to get to the light switch—and as quickly as possible. I took a deep breath and went for it. I ran and flipped the switch, and the voice and light were gone. What a relief. But I stood there and thought long and hard. Did that just happen? Wow! I told myself, I can’t say a word about any of this. The family might think I need to be locked up in a nuthouse. These kinds of things are not normal. Seeing a light, a voice calling my name. Yeah, I thought, it’s best you don’t say anything, Abigail. But one thing was for sure. The voice did bring comfort. So I knew it must not be bad, and I thought about the words and realized that God had a purpose and a plan, and this was 96 Natlia Amuta Christos not it. The words gave me hope, and hope is what I held on to. Really, I thought, how can I have anything beautiful in my life when life hurts so bad? I did not date in my high school years. I needed to find myself somehow. My little sister was a great loss. I just threw myself into my (all-girls) school and focused on my family, sports, and art, hoping someone could tell me about God. However, I had hope, a secret hope now that I could cling to, and really, all I could do was cling. The words did bring me comfort. I had no hope, really. It’s hard to explain loss. I still wanted the whole episode to go away as the voice was speaking to me. Can you imagine? You may be thinking, “Yeah, I am not sure I would be telling anyone this.” Well, that is exactly how I felt for years, and I did not tell anyone.