High Time to Awake

Maybe you think this is pure fiction. Well, it depends on what the scope of fiction includes. This is my story. I experienced every moment. A dream? A parable, perhaps? But, how real is it to you?

Heart pounding fear enveloped me. It is warm �" too warm in here. Relief floods my senses. It was just a dream, but so very real. Real enough to cause this reaction. I roll over and try to go back to sleep, but the fear of once again imagining was too great. All I can do is lie there and think about it all. The replay is too intense. I toss and turn. Strange noises fill my ears and a sick feeling overcomes me. What is this eerie moaning noise so close? My dogs are howling. How appropriate for the mood of the night. My husband stirs and wakes to take care of the dogs, so I take the opportunity to share with him what I’d just experienced. I had to say it out loud so that maybe it would all prove to be absurd �" a silly nightmare with no place in reality. So, I began to tell the tale.

 

I was asleep. In my dream I was asleep, and I was awakened by the buzzing of my baby monitor. This is not unusual. This happens most every night. The baby stirs and triggers activity on the sensitive device. Nothing strange there…but what I saw on the video monitor was strange: Children. There were laughing, playing children in the nursery. Running and playing together while my baby looked on. “Who are these children?” I wondered. My husband was just as confused as I. We talked about them in hushed tones as we lay there in bed: “Maybe we could give them a home. They can stay here.” It was settled. But then we realized the awful truth: It was too late. These children were only ghostly apparitions of lives cut short. We were alarmed at the realization, but we were not moved to action. We did not jump up to rescue our child from viewing these horrors. What could be done, anyway? We did nothing, and sleep once again overtook us.

I am once again awakened by a sound, but this time, it is different. It is not the soft buzzing of the monitor I hear but a shrill cry. I am wide awake now. My mother heart knows that cry: my baby. I grab the video monitor, and what I see causes me to spring into action: Her crib, her blankets, her room all disrupted and chaotic. I scream out for help as I run toward the cries. When I enter, I feel the violation. I feel the presence of evil, and I fear the worst. But she is there. I can hear her cries. I find her amidst the destruction, and I hold her close �" thankful that she is safe. But, what did she see? Who caused this chaos in our home? 

In the dark, I feel something under foot. I reach down to pick it up and the horror of it causes me to cry out. My cries bring my husband to my side. It is a mask �" solid blue and made to cover the whole face.  Reaching for the phone, I call the authorities. Can someone help us find the meaning in this terror? What does this mean for our child? Her cries only grow louder. I bring her in to the safety of our room, and anxiously I wait for help to come. The mask means that there was a face. Why hide it when there’s already darkness? It brings me fear to know that’s what she saw when she awoke. Innocence broken, but what of her life? HER life. Not the lives of the children we’d witnessed earlier in the night. HER life. The life of OUR daughter caused us to awake out of sleep and do something. Help arrived, and I told it all. All of the terrors that had plagued us in the night. It was the unknown that caused intense fear, but what of the truth? Could I bear it? As I told of what I’d witnessed, they confessed that they knew all about this terror. His visits plagued more than they could number. “He has a plan to further research”, they said. “It is an advancement for society.” They explained that some lucky few only received a placebo �" a harmful injection, but for the countless, he was a bringer of death. His name is Abortion. Fear overwhelmed me. Was my child safe from his evils? Was she one of the lucky ones? Who could know? Their answer brought me both relief and a gut wrenching grief. Our daughter was safe. Her cries gave us this assurance. They told us of the sign of his poison: a silent cry. 

When I woke physically from my dream, something else awoke in me. A fresh burden. A longing to do something to stop those silent cries. That is why I share this story. This dream, although fictional when it comes to the details, is a very real picture of the horrors that surround us EVERY DAY.

 

I wrote a song a few years ago that speaks to the deep sadness of abortion and how God must feel about His treasures being thrown away. It’s been in my heart for so long, but it’s never been a more appropriate time for me to share it. Maybe it will touch you in some way �" maybe even cause you to not only awaken but to plead the case of the unborn. To represent those who will never have the opportunity to represent themselves.

 

A life began one day inside a secret place

A treasure none but God could ever give

But what He sees as precious

Is sometimes case aside

And the world will never know

What this one life could have been

 

Such a delicate design has an element Divine

As God in love has fashioned every part

And though their voice is silent

God knows who they are

For the one who knows them best

Is the One who hears their heart

 

Only God knows their name

He alone sees the pain

Of a loss that’s deeper

Than what the world can see

For God knows

The hidden things

 

Do with this what you will, but during the retelling, one verse immediately came to my mind: Romans 13:11 “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.”

Author's Note

Take this to heart. That is all.