The girl was sad. Her stepfather was drunk again and the whole apartment was smothered by fumes of alcohol. His increasing drunken shouts, like the background music, bounced around the girls’ mind. It was her birthday and her mother had made salads and dressed the cake. She was dressed up and waiting for classmates who were invited to the party. But while the clock unceasingly walked forward, and the stepfather become irrevocably more drunk she got smothered by even more complete and horrendous throbbing; the realization that nobody was coming.

Any bursting bright joy that she had felt this morning had been choked away and was now dead. First she cried because bitterness like charcoal burned her chest. Then she wanted to scream, but since the stepfather had already done that, there was no room left for her desperate screams.

When the clock was already 2 hours past the time guests were supposed to arrive and all the tears had gone, she was poking around the salad bowl that the mommy had laid before her. She cold not talk even to her anymore, because mommy had already begun her angry dispute with stepfather.

This quarrel was as all others, a well-known waltz, a cruel dance that they performed in perfect precision – the same accusations rolled against each other, the arguments and threats and screams until the hands were launched too, and everything ended up with a cry of pain and fear imposed like the lid over the last argument of any dispute.

The girl knew it, and since the dance of their despair and anger had already begun, her pain was no longer their concern. She was alone to deal with it. “Oh God! I don’t understand! Why are they fighting? Why are they hurting each other? Why? All of it so wrong! Where are you??!!!!”

The girl felt like sinking…

“Want to join me in my Father’s hiding place?” Offered Yeshua who was sitting on the wooden floor. He leaned against the old warm oven that stretched from floor to the ceiling and radiated quiet warmth. He was relaxed but his expression was sad. He was looking at the girl.

”You came!” The little girl exclaimed. Tears began to roll again over her cheeks.
“I never left you.” Jesus quietly said. The girl reached out to him, clung around his neck and wept.

“All will be well. I promise.” Jesus quietly, but certainly whispered in her ear.

“It hurts so SO SOOOO MUCH!!!” she hiccupped and murmured.

“I know honey, oh I know.” He whispered in her ear while she poured out her hurt on his shoulder. A silent tears were running down his cheeks too.

Despair and hurt poured out in flooding waves. Jesus was holding her in his arms and absorbed it all until the broken dumb empty silence came. Have you ever been to this silence? In the place when everything is cried out, screamed out, beaten out at the walls…. and the silence as a heavy blanket rolls over you?

The girl was done with crying. She was sitting beside Jesus in some strange place. Was it a tent? The arch shaped walls meeting above their heads. It had a strange soft glowing blue. She could not understand what is it exactly that she was seeing around her, so she stretched out her hand and touched one of the walls. These really were feathers!

“Where are we?” She mumbled

“Under my Father’s wings.” Yeshua said with a smile.

The atmosphere was pregnant with peace… it was a place where everything good was possible. All that is good, pure, secure, joyful, beautiful, creative, ALL was being born here, in this still, pregnant place of creative peace.

She breathed in deeply and relaxed with every breath taken. The heavy emptiness in her loosened up and filled with Peace and they both rested and enjoyed the time of just – being. When was the last time you could just be? Be who you are, as you are? No need to pretend or make something up? With someone who just “gets you” as you are right at the moment?  The girl enjoyed this moment and thought that this, in spite of all that had happened still is the best birthday ever – being with the best friend who understands her and who wants to be with her and they can simply – be. She sighed while pondering it all and smiled.  “Thank you Yeshua. … for everything.” she whispered.

After some time she started to notice that they were not entirely alone. The earth breathed life and if you looked carefully you could see what was going on beyond the walls

“What is out there?” She quietly asked

“Well…” he said getting up to the sitting position beside her. Yeshua looked in her eyes filling up with enthusiasm and sparks of joy. “From here you can see things the way they really are. How they have been created to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everything is alive here. When you spend time here you become alive again too. And as you yourself become more healed and restored to the truth, you can see again the true nature of everything else.”

She paused while thinking on it. She was thinking about daddy and mommy locked in their dance of hate and hurt. She felt like she could almost hear the echo of their anger tune somewhere far away beyond these walls… but it was somehow different now. She was not sure how, so she turned her head and looked over her shoulder.

Out in the open was a platform were two more kids were standing on the opposite side of the huge mirror/window. The platform was slowly turning around and from her safe hiding place the girl and Yeshua were observing the scene.

The two kids were looking at each other through the glass of this window screaming and crying. A girl with shoulder-length brownish black hair, in a yellow dress and gray sandals on her feet. Here hands were flexed into fists. Her face red with anger and hurt was looking into the mirror … but the reflection/ image she was seeing was not the boy. She was seeing the huge evil grinning monster with drunk swimming eyes, with big hard hands with curled fists. This monster did not have ears and he was blind. His face was filled with arrogance and cruel anger. He was laughing at the tiny girl on the other side of the glass.

When the platform turned around the girl gasped and squeezed the hand of Yeshua. She was seeing that there was no monster on the other side. There stood a small boy who looked angry and hurt too. He was thin and his muddy brown pants were worn out and stitched in so many places. His shirt probably in its early days was white but now hardly fit him and had a grayish look to it. He was trying to stretch bigger then he was, almost standing on his tiptoes the entire time while shouting to the image on the other side of the glass. The tears of helplessness and despair were running over his cheeks faster than he managed to wipe them away.

The image he was looking at was impressive. A woman-like monster with cold expressionless face and empty eyes was standing there and every time this thing opened its mouth a flood of black substance poured over the boy’s tiny figure. He screamed in pain and fought back.

The platform was turning around and the tiny fist that was protecting and fighting off the black wave of monster on the other side of the mirror turned into the huge fist whipping to the ground the girl in the yellow dress.

“What IS this?!” gasped the girl who looked to Yeshua. “Who are they?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know!” Then she stilled. She heard the familiar voices and words of accusation. She gasped and turned to look again. The two kids were talking and shouting in the voices of her parents.

“What is going on?” She turned to Yeshua again.

“Do you recognize them?”

“Yea.. I think so… but how? Why? I still don’t understand!”

“They are fighting their monsters but they miss the fact that the only ones they are able to hurt in the process are themselves and the each other. The monsters just feed on the misery and anger and fight.”

“But how come? Why they are doing it? Why don’t they just stop and talk?!”

“They cannot talk to monsters,” sadly remarked Yeshua. “I understand that.” he sighed.

“But why are they even trying to talk to the monsters? Why are they not talking to each other??!!” the girl asked, feeling exasperated.

“They have lost each other. They don’t see each other anymore. All they see is the monster in front of them. So they’re just defending themselves.”

“They are blind!” gasped the girl quietly and sank down to the floor. “ Could they come here and heal? Can you help them?”

“They are welcome here … but they don’t talk to my Father or me, they do not listen. Yes I can help them,” Yeshua wishfully commented, then sighed, “but they don’t want help. And now my Father said unless they ask me for help it is rude to invade. Everyone is welcome here, but they must come willingly. I sometimes wonder myself, why people are too busy hurting each other and themselves. They cry out and accuse my Father for all the pain but they don’t want to spend time to come here, to listen, to heal, to be! ”

“I will talk to them!” decided the girl while still watching an endless carousel of her parents beyond her hiding place.

Then she started to remember her own angry words toward her stepfather and mommy and she was seeing how her words were creating the monsters that were adding pain to them. Then she remembered her own angry words to God and all suddenly made sense, like some one turned on the light bulb.

A hiding place where she can heal…. words that create monsters…. blindness to each other… pain created…. anger toward God…

“OH!!!” she gasped. shame and fear arise in her. “I am sorry! I am so sorry! Forgive me! I did not realize… I never wanted to hurt them too! Oh Yeshua, I am so sorry…I did that too! I was angry at God too … !! Will He forgive me? Oh forgive me God!”

“I know,” Yeshua added, now being a bit silly,  “but He loves you anyway. He understands. Just TALK to Him, He loves to talk to you and He loves to be with you. You are here now! You will heal!” He smiled now looking at the girl. “ You can ask my Father anything! He always listens to you! I know He always knows how to talk to people and then we can talk to them together! I would so love to fight these monsters for your parents too!”  Jesus commented eagerly, his eyes sparkling in the anticipation of future victories.

Wide eyed she stared at Yeshua. A thousand questions ran through her mind. “What do you mean? Who is your father? I don’t know him! What do you mean – he listens to me!?

“Oooh. He LOVES you! He is soooo happy you wanted to be friends! He’s been waiting for that day from the beginning of time! He treasures every moment we are together. He listens to every word you say. To every thought you have, He is so in love with you. You are his chosen treasure, remember?!” Yeshua was joyfully proclaiming the statements that were so alien to the girl that she just kept looking to him in awe. Yeshua paused, then grinned with all his face and eyes and being and added “this is so cool! This is the perfect gift for your birthday!”

“What is?” whispered the girl.

“You don’t get it, do you?” Yeshua laughingly asked .

“Don’t get what?!”

“You being HERE today, you seeing your parents as they are now!” He was looking at her with anticipation.

“I … I still don’t understand” the girl uttered almost soundlessly.

“It is ok.” smiled Yeshua. “What did you want, what did you ask before we met?

“I wanted God to be real and for us to be friends.”

“What happened?”

“You came.”

“What did you want today?”

“I …. wanted to know why my parents are the way they are…”

“And my Father showed you that! He loves you! We are here, under His wings so you can rest, heal and be whole again, and feel safe! You still don’t understand? He IS YOUR FATHER TOO! ….. if you just let Him.”

As Yeshua was talking all the atmosphere stilled… then filled with a presence of Majesty. A man had silently come and joined them. He called the girl by name. Then opened his arms inviting her to embrace. She made one tentative step towards Him and He was already bending down toward her and scooping her up in embrace. Quiet words of reassurance, love and acceptance poured over her heart. One more dam of hurt collapsed and she emptied herself in tears in the safest place to be found, in the arms of the Majesty, King of the universe, her Father.

Her room was dark. The birthday table was cleaned up. As always – Her napkin neatly folded on the chair beside the table was waiting for a new day . As always – tomorrow she will go to school again. As always, her parents after their routine fight were asleep in the next room. But she was so full of the wonders from today’s visit, she could not sleep. Nothing was as always in her life now. She met her Father! She still could not believe it- God wanted to be her Father…. “Daddy.” she whispered and smiled. She loved the sound of this word and the feelings that this word created inside her. Daddy … Daddy…. Daddy… she repeated in her mind and smiled. “It is so cool to have you, Daddy”, she added in her mind.

Yeshua was stretching beside her and the kids were whispering to each other

“I want to give Him a gift.”

“Hmm? What kind of gift?”

“I don’t know. Something that would make Him smile. Does He like gifts?”

“Sure He does!”

In her mind she formed a kiss in the air. “For you, Daddy!” She whispered.  She blew the Kiss, then the Kiss stretched, the Kiss arranged its bright red dress, pinned her bright red hair with a sparkling water-drop pin and boldly marched upwards. The kiss ran into the throne room of the King, it climbed up His robes until it reached His face, then stretched her hands as wide as she just could and clung to His cheek! Booming laughter filled the atmosphere when the King found the Kiss from His little daughter hanging tight onto His cheek.

“I love you too!” He whispered. And the girl finally fell asleep.

Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. He will cover you with his feathers. He will shelter you with his wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection.  Psalm 91:1-4