I Pushed You Under

Near my house is a college. In that college is a garden. In that garden is a rose… surrounded by roses.

I think of you every time I pass the garden with the rose.

I wish you didn’t live there.

I wish you didn’t live in that one song, in that one place.

I wish you didn’t live in the grasp of strangers at church.

I wish you didn’t live in that word, that one spoken, whispered in my ear again and again that one day.

Did you know that four-year-olds do not possess the brain development to understand what you did that day?

Of course you know. That’s why it was so easy for you. To take it and to walk away.

There are so many places I wish you didn’t live… in my church, in my shower, in my wedding day, in every lap I try to swim at the YMCA, telling myself I’m not suffocating, not being held under.

I spent a few years being held under, the sickness literally escaping my bones because my mind could not contain it.

I forgive you.

I want you to know you cannot stay.

You are not welcome in my garden, in my church, in my shower, in my wedding day, or in my marathon laps. With every stroke, I have pushed you under.

And with every walk through the garden, I have watched the rose… once mutilated… die to become resurrected.

She is in full bloom and your shadow has fled away.

Bekah Hamrick Martin is a national speaker and the author of The Bare Naked Truth: Dating, Waiting & God’s Purity Plan (Zondervan, 2013). Most of all, she’s Ethan’s wife and Zoey’s mom.