It’s strange…
When you have never met, or even spoken to a person…yet you feel like on some level you already know them.
It may be you feel that way because of things that someone tells you about them,
or it may be because in a way you know what they are going through.
You know them through someone else’s correspondence with them,
because you try to reassure the person that loves this stranger you feel you know.
You feel helpless…because you wish you could tell that person how much they are loved by someone, yet you can’t.
You feel useless because with all the reassurances and hours spent talking to this person that loves the stranger you think you know you can’t do anything to help their situation.
You are angry…
Because this stranger keeps hurting this person that loves them…
You know they don’t do it on purpose but that doesn’t matter.
You hate seeing their suffering…and yet nothing can be done that hasn’t already been done…no words can be said…that haven’t already been said…
This stranger, seems…so familiar…so…similar.
You know it is useless to wish you could help this stranger that you feel you may know…
This stranger…
Does this stranger have a name?
Does this stranger have a face?
What about a family?
Friends?
Anyone besides this person you know that loves them so much that they couldn’t live without them?
Yes, there is one person…
One other person.
One snake in the shadows…
One plague in the night…
A whisper on the wind…
A voice hiding deep in the depths of the strangers heart…pushing, kicking, holding them down…
Blocking out the sun,
Blocking out the light.
There is no hope…
No hope…
But maybe…if this stranger could see this other persons love, feel this other persons arms around them…
Just maybe they could be saved?
Don’t people say love conquers all?
Isn’t love supposed to defeat all evils?
But some evils are hidden…like a cancer as soon as you think they are one they return…
This evil makes this stranger you feel you may know think that they have nothing…nothing left to live for…
But this stranger is wrong…
This stranger has everything to live for,
If only they could hold on…
Hold on just a little longer…
Then this person you know,
This person that helped you know this stranger…they could save them…
Yes…hold on…for even when you can’t see it hope is there…even when you can’t feel it hope is there…especially when you feel like you have none…hope is there.
Photo Credit: Chris Peters
http://www.chrispeters.com/chrispweb/Stranger-In-The-Mirror.html