| The Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich
It was a bright and sunny day in May and Cynthia was jogging along the beach. On the outside, everything seemed perfect. Cynthia felt the warm ocean breeze against her skin as she pushed onward. Looking out over the spectacular horizon before her, she felt a twinge of despair. “I should be happy and content,” she thought to herself. “But why do I feel so empty right now?” She forced herself to run faster and faster, until she felt like she had reached her limit. Still, she pushed on. Stopping would symbolize defeat and failure. Cynthia had worked so hard to discipline herself physically, academically and spiritually, yet she always seemed to fall short of the expectations that she set for herself. She could hear her father’s words in her head from long ago, those critical, taunting words that seemed to be so near, so present. “You’re a failure, Cynthia, why do you even try? Can’t you do it right this time…are you stupid?” Over and over, these words kept repeating. They were so hurtful, so damaging, because they carried with them the memories of a lonely childhood full of disappointment. Years of self-hatred and loathing, of trying and trying, and never measuring up. It was all flooding back. Cynthia tried to fight back the tears. She cried out to God, the God who always seemed so distant when she needed Him the most. He wouldn’t help her. He never did. He was probably up there, too busy passing judgment on her for all of the many mistakes she had made in her 25 years of life. She could never measure up to Him. Why even try. “Where are you?!” she screamed. “Where have you been all my life?” Suddenly, she had a flashback to one of her earliest memories, one that was so painful that she could not bear to experience it yet again. Nevertheless, there she was, at age four, in the kitchen, making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, spreading the peanut butter on the bread, making sure to make it perfect for her daddy in the other room. She got out the grape jelly, spooning it out oh-so-carefully, and pressing the two pieces of bread together. “Daddy will be so proud of me!” she thought happily to herself. She picked up the peanut butter and jelly sandwich and skipped into the other room. But something was wrong. Her daddy was there, but he seemed so strange. No, this couldn’t be her daddy, he looked so mean. She noticed the bottles lying around where her daddy was sprawled. She tentatively approached him, holding out the sandwich in front of her. “Look Daddy, I made you something!” Suddenly, in one motion, he came out of his chair and flung the peanut butter and jelly sandwich from her outstretched arms. “You did it all wrong, #$@%&, the bread is facing the wrong way.” He then proceeded to yell and rage at her, and all she could do was try to ignore the hurtful words and criticism and pretend to be somewhere else, somewhere far, far away. “WHERE WERE YOU THAT DAY? Did you even care?” Cynthia cried out to God, the tears gushing from her eyes. “Look again…,” she heard a small voice say, deep in her spirit. She did not want to go back to that day, but something kept urging her. She could hear again the words that made her cringe and feel so worthless. Then, Cynthia saw, out of the corner of her eye, a figure that she had not seen before. “How could I have missed this?” she wondered. She looked closer and saw Jesus look her in the eye, with the kind of unconditional love that she never even realized existed. Without a word, He picked up the peanut butter and jelly sandwich off the floor and ate it. |
