Letters to a Mysterious Stranger [ONGOING]

May Blossoms

(Sent on May 14th, Tuesday, 10:45 am, Southbank Centre)

To: prisoner24601@mpu.edu.ph

From: jerusha.abad@gmail.com

Dear Zorro,

Starting this letter has been really difficult for me. I know that it wasn't very nice not to write, but each time I tried typing a letter, images and memories of things that I would rather forget kept coming back. I know it's been almost a month, but they're still fresh as though they happened yesterday.

You know what happened to me. In my despair, I only asked for one thing. You know how I badly needed it—how I badly needed to be with people who can love and accept me as I am, and you sent me a curtly impersonal denial via your secretary. There wasn't any explanation as to why I couldn't go, and I wasn't supposed to question your decision. I really thought that of all people, you would understand what I was going through.

Perhaps you thought that it wasn't a big deal. After all, I managed on my own not to get raped. Maybe you that was your way of telling me to simply suck it all up, but it doesn't work that way. Maybe it's because you are a guy that you don't understand. Ordering women to toughen up or to just grow a thicker skin only makes it worse, because it disconnects us from our own humanity. Like it or not, women have emotions too. If we don't get a chance to talk about the things that haunt us, we die a little inside.

I know you didn't mean to hurt me, but I just don't understand you at all. You came waltzing into my life offering everything I ever wanted. You came as my knight-in-shining-armor. You gave me this opportunity to study here. You sent me elaborate gifts. You were a friend, someone who listened to my nonsense. But now, I just don't know who you are. You are just too shadowy. Maybe my imaginary you is just better than the real you.

But enough. I have decided to stop crying about you.

I submitted my papers last week. I guess working and writing has helped me redirect my emotions for a while.

I've also been going to a women's Bible study with Steph and Ada. Zora, a sweet Slovakian girl who I think I mentioned before, is leading the group. Most of the women who go to that Bible study have also encountered some form of trauma, and a lot of the things they experienced are a lot worse than mine. It's not just about what happened to me the past month. It's about my whole life, and I can talk about it with them. It helps when people understand.

This entire experience has also helped me find God more. Or rather, I think He found me. As I am writing this near the Thames, I am reminded of a poem by Francis Thompson, who once walked the streets of London as a drug-addict:

But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)

Cry;—and upon thy so sore loss

Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder

Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.

Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,

Cry,—clinging Heaven by the hems;

And lo, Christ walking on the water

Not of Gennesareth, but Thames!

It is when we are most vulnerable that we come to understand that He is always here waiting for us. I am very vulnerable now, so I am willing to follow wherever He leads me. For now, I know that He wants me to forgive people, and that is hard.

Someday, I hope that you find him too.

Though I will probably never understand you, I know He does, and I am on my way to forgiving you.