Not Yet Alone

Chapter 3

It is impossible to stand when your feet aren't on the ground. It is also rather difficult to stand when you don't know where you're standing.

Standing in quicksand is hard, dreadfully hard. When falling through it, the only thing to hope for is that someone will pull you out.

I've had my share of falls. Falls hurt, but a fall doesn't hurt quite as bad when God picks you up.

****

There have been times when I felt defeated. There have been times when I felt like God was a million miles away. But by choosing to trust God, possibilities that mankind had deemed to be impossible were opened up for me.

God was true to his word, literally. He restored my life completely to how it had previously been.

After speaking with him, my next memory was waking up in a hospital. My mother was next to me, stroking my once again long hair.

"Taylor?" It was really comforting to hear my mom's voice once again. "Are you alright?"

"Mom?" I couldn't quite believe that my life had just been fixed in a flash. "Where is dad and Abby and Matt?" I just had to see them to believe it.

"I am right here honey." My dad spoke from behind my mother. "You gave us a little scare, though."

"Matt couldn't get off of work, and Abby had classes, but they wanted to come to make sure you were alright." My mom told me.

"So, everyone is fine?"

"Yes, of course. You are the one who we were worried about. You have been in a comma ever since you rode your bike and hit the pavilion. But you are fine now. There is just a little bruising." Oh, my father is so reassuring.

"No, I'm not fine. Dad, you and mom died in a car wreck, and I had to go live with Matt and Kelli. Then I got head lice, and everyone was mean to me. Then there was a fire and Matt, Kelli, and Abby died in it, and I was all alone. And-"

I was cut off by my mom. "Sweetheart, it was just a bad dream."

My mother may be able to pass of what I had just experienced as a nightmare, but that would be impossible for me.

I knew what I had experienced was real; God knew it too. I truly do not know why God chose to give me a second chance, but I want to show God how thankful I am.

God also kept his promise, and I soon found myself touched by his power. It was no different than the situation when God gave Moses the power to part the Red Sea or when God gave the disciples power to speak in other languages. God gave me the ability to read minds.

Originally, I had no idea what to do with this gift. After my mom easily dismissed my experience as a dream, I knew it would be foolish to try to convince them otherwise. Since I could read their minds, I knew how everyone in my family would react if I told them I could read minds. My sister, Abby, would call me a freak. My brother, Matt would get scared and never want to be around me. My dad would just pretend like I was lying, and my mom would send me to a psycho ward. So yeah, sharing my experience with my family was out of the question.

However, returning to my normal life was not a possibility either. At first, I tried to do that, but when I knew everything that everyone was thinking, I didn't want my normal life anymore. I found that there were secrets, secrets that I never wanted to know. That was how my friendship with Kathrine ended. Once I knew she secretly talked bad about me behind my back and made fun of me to her other friends, I wanted nothing to do with her.

In fact, I wanted nothing to do with anybody. Everyone has some dirty little secret; a secret that is better left as a secret.

But when I knew those secrets, I couldn't stand to be in the same room with those people. I really never wanted to know how the head cheerleader lost her virginity to the lead trumpet player in his car instead of attending English class. I never wanted to know that the two guys who sit in the front row of my music class are gay together. I definitely did not want to know that the kid who sat behind me in Algebra class sells drugs in order to be able to buy lunch.