What Would Jesus...
Entry by: Olivia
23rd December 2016
What would Jesus …….
She had always tried to make this her guiding principle – it’s what they had always told her in Sunday school – it was ‘Jesus can see you when you’re naughty and see you when you’re good’. She suspected that there was much more of the former than the latter recently. But she was unhappy, she was wretched and she needed comfort.
Her life was full of ‘oughts’ and ‘shoulds’. She knew she ought to eat healthily, but she was low on effort and energy. Just getting by took most of what she had. She knew she should get to bed earlier, but that would mean giving more space for those thoughts to get in again. She barricaded them out, sometimes alcohol worked, sometimes some pot and very often food. But still she found herself haunted and fearful. What would Jesus say?
She had never meant to react in quite the way she had. There was no particular thing that tipped her over, no straw that broke the camel’s back. She just couldn’t take any more. It wasn’t the cold stares or the days of not talking more than was absolutely necessary, those things can be borne. It wasn’t the bizarre requests – at least that way she got some attention. What she found most difficult was the clock watching, his obsessive need to account for every minute of every day. It might not have been too bad if he had limited this to himself but tracking her time just pushed her over. Don’t get me wrong, she liked to be on time and saw nothing wrong with giving him a rough outline of her day. But a blow by blow account of where she had been and what she had done just annoyed her.
It wasn’t really the day when he found an unaccounted for 10 minutes, she could deal with that. Nor even when he had told her that a bath should last no more than half an hour. Even the timed toilet breaks were bearable – just. What she really struggled with was the time away from her writing. Sometimes by the time she had found her flow again he decided that she had had long enough and told her that her time was up and that she must finish now. Sometimes she ignored him, but he lashed out too often and hurt her too badly. She pretended not hear but that never worked. She had tried sneaking down in the middle of the night but somehow he seemed to know and dragged her to bed. She was always punished severely after these times.
She supposed it didn’t really matter what she was writing when he got so cross but she was particularly annoyed when she was planning the article that had, at long last, been commissioned by a glossy. Writing about faith journeys was hard but if she got this right who would know where it might lead? She had been doing so well, right into her flow, words tumbling out but unusually they fell onto the page in some sort of order. She was working hard to explain to a secular audience about the place of God. It wasn’t trendy and it wasn’t cool – but her job was to make it interesting and plausible. She had researched so well, read so many texts (mainly when she had said she was out with friends drinking coffee) she had even began to think that there might just be something in this Christianity. He had hit her hard the day she had got back late from Sally’s and she couldn’t square up why people treated others so badly if there was a loving God hovering somewhere. He had said that she wasn’t allowed her usual hour of frantic typing as she had been so defiant. She gave way at last, not to his insistent demands but to the other voice in her head. She simply picked up her lap top and hurled it at him. How was she to know he would fall back at the force of the impact and hit the back of his head so hard on the fireplace that he never moved again. She glanced at the crumpled body and simply walked out of the room.
Jesus might well have said ‘till death do you part’ – job done, she reckoned.
She had always tried to make this her guiding principle – it’s what they had always told her in Sunday school – it was ‘Jesus can see you when you’re naughty and see you when you’re good’. She suspected that there was much more of the former than the latter recently. But she was unhappy, she was wretched and she needed comfort.
Her life was full of ‘oughts’ and ‘shoulds’. She knew she ought to eat healthily, but she was low on effort and energy. Just getting by took most of what she had. She knew she should get to bed earlier, but that would mean giving more space for those thoughts to get in again. She barricaded them out, sometimes alcohol worked, sometimes some pot and very often food. But still she found herself haunted and fearful. What would Jesus say?
She had never meant to react in quite the way she had. There was no particular thing that tipped her over, no straw that broke the camel’s back. She just couldn’t take any more. It wasn’t the cold stares or the days of not talking more than was absolutely necessary, those things can be borne. It wasn’t the bizarre requests – at least that way she got some attention. What she found most difficult was the clock watching, his obsessive need to account for every minute of every day. It might not have been too bad if he had limited this to himself but tracking her time just pushed her over. Don’t get me wrong, she liked to be on time and saw nothing wrong with giving him a rough outline of her day. But a blow by blow account of where she had been and what she had done just annoyed her.
It wasn’t really the day when he found an unaccounted for 10 minutes, she could deal with that. Nor even when he had told her that a bath should last no more than half an hour. Even the timed toilet breaks were bearable – just. What she really struggled with was the time away from her writing. Sometimes by the time she had found her flow again he decided that she had had long enough and told her that her time was up and that she must finish now. Sometimes she ignored him, but he lashed out too often and hurt her too badly. She pretended not hear but that never worked. She had tried sneaking down in the middle of the night but somehow he seemed to know and dragged her to bed. She was always punished severely after these times.
She supposed it didn’t really matter what she was writing when he got so cross but she was particularly annoyed when she was planning the article that had, at long last, been commissioned by a glossy. Writing about faith journeys was hard but if she got this right who would know where it might lead? She had been doing so well, right into her flow, words tumbling out but unusually they fell onto the page in some sort of order. She was working hard to explain to a secular audience about the place of God. It wasn’t trendy and it wasn’t cool – but her job was to make it interesting and plausible. She had researched so well, read so many texts (mainly when she had said she was out with friends drinking coffee) she had even began to think that there might just be something in this Christianity. He had hit her hard the day she had got back late from Sally’s and she couldn’t square up why people treated others so badly if there was a loving God hovering somewhere. He had said that she wasn’t allowed her usual hour of frantic typing as she had been so defiant. She gave way at last, not to his insistent demands but to the other voice in her head. She simply picked up her lap top and hurled it at him. How was she to know he would fall back at the force of the impact and hit the back of his head so hard on the fireplace that he never moved again. She glanced at the crumpled body and simply walked out of the room.
Jesus might well have said ‘till death do you part’ – job done, she reckoned.
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