This allegory was written by my friend Jim Hobson for Christ-Life Ministries' "Ultimate Journey." Its aim is to help us get a truer picture of our Heavenly Father, and I always follow it with the question, "Where are you in 'the room' when it's your Father's desire for you to be at home in His lap?"
KIDNAPPED!
When we decided to have children, I never imagined how much I would love them. They were the fruit of our love. I loved them not because of what they did, but because they were ours. I was much more than their father. I was their daddy. Like most little girls they were innocent, loving, and trusting.
One beautiful summer day when Emily was almost 5, I was sitting in the living room reading the newspaper when she asked if she could go outside and play. "Yes honey; just be careful and stay back from the street," I warned. I watched with a smile as she played hopscotch on the front sidewalk. The sun seemed to radiate through her little body as she tried to hop from place to place. Eventually, I turned back to my paper.
But while I was thus absorbed, a car pulled up. A man rolled down the window and asked Emily if she wanted a piece of candy. Startled, she shook her head and said, "No, I'm not supposed to take candy from strangers. My daddy said so." "Your daddy is right," said the man. "He'd be very proud of you for learning so well. Is your daddy home?" he asked. "Yes, he's inside." "I know your daddy and would like to see him. Do you think you could take me to him?" He said as he got out of the car. "Sure." The man then asked her again, "Would you like a piece of candy?"
Now she's thinking to herself, "I"m not suppose to take candy from strangers, but this man knows my daddy, so he must not be a stranger. Maybe it's alright." So with all the innocence and trust of a four-year old little girl, she reached up to take the candy.
Just then I looked up from my paper. I watched as he grabbed her wrist and dragged her toward the car. I threw the paper and made a mad dash for the front door. The man saw me as I came running through the door, and he hit the gas hard. The tires squealed as I ran after them as fast as I could. As I watched her little arm flailing through the rear window of the car, I ran harder than I had ever run before. After just two blocks they were pulling farther away, and it was clear I wasn't going to catch him on foot.
I ran to the first house I came to and crashed through the door without stopping to knock. As I frantically looked for the telephone, I screamed for someone to call 911. In a few short moments, the police were setting up roadblocks and scouring the area. A detective took me back home where once again I recounted what happened with as much detail as possible. The emotions were overwhelming as my wife and I cried out for our little girl.
I felt helpless as we waited for word. I insisted on going out to look for her, but the policeman convinced me that there were hundreds of police looking for her and that I needed to stay home by the phone in case the kidnapper called.
The police set up a trace on our phone line, and we waited for the kidnapper to call. At first, I didn't want to get a call. I didn't want to admit that she had been kidnapped. I wanted to see her come walking back through the front door like it was all a big mistake, or for someone to call and tell us they had found her safe and they were bringing her home. But as the hours passed and she didn't return, we started praying that the kidnappers would call. The hours passed slowly and painfully. We could do nothing but wait.
Hours turned into days. As days passed with no word, I fought back thoughts of never seeing her again, never being able to hold her in my arms and tell her how much I loved her. I thought of never being reconnected with that part of me that had been ripped away.
Weeks turned into months, and still no call. Everyone was trying to help. Neighbors and friends helped put her picture up all across the state. The FBI expanded the search across the country, but our daughter was nowhere to be found.
After a year and a half, Detective Brown knocked on our door. He had a different look on his face this time. He had been on the case from the beginning and knew better than anyone, the pain we'd been going through. I could tell it was hard for him as he explained how they had exhausted all their leads, and that short of a miracle he didn't know if they would ever find our daughter. He explained that we probably wouldn't see him as much now as he had been assigned to another case. He encouraged us not to hesitate in calling if anything came up or if we just needed to talk, but I knew that meant they had given up.
We couldn't give up, not while there was even the smallest chance we might be able to get our little girl back. We hired a private investigator. We poured all of our resources into trying to find her. Nothing mattered but getting her back. We would have paid any price to get her back. Each year we hired artists to create computer-generated pictures of what she might look like then.
I tried not to let myself stop thinking about how I would get her back, because each time I did, my mind would fill with those same haunting questions. Is she alive? Is she dead? What's happening to her? Your mind thinks the worst, but you're not even sure what the worst is.
Unfortunately, they were taking advantage of her and abusing her emotionally, physically, and sexually. Our worst nightmares were coming true.
The first nights after being taken away from us, our innocent, trusting little girl would say to her new providers through tears streaming down her cheeks, " I want to go back to my Mommy and Daddy," but they would respond to her with lies. "Your Father doesn't love you! Your father hired me to take you. He didn't want you. He doesn't want anything to do with you. You can't trust Him!"
After a while, she began to believe the lies. "After all,," she told herself , "If my daddy really loves me, why doesn't he come and get me? It just made things worse. She was in a hostile world now where all kinds of things were being done to her that she had no control over. She began to learn that if she was going to survive in this world, she was going to have to do certain things. Things that no one should have to do. She learned to accept what twisted security there was in conforming to the patterns of her new 'providers'.
Who could blame her? She was a little girl trying to survive in a crazy world. As she grew and became a young street-smart teenager, she mustered up the courage to escape. She dreamed of starting fresh on her own and not having to live that way anymore. But she soon found out that the streets are hard and cold. Each time hunger and fear set in, she resorted to the patterns of survival that were once forced upon her. She prostituted herself to get along in the perverted world that was all around her.
Sometimes she would let herself dream that her Daddy really did love her, that everything she was told was a lie, and that she could go home and be with him. But then the shame would hit her about all the things that had been done to her and all the things she had now chosen to do. She just knew that her Father could never love her the way she was now.
Meanwhile my mind was totally consumed with thoughts of getting my little girl back. And she didn't have a clue as to how I really felt.
She moved from city to city, but each time it was the same. There was nowhere safe, no one she could trust. She'd been a lot of places for being only 19. New York, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, St Louis, and a hundred places in between. Now she was on 'The Redeye' to Chicago. When the bus rolled into the depot, she wiped the sleep from her eyes and thought, "Maybe this time. Maybe this will be the place."
It was still a little dark out as she looked out the window at the city lights while the sun came over the horizon. She watched a passenger train pull into town and drop off a load of businessmen commuting to the city. That triggered something in her. Without thinking and without direction, she instinctively reached into the dusty archives of her mind and pulled up an old videotape. The pictures rolled through her memory, she watched her daddy get on a train like that and wave goodbye on his way to work while mommy was holding her.
When she got off the bus, she walked to the train station, not really even knowing why. It was almost as if she were being pulled. At the station, she stood there, looking around. She saw a sign for Wheaton. That name looked familiar. Could that be where she was from? She had to find out. She boarded the train and headed for Wheaton.
She wasn't sure where to go when she arrived. She headed toward the park across the street and then just started walking around the neighborhood. It had been 15 years and there had been a lot of changes, but something felt familiar. She walked for several blocks just trying to let it sink in. Finally, she came to a corner that seemed familiar. She turned the corner into a quiet subdivision. As she walked into the subdivision, she thought to herself, "I must be crazy." But as she made a curve, she saw it - a big white house, with green shutters and a green door. She knew immediately that it was home.
As she stood there studying the house, she got scared. She sat down on the curb, her mind flooding with emotions. "Should I go up there: Maybe they don't live here anymore. Maybe they don't love me. Maybe the kidnappers told the truth when they said my parents hired them to take me a way. Maybe if I go to the door they'll call the kidnappers back. Can I really trust them? Do I dare trust them?"
She almost turned to walk away, but she had nowhere to go. Deep inside she was holding onto the hope that maybe her parents still lived there and that this might be the place of safety and love she'd been looking for. Every muscle in her body tightened as she rang the bell.
I was in my study when I heard the doorbell ring. I was shocked when I opened the door and found a 19 year-old woman dressed like a prostitute. I hesitantly said ""Hello," but she just stood there. I had no idea who she was. But as I looked into her hurting green eyes, past all of the make-up and the scanty, skin-tight clothes, I saw something. There was a connection. The connection of like to like. There she was! My little girl had come home.
I couldn't believe it! After years of searching, longing, praying, she was standing right in front of me. So what would you say to her if you were me?
'DIDN'T I TELL YOU NOT TO TAKE CANDY FROM STRANGERS?"
Of course not. Was I mad at my little girl for taking candy from strangers? Did I blame her? No. I wasn't mad at her, I was mad at the one who took her away from me. The truth was that I was overwhelmed with emotion. I reached out to embrace her, but she was scared and stepped away. Of course she was scared. Any man that had ever come within ten feet of her came for only one reason. Now I'm coming at her and she is projecting all of the hurt, pain and mistrust she has experienced in life right onto me. Inside I am dying just to hold her like I did when she was little. But she won't let me. I don't want to push her too hard and scare her away, so I settle for asking her to come in.
We go into the living room and begin talking. It's awkward at first. We haven't spent any time together in years and she doesn't know me. I see the fear in her eyes so I tell her I am so excited to see her and that everything is going to be all right. She's extremely nervous, shaking like a leaf. She reaches into her purse and pulls out a package of cigarettes in an attempt to calm her nerves. But she can't find her matches. So what would you tell her if you were me?
"NO, NOT IN HERE! IF YOU HAVE TO SMOKE THAT, GO OUTSIDE. DON'T COME BACK HERE UNTIL YOU BREAK THAT NASTY HABIT."
No, absolutely not. I see the scared and nervous look on her face that without a word says she could bolt at any moment. I know that if she goes looking for matches I may never see her again. I run to the kitchen and get some matches. Do I want her to smoke? No. Do I care right now? No. I just want her to be here. I don't care that she's got some junk that she's bringing with her. We'll deal with that later. Who cares? Be here just as you are. Right here. Right now. In the safety of my house. Let me look at you. Let me talk to you. Let me take care of you.
I see the hurt on her face. I sense the lack of trust in everything she says and does. Inside I am dying because all these years, all I have wanted to do is to hold and love her. And now she is right here in the room with me and I can't do anything.
She's right in front of me but I can't show her how much I love her. Why? Because she doesn't trust me. Am I not trustworthy? Am I not the Father that loves her? Am I not the one who planned for her even before she was born. Am I not the one who conceived her? Am I not he one who loved, nurtured and cared for her until she was stolen away: I've spent years crying, longing, praying for her return. I poured my entire being and all my resources into the single objective of reuniting with her. And now, she's here, but I can't... she won't trust me.
I try to find a way to gain her trust. I continue to be patient and give her room because I know I can't force her to trust me. But I keep calling to her. Nurturing her. Wooing her. Loving her.
She keeps asking herself, "Can I trust him? Does he really love me?" But my trustworthiness and love have never been the real questions. The real questions for her are:
Will you continue to believe the lies of the one who stole you and project the junk of the world he took you into onto me? Or will you believe the truth about me and trust me to protect, nurture and love you once again?
How much of the love I long to pour out to you are you willing and able to receive?
