“That’s normal here.” Joy shrugs. “All the comics are like that. They also have vending machines where men can buy schoolgirls’ used underwear.”
I can barely imagine the depravity. From then on, I stay close to my buddy. I act like I can handle any threat, but I’m hyperalert, glancing over my shoulder at every gust of wind or unexpected shadow. Japan has seemed so safe, like a clean, perfect, on-time, well-oiled machine. The Japanese stand passively at a red light on our straight country road with no car visible for miles. But the closer I look, the darker it is. Scratch the surface and the rot is just underneath. Thank God we are in the Family, safe from such things.
After a couple of months of trying to fit into a new Home—and country and life—Auntie Crystal, fuming, calls me into our empty dance practice room. I’d refused to do something that one of the younger teen girls asked me to do. Auntie Crystal yells that I’m the lowest of the low, nothing and no one. No one cares about me. No one likes me. No one’s on my side.
Joy is, I think silently to myself, refusing to be stomped into nothingness.
She laughs as if she knows what I’m thinking. She leans toward me until her face is inches from mine. “I told Joy to become your friend. She’s been spying for me the entire time.”
I flinch, and not just from the spit that spatters my face with her words. This is the cruelest blow, and she knows it. My heart cracks. I can’t bring myself to meet Auntie Crystal’s eyes. I learned long ago not to trust the adults, even my parents, but Joy? We shared everything. She held me up on my weakest days. She was the one person I relied on, and now she’s betrayed me, too.
The next day, I force myself out of bed. I force myself to eat breakfast. And I force myself not to run away when Joy sits down next to me in the empty dance room. I’m as cold and still as marble as I repeat everything Auntie Crystal told me the evening before. The words burn like ice as they leave my throat.
When I finish, Joy reaches for my hand, but I pull it away. She takes a deep breath, and then the words spill out of her. “Yes, it’s true. She did tell me to be your friend and get close to you so I could report on you. But that was only true in the beginning!” She pleads with tears in her eyes. “Since then, we’ve become real friends. You’re my best friend! I wouldn’t betray you. I haven’t told her the stuff we talk about. I promise! When she asks me about you, I just tell her innocent stuff to satisfy her.”
My mouth clamps together as tightly as a mousetrap. I don’t know what to say. She betrayed me once—is she at it again? I watch as her sniffles turn into sobs, eyes red, nose dripping. We sit there, me a statue, her a crumpled bag. Five or ten or thirty minutes later, the tension in my jaw releases. I know how things are in the Family. Joy has no more say in her life than my parents do in theirs. The Family and God must be our first loyalty. She didn’t know me when she agreed to spy on me; and she couldn’t have said no to Auntie Crystal anyhow. She is mean as a rattlesnake and has complete control over our lives.
I put my hand on Joy’s and tell her it’s okay. The pain remains, like a scar on my heart, but I believe her. Friendship is too precious a treasure to waste.
The incident with Joy has taught me that there is no one I can truly rely on except God. He is the only constant that not even the Shepherds can control. Desperate for a connection that no one can take away from me, I develop a personal relationship with God. In a deserted room, I kneel on the bamboo tatami mat–covered floor and cry to God for help. I’m reminded of Thailand. “Please, God,” I weep. “Please help me, give me strength, give me peace in my heart, make me more yielded to Your will. I will do whatever You ask of me. Please help me now. I know You are with me even though I’m all alone.”
I commit myself to having a direct relationship with Jesus, regardless of what may seem like injustice by my Shepherds. Psalm 27:10 says, “When my mother and father forsake me, then the Lord shall take me up.” This is the answer, I tell myself, and no one in the Family can punish me for it.
Recently, WS started publishing the Mama Letters—Mama Maria’s own letters on topics like prayer and hearing from God. I feel like I finally understand their meaning and that I am walking in the path of the Letters and the Bible—no longer just reading because I’m supposed to. I’m connected to God, and they are my comfort, my only escape. Pain and humiliation are for my own good, I tell myself, as I’ve been taught.
I read the Bible with new eyes, and even though I’ve read the whole thing straight through more than once, and studied many of the passages hundreds of times, and memorized dozens of chapters, my new focus and analysis raises more questions. Particularly about the Law of Love.
I raise my hand in Devotions. “Uncle Michael, I know the Bible and Grandpa teaches us that God’s only law is love, and that the Ten Commandments, particularly the one on adultery, are no longer valid.”
“Yes. Matthew 22:37–40: ‘There are only two commandments now: Love God and love your neighbor,’” Uncle Michael says, paraphrasing the passage.
“But ‘All scripture is given by inspiration of God,’ 2 Timothy 3:16. And the Bible says, ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My Words shall not pass away,’ Matthew 24:35. How are the Ten Commandments no longer relevant?”
“They still give people who are not liberated a good standard to follow,” Uncle Michael answers. “But Galatians 3:24–25 says, ‘The law was our schoolmaster. But after faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.’”
After a few more minutes, my hand goes up again.
“Yes, Faith.” There is a slight note of annoyance in his voice that warns me to be careful.
“Of course I believe in the Law of Love,” I hedge. “I just want to make sure I have this straight, so that I can answer any questions that Systemites might have when we are witnessing.”
His expression relaxes slightly.
“What about in Matthew, where Jesus says, ‘You have heard that it was said, “Do not commit adultery.” But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart’?”
“Well, Faith, in that passage Jesus was showing the Pharisees that it was impossible to keep the Ten Commandments, if even looking at a woman with lust is committing adultery. He was proving his point that it needs to be all about grace now.”
“That makes sense,” I respond. “But what about what where Paul says, ‘God will judge fornicators and adulterers’?” (Hebrews 13:4)