My Tears Are Hidden By Rain

Today is my 75th birthday. By all odds, I shouldn't be alive to write this. So many skirmishes with the devil over the years, for my life. I have often wondered what has him in such a lather. Then I look at my children and grandchildren loving and serving the Lord. There are 12 of us in direct line reaching out to the Lord, and helping share the Good News. Then there are the spouses' families. We are an army of the Lord:

Kevin P. Rowe

Linda (Sunny) Rowe

R. Jason Rowe

Angelene Harrison Rowe!

Wynter Rowe Corcoran

Noah Corcoran

Ryan (Ry) RoweThe

Christian Rowe*

Colby Rowe

Jonathyn Rowe Corcoran

Ethan Rowe

Tanner Rowe

*Christian Rowe m. MacKenzie Spillman Rowe 2017

We are now a baker's dozen!

Children are such a blessing, aren't they? Gifts on loan from God.  That's what you would think, anyway, but sadly this is too often not true.  What do we do about the children who are violently abused because of their very existence? What do we do about children who are starving and left to find whatever they can?  What do we do about children who are taken for trafficking?  What do we do about the millions of aborted children in our country?  Where is God in all this? What do we do when we don't understand?

1 Corinthians 13:12 

Now we see things imperfectly, lie puzzling reflectoins

in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.

All I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know

everything completely just as God now knows me completely.

These horrendous things are not God's plan, and we must trust God and stand on that. It is the work of satan, roaming to and fro, devouring whom he can. We must remember that the spirits are always in God's domain, with the Holy Spirit standing by for protection.

1 Corinthians 13:11

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like

a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I

put away childish things.

God not only wants us to have our childhoods, it is the desire of His heart. He wants us to grow in Him, through trust and faith, just like our little children grow under our tutelage. He is our place of safety, just as He expects us to be our children's place of safety. They should be able to run to us when they are frightened, and expect to receive understanding, love and security.  In a perfect world.  And that is what God created. It is satan and the sin of man which have brought us to a state of blurred love and hate.   Where does a child go when they are endangered, abused, wounded and afraid, when they can't go to their parents?  They are to young to reason out anything but survival.  Love is the gold ring from a merry-go-round. I believe, with all my heart the Lord does not hold the children responsible, for they have not yet come to a place of accountability.

We were staying in a house next an old school, and playground. The house was covered by tar paper.  I don't know "who" we were, when I say "we".  I only remember three things about that house: Seeing my father, Wilson Allen at the back door, bringing food, but not coming inside.  Sitting with my beloved Uncle Edward at the kitchen table, staring and the rain and sharing a piece of toast with him And finally, the place where "it" happened.

I was very young, not older than four years old. I had no toys, so I was doing my usual thing of exploring the yard, and the school yard, from behind the fence which surrounded it. An older boy, a teenager came riding across the school yard on a beautiful silver bicycle, I jumped up and down, clapping my hands in glee.  After awhile he swung the bike over by where I stood behind the fence.  "Do you like my bike?" He asked me.  I nodded my head vigorously up-and-down. He then asked if I had ever ridden on a bicycle (I hadn't). He rode around some more, and skidded to a stop in front of me.

"Maybe, I'll give you a ride sometime. Would you like that?"

I clasped my hands in joy. "Oh, yes, yes," screamed!

But, he just rode off. I felt crushed; I so wanted to ride on that bicycle.  I was soon back to puttering around the yard, planning on someday climbing that big tree over there, calling to the birds, looking for squirrels  Day dreaming.  Suddenly, up the alley came the boy with a group of his friends.  He was the only one on a bike. and they approached me from the area behind the wood shed. They were all grinning, and seemed very excited.

"Are you a scaredy-cat?" The boy asked me. I was fierce. I was strong. If I was ever afraid, I would never show it. "No, I'm not."  The boys joked among themselves, teasing me about being a baby and a scardey-cat. They did what boys do, pushed at each other, then tried to tickle me. 

"Do you still want to ride the bike?"  I nodded my head. "Well, you can have a ride with all of us, but you must come inside (he pointed to the shed). We have something to show you," and taking me by the hand he led me inside. It was pitch black, but they had brought matches. The door was blocked.  When they struck the matches, they were all sitting down with their pants opened, with their penises out.  They forced me to perform fallatio on all of them, then told me to get out, threatening to kill me if I told anyone.  They came around me other days after that, and always jeered at me calling me a whore who put out for a bicycle ride. 

Who did I go to for help? Nobody. I lived in fear the boy would come back and grab me. I was numb about the sexual aspect; I didn't like it. Not at all.

Do you wonder that a child that age would not scream for help? The answer is simple. I had already been through enough in my short life to learn self-preservation  There was simply nobody I could to run to for help.  What struck my heart was the fact I never did get that ride, and I was nicer than them.  i kept my promise! I didn't tell anybody.

So, then I still wonder how these things fit into the Kingdom.  I honestly don't know.  Yet I so trust God that I know someday I will know it all.  In the meantime, I can only pray and weep.

Raindrops. So many raindrops. Feels like raindrops, falling from my eyes.

Psalm 72:4

He shall judge the poor of the people; He shall save the children

of the needy  He shall break the oppressor into pieces.

Zechariah 7:10

Do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the

poor, and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.

Do you hear me, Lord?  It's me, again. Can you hear me?
Can anybody hear me?