The Story of A Little Girl – Part III

For thousands of years, there has been a negative denotation of left-handed people. It exists throughout many cultures of the world. In some cultures being left-handed is a punishable crime. The punishment can range all the way to death.

In Christian literature left-handedness is considered a sign of being a servant of the Devil. When the little girl was eight, she was living in the Bible Belt and in this part of the country the literal word of the Bible was accepted.

Today, in much of the country, being left-handed is more a matter of curiosity and does not carry the stigma that it used to. In other parts of the country and the world it is still a dangerous thing to be left-handed. It is estimated that today somewhere between 7 and 30% of the world is left-handed. Although definitely in the minority, the numbers are significant.

Our story concerns the little girl who was and still is profoundly left-handed. As many families did at this time, the little girl's family went to church frequently. Her father was in the church choir so they went more frequently than some. The little girl was young enough that she didn't always understand the sermons. They confused her on more than one level. The people who sat in the pews said they believed the words of the Bible, but most of them didn't seem to live by those words. However, they did seem to judge other people by those words. How strange, to hold others responsible for their behavior but not themselves. So on the Sunday that the minister spoke about left-handed people being the servant of the Devil. She really didn't pay much attention. She knew she wasn't working for the Devil. She didn't think she was working for anyone. The minister's words did not make any sense, so she ignored him. Her father did not.

When they got home later that day, the little girl overheard her father speaking to her mother. He said, "No child of mine is going to be left-handed." He told the mother to call the school the next day and tell them to make the little girl use her right hand whenever she would naturally use her left. The little girl was also supposed to use her right hand at home, too. Again, the little girl didn't understand the fuss. But what chilled the little girl's soul, what froze her to the bone, was her father's statement that no child of his would be left-handed. Did that mean he wasn't her father? How could that be? He was the only man that she had known as her father. She would do anything, anything at all to win his approval. Though she would not know this for many years, this was the first betrayal.

Her mother called the school, as her father had directed. When the teacher told her to use her right hand for writing she tried. It was strange. It was wrong. It was uncomfortable. It made her brain hurt. It made her cry. But she kept on trying. She had to please her father. As she kept trying, she started to get angry. She didn't understand the anger, but it kept growing.

When she ate her dinner, she was told to put her fork in her right hand. It was embarrassing. She had a hard time getting the food to her mouth. She became frustrated. She cried. She became more angry.

As the week went on, she developed headaches, her heart would race, her hands would shake, and she would cry and cry and cry. If she did not learn how to use her right hand she would not have a father. Why was it so wrong to be left-handed? Her anger grew. She started throwing tantrums. By the end of the week, her mother said to her father, "She's left-handed. Let her be." From that time on she would spend a large part of her life trying to please and win the approval of her father, to little avail.

Were the little girl did not have the approval of her father, she did have the favoritism of her teacher. The little girl would tell you that being teacher's pet is not all that it's cracked up to be. In fact, it worked against her in her relationship with the other kids in her class. It also created problems at home. The little girl remembers getting 100's on her arithmetic exams. She would take them home and show them to her parents. Her mother would congratulate her and tell her she'd done a good job. But, her father would review the exam and find that she had made mistakes and tell her to take the test back and show her teacher. He never congratulated her on what she did right. He only told her what she did wrong.

A new ritual started in the third grade. When she got her report card, she took it home for her parents to see and sign. Her report card showed A's and B's. Her mother told her she'd done a good job. Her father told her she could have done better. All of her B's should have been A's. This continued through all of her school years until she graduated high school. A's were expected. B's were tolerated. Anything less than a B was tantamount to failure. She was never congratulated on her A's and when she got a B she was told she could do better. A C meant a meeting with the school counselor. At one point the little girl was told that since A's were expected no congratulations were needed and telling her she could do better was called Management By Exception. It seemed a cruel thing to do. Little girls should not be managed. They are to be loved, cherished, and encouraged. This was the second betrayal.

As the woman who was that little girl looks back on this time, she realizes that her father was doing the best that he knew how. It was nobody's fault, that he couldn't give her what she needed. Nevertheless, it left scars

The little girl now had a number of life lessons to learn:

She needed to redefine what home, hearth, and stability was.

She needed to learn that acceptance doesn't come from others, but comes from within.

She needed to learn, that while it's nice for others to appreciate your successes, it is more important that that she recognized and appreciated her successes.

She needed to learn that the more you seek approval from others, the more it slips away.

She also needed to learn forgiveness. She needed to learn to forgive others for the hurts they inflicted and she needed to forgive herself for the hurts, she accepted.

She had also picked up something else that she would have to deal with in her life. It is called an anger overlay or a red overlay. She would find that her temper was quick to rise and that, when it rose, she literally saw a red. She was not in control of her anger when she saw a red. Interestingly, there was always a piece of her that was separate from what was going on when this anger came upon her. It frightened and paralyzed her as much as it frightened people around her, but it would be years before she addressed it.

There would be one more lesson for the little girl to learn, but it would come when she was a grown woman and would require all of her strengths to deal with. For now she had enough work to do. For the next year or so she would try to work around her lessons.

The little girl had contracted to learn many difficult lessons. Today, the grown woman who was that little girl wonders what she was thinking at the time she contracted them. She did not have a bad life. She had fun. She laughed. She had her books to read. She had her curiosity keep her interested. She had come to the Earth school to learn, and learn she would. She would spend many years learning her lessons, and even when she learned them, she didn't always practice them. Bad habits can be hard to break. It is also true that her spirituality

was asleep, and while it is difficult enough to discern our lessons when we are awake, it is almost impossible to discern them when we are asleep. But just because we are asleep doesn't mean we won't experience those knocks on our heart. The little girl, would soon experience her first lesson again.