Let me pray, mamma

The amount of suffering she had been through that day was unbearable. As I picked her frail body off the floor I could see the cuts and bruises left on her skin where he had beaten her. I told her how everything would be okay, how God will see that we are good people, how he will always love us no matter what. She looked at me with her glazed brown eyes. I could see her pain, I wanted to help her but the only way was through her believing that God is the answer. Carrying her down the smoky corridors with chambers to each side, she let out a faint squeal where I had touched a fresh open wound down her side, I hate seeing her like this, but what can I do with such little hope in living? How could we go on like this? 

I held her close and pushed past the men puffing smoke into the clammy air, covering her with my scarf so people couldn't see her tears. I told her that if you believe God will save you then he will come, she asked me, 'mamma, if all I see is the dark and all I feel is hurt, when we will God help me find the light and feel the warmth?'

I began to run through the cramped spaces in the corridors but kept my footsteps quite as to not arouse suspicion from the soldiers. I had no shoes anyway so the only sound was the deep inhale and exhale of my lungs getting exhausted from trying to breathe the smoky air, and my daughter's cries of pain when she bounced roughly in my arms. I reached the dorm full of women like me an children like my daughter, I tried to pry her out of my arms but she gripped tighter each time, I asked her why this was, she said, 'I am praying mamma. Let me pray.'
She had never prayed before.

I sat on the bed cloth for about 2 minutes before she raised her head from the curled position she had taken up, clinging to my chest like a tumour. I asked her what she prayed for and  she struggled to say just one word out of her small, dry mouth.

'Hope.'

My daughter, who had been lost for so long in the hands of the Nazi, had been able to finally realize the true meaning of faith. 'I am so proud of you.' I whispered to her softly, while stroking back her curls behind her ear. I was about to wipe the tears dripping from her scarred face but she stopped me, 'no, God can wipe away my tears if He is in me, and if we get out of here, mamma, it is then I can wipe my tears. When I know truly that God is in me and in everyone who has love and faith.'

Three days after, my daughter and I escaped the death camp with five others. We were the lucky ones. Before the escape every one of us prayed to God and he had answered. He had given me and my daughter faith, the faith we would have been so very lost without.

K. Newman