Story published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Believe in Angels
He Spoke My Name
A God wise enough to create me and the world I live in is wise enough to watch out for me. ~Philip Yancey
I was sixteen years old, and he was seventeen. He was not my first love and certainly not my last. He wasn't even someone that I was interested in, but I knew he was crazy about me, so I gave in and dated him. As teenagers, it was mostly hanging out and doing things we had no business doing. Definitely not the makings of prom queen or king. No, we were just kids trying to grow up too fast.
From the start, it was a rocky relationship. I soon discovered he had a mile-long jealous streak, and it seemed I could do nothing right. This was not something I had ever experienced, and I quickly realized it would be difficult to break free.
Early into this relationship, I started feeling trapped. I was missing the boy I had previously dated. He was always so sweet and kind. It hurt to know that I had hurt him, and I wanted to be able to talk to him. So, I called him one day. Huge mistake. It wasn't long before it got back to my jealous boyfriend that I had made that call. But, of course, as stories do, it had grown from a friendly "I'm sorry" call to an "I want to meet you, secretly."
I knew this was going to be ugly, and it was. He didn't confront me until we were alone. Abusers are manipulative that way. From the moment we walked into his house, he started. It's tough to admit but I was smacked, shoved, shaken, thrown, and finally reduced to cowering in a corner begging him to stop. He was red-faced, angry, and extremely threatening. After what seemed like hours of terror with him berating and threatening me, he pulled out a rifle and held it to my head. "All I want you to do is breathe," he said. I could do nothing but sob and pray.
Suddenly, everything went silent and still. Out of nowhere, a loud voice filled the entire house. It was a man's voice, deep and strong, as crystal clear as if it was in the room with us. It spoke only one word: my name.
Immediately, my boyfriend ran out of the house and into the yard, yelling, "Who's out there?" But there was no one there. He lived in a remote area, away from other houses, and dogs in a pen outside. If someone had been outside, we would have known. There was no one there. When he came back in, he had a look of fear on his face, and he was ready to take me home. We were both unnerved. I don't remember much of what happened after hearing the voice. After that night, I was finally able to break free from this abusive relationship.
Twenty years later, I ran into him. As adults, we had moved past our troubled youth and spoke as if we were good friends.
"Do you remember the night?" I asked. He answered, "Of course. How could I forget?" I knew we were on the same page. "So, what do you think it was?" I asked.
"God," he answered.
I told him no one would ever believe us if we spoke of it, and he agreed. But it happened, and we will always know it.
Recently, I was on social media chatting with friends, when a familiar name popped up. Here we were, twenty years after our last conversation, and again I asked, "Do you remember the night?" Of course, we talked about it again.
I don't know who or what it was that night many years ago. What I do know is that it stopped the attack. I will never forget the voice. I can still hear it as clearly as it had echoed throughout the room that night. I can still recall every emotion I felt, and it still shakes me to this day, I've heard the adage, "It was a miracle I survived" many times in my life, and for me, there is nothing else that it could be.
~Lacy Gray