on curling irons and sexually exploited children, among other things

Warning: this is a very serious post in the midst of a generally lighthearted blog. Sorry for the rather sharp discrepancy. Since I believe very deeply in the power of Story, especially with all its happy and funny moments as much as its sad and dark ones, I’m sure with following posts the temperature of this blog will rise again. I guess sometimes happy blogs just need reality checks, as overall happy lives need them too.

Her silky brown hair slid through my fingers. She asked me a question, but in the commotion of the moment I didn’t hear it.

“What?” I asked, leaning in closer, the curling iron still in my hand.

She was looking straight into my eyes as she repeated herself. This time, her small voice reached my ears.

“Can you get into heaven—can you get past the gates of heaven—if you have cuts?”

And standing there in an old college dorm room, surrounded by women helping pamper little girls from abusive homes in preparation for an Alice-in-Wonderland-themed ball, my heart fell apart in two pieces.

I don’t remember the name of the little girl whose hair I was curling for the ball, but I will never be able to forget her question.

And I will never be able to forget the trouble in her eyes.

A heavy trouble, a dark trouble, the trouble of a spirit in turmoil, churning up inside her and spilling out through those wide brown eyes. It was the trouble of trauma and violence, of memories darker than anyone should have to bear.

She was only six. About to be seven, she told me. And she was in agony over the question of whether or not a person with a history of cutting could get past the gates of heaven.

She wasn’t the only sad story who sat patiently in our chairs, getting her hair done for the evening. There were others, drastic ones. Girls who shied away from makeup as if the thought of it were a waking nightmare. Girls with burns from causes that make my skin crawl to think of them. Girls whose hair was loaded with weeks’ worth of grime and food and grease. One girl was terrified to even lift her chin.

There’s something about the thought of that little girl being raped that makes me angrier than I can decently express here.

I didn’t cry then, in front of them. We couldn’t. Tonight was a special ball at Royal Family Kids Camp in Waxahachie, Texas, and we handful of volunteers were preparing the girls for the festivities. We just smiled and curled their hair and sprinkled them with glitter and painted their nails and told them they looked stunningly beautiful.

But what was breaking my heart was that before the girl in my chair sat there, before my hands were working with her still baby-soft hair at her request for Princess Aurora curls, there were other hands on her. With different intentions. She has no defender. She has no safety. She has no idea what a good man looks like. She has been violated in every way.

And here I am, getting ready to graduate college, meandering through my life focusing on that elusive thing we Americans are all supposed to look for at this stage: What Interests Me. And I think I have a lot of troubles, but heck, I don’t.

I’m so ashamed of myself.

This wasn’t the first time I’d come across child abuse, and I know this cause isn’t the only war zone in the midst of our broken society. And yet it was a brutal reality check.

Because as long as there is one more precious little innocent girl in danger of sexual exploitation, there is absolutely no reason why I should live in only the pursuit of my own happiness. As long as one more child has a chance of having burning cigarettes pressed into his skin for the sadistic pleasure of his parent or whoever else, I have zero excuse to coast along in the current of my own profit.

These children have no hope.

God help us. Let’s give them some.