The Wardrobe

Like any kid, I loved playing hide and seek. Being the youngest of 11 siblings, I used how small I was compared to the rest of my siblings to my advantage. I hid in cabinets, the dryer, and the pantry. We had one rule that had to be followed, one place that was off-limits to hide in—my mom’s wardrobe. My mom had a closet like the one in the Chronicles of Narnia, but hers had a broken leg that made it easy to tip over. She would say, “It’s not safe to hide in there because it’s unstable. It could fall with one push, so please don’t hide in there.”

I was seven then, and while we were getting ready to play hide and seek, my brother whispered to me, “Let’s hide in mom’s wardrobe. No one will find us.” I shouldn’t have listened to my brother, but I went along and hid in it. As my sister looked for everyone, we heard her open my parents’ room door. We peeked through the little crack of the door and saw her looking under the bed. We laughed at the sight of her frustration. Finally, she heard us and opened the door of the wardrobe. My brother dashed out screaming, “You have to catch me!” and my sister chased after him. I jumped out of the wardrobe and felt it wobble. I turned and saw the wardrobe falling. I tried to outrun it, but it fell on me. The loud noise thundered through the house.

The wardrobe was too heavy for me to wiggle out from underneath. I was stuck. With my face on the ground, I felt something trickle down my cheek and neck.

Blood.

I sobbed, “Help…please.”

Dad to the Rescue

I heard the footsteps of my siblings running into the room. They tried to lift the wardrobe off me, but they couldn’t. It was too heavy for them too. Then my dad busted through the door, knelt beside me, and said, “I’m here. Everything will be alright.” He lifted the wardrobe with one hand and picked me up with the other. He checked my head to see if there were any significant injuries. My head felt like it was cracked open. He carried me to the car and rushed me to the hospital. Once we got there, the nurses and doctors examined my head. There was no skull or brain damage, just a deep cut fixed with stitches.

When I fix my hair in the morning, I feel the scar of where the wardrobe fell on me, and I’m reminded of two things. One, I should’ve listened to my mom’s rule. I didn’t understand why she made that rule until the wardrobe fell on me. She didn’t make that rule to stop my siblings and me from having fun but to keep us safe. And second, my siblings, in all their effort, weren’t strong enough to lift it off me, but my dad was. From that moment, I looked at my dad like he was a superhero. He had the strength my siblings didn’t have and rescued me from under the wardrobe.

As Christians, we try our best to follow God’s rules. These rules weren’t made to prohibit us from experiencing life to its fullest but to keep us safe from the dangers of this world. Just like my mom’s rule of not hiding in the wardrobe was made to keep me and my siblings safe, the ten commandments are meant to keep us safe. And when we make mistakes and fall short, we have a merciful God that doesn’t leave us in a state of sin. Instead, He rescues us in our circumstances, just like my dad saving me from the crushing weight of the wardrobe. God sent His Son to bare the weight of sin in our place. And through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we can live in freedom from sin and have the hope of salvation.

If you enjoyed this, you might like Camera Thief.

Kennedy (Nia) Aiolupotea writes from the Pacific Northwest.

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