an angel in the darkness

in high school, i had a great boyfriend. no really, he was awesome. he liked to put me down, yell at me, threaten me, drop me off on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere if we got into a fight, and sometimes he would even hit me. yeah, he was so great that i stayed in that relationship for four whole years. don’t ask me what i was thinking, lord knows my entire family and nearly all of my friends (and some of his friends) did everything they could to show me that i would be so much better without the dude. it wasn’t until i went away to a women’s college that i finally got the guts to break up with him for good.
the day my parents helped me move into my dorm was life changing. i met my roommate and all the girls on the hall and we went to dinner as one group. i had never had so many girl friends before. the upper classwomen were so independent and brilliant and out to save the world and were there to encourage the new “first-years” on campus.. in just that first day at the school, i regained so much confidence in myself that my boyfriend had worked hard to destroy over the past four years. that night, well past the time that all good girls should be in bed, my boyfriend called to say that he was sitting outside in the parking lot. lovely. i went outside to meet him and we walked around the campus together. we quickly got into a useless argument and stopped to talk it out on the steps of our school’s old, outdoor amphitheater. i was quickly falling back into the submissive role of the stupid girlfriend, and all i wanted to do was walk away from him and go back to my safe dorm with all of my new friends. tears started welling up in my eyes as i listened to him rant and rave about what an idiot i was. he got mad at me for being quiet and crying and he pushed me. i fell down a couple of the concrete steps of the amphitheater and scraped up my arm and side pretty good. i got up and looked at him in disbelief, and he started apologizing, trying to comfort me for the pain that he had just caused me. at this point, i knew that he had to go, but i had no idea how to get him to leave. we were alone, in the dark, in the middle of a very empty field and most everyone else on campus was in their dorm rooms. i did the only thing that i could think of: i prayed. it wasn’t even a good prayer; i pretty much just said “help” to God. i looked at the soon-to-be ex-boyfriend, not sure how God was going to help, only sure that He would. my eyes wandered past the boyfriend to a tree about 50 yards away and i saw a form. a very tall, dark figure was leaning against a tree near the student center and seeing that figure gave me one of the most peaceful feelings that i have ever felt in my entire life. i knew that that had to be an angel that God had sent to help me get through the next few minutes, because without seeing that figure against the tree, i couldn’t have pushed past my boyfriend and walked confidently to my dorm, ignoring his requests for me to stop and just talk. i walked right to my dorm building, with him on my heels, unlocked the door with the key that i had and he didn’t, and closed the door in his face. my heart was racing as i watched him through the glass, yelling and pleading for me not to call the cops. of course i wasn’t going to call the cops. i was going to get on my knees and thank God that he had rescued me.