Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Violation (04/04/24)
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TITLE: The Trap | Previous Challenge Entry
By Louis Detweiler
04/10/24 -
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Bill put a roll on his plate. “We’re basketball players and we’re not fat. Why would she say that?”
I looked down at my stomach as I put a helping of cottage cheese on my tray. “Maybe I eat too much ice cream. I could cut out a dessert in the middle of the day.”
Bill grabbed my shoulder. “You’re not listening! Marsha is up to something.”
“I love her. I think she loves me. It might do me good to eat less. I could play more basketball.”
Bill had a puzzled look on his face. “What else does she find wrong with you?”
“She made comments about my stuttering.”
Bill put an ice cream on my lunch tray and motioned for me to follow him to a table where we could eat alone. As we sat down, he said, “You only stutter when you’re nervous and that is only when you’re with Marsha.”
“I know. I just wish she was more confident around me.”
Bill took a pull on his milk straw. “You’re the star junior basketball player. Most girls would be thrilled to go out with you.”
“Marsha is the most beautiful cheerleader at Clear Creek High. If I have her heart, I’ll be complete.”
Bill smiled. “We don’t really know her heart. Why can’t she be satisfied with you the way you are?”
“What? She tells me I need to change. She says it would make a big difference in our relationship.”
Bill put his fork into his shepherd’s pie and took a big swallow of potatoes and hamburger. After swallowing his mouthful, he told me, “It’s a trap.”
Angrily, I stared at Bill. “Are you trying to break us up?”
Bill opened his ice cream container, then pointed his fork at me. “Eat your ice cream and listen. I only know what works for me. Waiting for her to accept you or always trying to please her can be very demeaning. Atempting to be a perfectionist will grind away at you. Always trying to please someone makes you, their pet.”
“I’m no one’s pet.”
“Good. God accepts us, faults and all. He knows we have faults, but we are made in the image and likeness of God. Can you please God? Can you be perfectly obedient to God? We are born in sin and it’s impossible to be perfect. Yet, God loves us and gives us confidence and courage. Marsha is not giving you courage and confidence if she is always finding faults with you and tearing you down. When people reject us, it’s a trap into their game.”
With my eyes glazed over, I mumbled, Jesus’s law, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
“That’s right. You need to build each other up. Marsha needs to build you up. You need to support each other. Life in high school is tough. I’m surprised girls aren’t trying to steal you away from her. It’s a violation of God for us to reject each other. Most people would say you need to eat more.”
I looked at Bill. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Unless she is doing something wrong like cheating on you, you accept her, right?”
I took another mouthful of ice cream. “I love her.”
“Trying to get someone to accept you by improving your perceived faults is very demeaning. It’ll ruin you.”
“So what Marsha is doing to me is wrong?”
“Yes. It violates God’s law when we don’t treat each other with respect. Some guys got cut from the basketball team. They didn’t have the ability to play as good as you or me, but we still respect them. We aren’t needling them because of their faults. They have strengths we don’t.”
I got up from the table and headed over to the tray return outlet with Bill when I saw Marsha with other cheerleaders enter the cafeteria.
She looked at me and said, “Putting on the pounds I see.”
“Yeah. You’ll have to accept me as I am, or I will find someone who will.”
“What?”
“You need to build me up, Marsha. I can’t spend all my time trying to please you. I’m not fat.”
Marsha smiled. “I was just playing.”
Bill walked away and rolled his eyes.
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Spot on and highlights the act of violating another very subtly.
Great read.