Hold My Hand

"Can I hold your hand?" He asked. I looked at it nervously, knowing that as soon as I grasped the large muscular hand, it would be nearly impossible to let go. Little did I know how much would bond between the two by simply taking His hand. I nodded and reached. He started walking forward, I followed right beside. The first few steps were momentus, memorable as we began our first walk. I wasn't sure if I was doing everything right, should I walk right beside Him? Should I hang on for dear life? Did I have to talk while we walked or was He okay with the silence? Other couples passed us, but I didn't really notice them as my gaze was primarily on Him.

As time went on, the walk seemed to dull. The scenery changed, and occasionally I was grasp a little tighter as circumstances demanded it. Sometimes a person would try to run through us, but as soon as I would loosen my grip to let them pass through, He would hold tighter, forcing them to go around. The days dragged on, sometimes I couldn't help but spend hours looking at Him. He was so beautiful, so handsome, ruggedly mystevious. Whenever I would look up, He would immediatly look down at me, often catching me off guard. Embaressed that He had caught me gazing at Him, I would look away with a blush (I would always hear a chuckle from Him after I would look away, and I knew He was still looking at me, but I was to embaressed to look back). Somedays it would take me days to build the courage to look again, I was so unworthy, what could He benefit from my gaze?

One day, we began walking up a hill, a rather long and steep one. Not more than a quarter up the hill I was panting, as always He had my hand and was pretty much dragging me up the hill. Some runners passed by, distracting me temporarily. Yet was snapped back to attention by the firmer than usual grip on my hand. As we continued up, I saw more and more runners jogging on the opposite side of the path. There were all dressed rather nicely, and weren't panting at all for they were headed downhill, not up. I looked up at Him, but He shook His head, not intending to let go of my hand so that I may join the joyful others. This did not stop me from looking though, they seemed to come down by the hundreds. Laughter floated amoungst them, all were good-looking and appeared to be having a blast. I stopped and turned and watched them run downhill. It looked so appealing. After all, I was the only one going uphill. Why was I going uphill in the first place? They must have been running after something, or at least somewhere. I began to merge in with the crowd and a smile lit up my face as I found I was finally amoung people that were the same as I was. I was still facing uphill at this point, the faces were passing by me, but the longer I stood there peering at them, the more gruesome they became. Within seconds the beautiful people had turned into vicious dogs and were gnawing at me, and swarming me in hoards. Their eyes peirced mine and everything that had appeared beautiful and relaxing, was naught.

"Oh God." I cried. Within seconds I was hanked back onto the other side of the path. I had forgotten completely that His hand was still holding mine, forgotten when I was no longer looking at Him but at others.
"Why did you let me go?" I asked.
"I didn't. I had you the whole time. But would you learn to depend on Me if I didn't allow you to stretch My hand?"

I held tighter, and together we continued up the hill.