This story is by Deborah Chlebina and was part of our 2022 Spring Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.
Julianna struggles with the good and bad within herself. She chooses to be good and to be like Jesus. She wants to overcome the devil in the world inflicting the badness upon her life and others. And three times she has achieved this and strives to always overcome the struggles.
Time after time, Julianna is continually faced with obstacles that prevent her from becoming all she can be, and she believes that the devil is doing this to her. And she is aware that every experience she encounters, whether it is good or bad, she knows it is making her become a better person.
In her many trials she comes across a guy named Jeremiah. She observes him from afar and finds that he is an awful lot like she is tormented by the devil within the mind, but only wants to do the opposite; to do the right thing.
Julianna and Jeremiah go to the same library in the same town. Each one observing the other without knowing about it. Each one trying to be discreet. And because they are interested in the same subjects, they often find themselves next to each other. Julianna likes to study the eastern philosophy and psychology and Jeremiah likes to do the same.
Julianna can see and hear spirits, she is spiritually sensitive to the unseen realm, and because she is so good, when she encounters those who are not so good, she hears the negativity of the badness, and it conflicts with her goodness. She experiences talk about herself within herself. Jeremiah has observed her more that she has him. But they see each other from time to time because they frequent the same library. And Julianna secretly wants to be something more to him.
Judy, the librarian, sees them and because she has been a librarian for many years, in this town, she has never seen a more likely couple trying to avoid one another as they do. Julianna is a recluse and is very distant to others. Julianna lives alone and strives to become a writer. She is a cashier in the small town, and she puts on an attitude where she can be safe within herself in order to live normally within the world. She is cordial and polite and kind, but so often her space is invaded by the evilness of the world. And she hears the evilness in her head. Because she is so good, the evilness of the world invades her space and causes her to hear all of the negativity within the world. And she longs for a time when she won’t have to deal with all of it, because it is extremely difficult.
Jeremiah studies everything he is interested in the ancient texts and also in the living arts. He is a computer nerd who prefers to actually holding the books in his hands. He is so caught up in his working life of computers and technology that he longs for the old days. And he is curious of Julianna and secretly longs for the chance to really get to know her, as does Julianna to him. They feel that they already know one another because of the connection that they feel within each other. And because Julianna is afraid of the intimacy of a man and woman, she feels inadequate that she gets stuck within herself and self of non-appreciation. There has been many a day when she would dream the ideal relationship with him and the dream is beautiful, but she does not feel beautiful herself. And she wants to be with him and only him, but the fear is so great, not actually because of him, but because of not being with anyone in that way for a very long time.
There are times when she feels so young and so good and is afraid of being a mature adult, and of the mature adult ways, that is causing her to be stuck within her own fears of it all, and is having trouble trying to break free of it all, although wanting to be free of it. She is striving forth the only direction she knows how, to go forward and up.
Julianna thought this over within herself and she believes that why she cannot ever see an ending to anything significant and important in her life is because she has always ended her life before her time was up. And she has done this because of her many fears within herself. Always and forever afraid of living in the here and now. Oh, how she wants to break the cyclical cycle of birth and rebirth and only to not do the same thing repeatedly again! Isn’t there a way this can be done?
And Julianna sees Jeremiah and how wonderful a life with him would be all because of his gentleness, his kindness, his thoughtfulness, his sense of humor and most of all she sees that he accepts her for the way that she is, and these are the only things that are important to her, and she even thinks that perhaps that is the way that he is too. Time goes by Julianna realizes that he loves her because of her soul and everything else as does she him.
Leave a Reply