The Girl with No Name

The Girl with No Name

In 1954, in a remote mountain village in South America, a little girl was abducted. She was four years Old. Marina Chapman was stolen from her home and then abandoned deep in the Colombian jungle. It is a miracle she survived. Two days later, half-drugged, terrified, and starving, she came upon a troop of capuchin monkeys. Acting entirely on instinct, she tried to do what they did. She ate what they ate and copied their actions, and little by little, learned to fend for herself.

Five years she lived among the monkeys, during which time she gradually became feral. She lost the ability to speak, lost all inhibition, lost any real sense of being human, replacing the structure of human society with the social mores of her new simian family.

One day when the sun was burning low in the sky, The girl with no name, saw something on the jungle floor that caught her attention. It appeared to be a glittering light of some kind. She slowly made her way to the jungle floor. The closer she came to the object, the brighter it appeared. The girl picked up a wedge-shaped piece of some hard, shiny material, the like of which she had never seen before. It was sharp at its apex and curved at the other end, it was small enough to fit into her hand. After playing with this new special object, she noticed that one side of it was dark while the other side was very bright, almost like a light. She drew it closer to better see how this light worked and it was then that she got the shock of her young life. Two eyes were staring back at her. She dropped the thing in terror. After a short time, she picked up this newfound treasure and drew it closer to her face and once again two eyes were staring at her again. Although she didn’t know her own face, she could immediately see the relationship between what she made it do and what happened in the mirror. When she blinked her eyes and moved her mouth the mirror obligingly did likewise, when she changed her face movements the image staring back changed its face. To discover that she had a face was amazing. But at the same time, she was frightened to see herself in it, because she had begun to believe she looked just like the monkeys. She knew her body was a little different, but for some complicated reason, perhaps a human need to belong, she felt her face would be the same as the monkeys.

The more she looked at the shiny image held in her hand the more obvious it became to her that she was mistaken in her belief about who and what she was. She was not one of her monkey families, she was different, she was a different animal. One with wide eyes, smooth skin, and a tangle of long, matted hair. And as soon as those thoughts had taken shape in her mind, it was as if a door had been forced open inside her head. It was a door that had been shut for as long as she could remember, and which led her back to feelings she had either forgotten or suppressed. She had been in denial. She was lost. Completely isolated from a world she could barely recall but which at the same time she now somehow remembered she had been ripped from this world. She was shaken with strong feelings to the core.

She had forgotten she was human, she was lost, and now she had been reminded. The truth is, God always knew her name, and was keenly aware of who she was, where she was, and what she was destined to become. Marina had a heart-shaped void in her heart that monkeys could never fix, only her heavenly father who created her in “His image”would be able to meet her deepest need. Marina came to know she was created for so much more.

This true story often reminds me of the work of the Holy Spirit that allows us to come alive through the voice and power of God.

xoxo

Michelle Obleton