Note:  This flash fiction piece was written for the WCWRC-BOOKCLUB short story collection and published on their account as well.

Perhaps it was not the first time I'd done anything of that sort, but it seems to me that's when it all began.  

I was just seven years old.  A girl who hated dresses and loved cookies.  My favorite cookies were my mother's homemade peanut butter ones, which also had huge chunks of chocolate baked in them.  To this day, I know of no one else who do make them, much less as delicious as mother did.  

Because of the size of the cookies, and their inherent richness, mother would only allow me to have one at a time.  They seemed so small to me when I was so limited! 

One day, mother had just baked up a batch of these wonderful treats.  She'd given me one of them, piping hot enough to burn my mouth if I wasn't careful, and a glass of milk, then left to make a call.  I was left all alone at the kitchen table.

 I devoured the cookie as fast as I could without burning myself, only pausing to chew it down to size so I could swallow it.  All too soon, it was gone.  There was still a half glass of milk.  I looked up at the countertop, where the other cookies sat cooling.  

I looked down at my glass of milk again, and a little voice inside me began to reason... Not in human words, I didn't really think these thoughts.  But I did it in the back of my head, without words, so that I wouldn't have to face what I was considering.  Then I darted out of the chair, snatched another one of the cookies, and darted back.

I ate this cookie even more hastily than the first.  I gloried in it, much like I'm sure Eve enjoyed the forbidden fruit before she handed it to Adam.  Washing it down with milk, I put the cup in the sink and dashed out the door, sure I had escaped notice. 

It hadn't.  Mother's eye immediately caught the fact that one cookie was missing from the neat rows on the trays.  Since there'd been no one else in the house at the time, there was no point in lying to her.

But, much like Adam tried to hide from God after the Fall, I did my best. 

"Honey, a cookie is missing.  Do you know what happened to it?"

I kept as straight a face as I could, while adrenaline and a sugar rush was making my legs feel shaky.  "No."  

With the forbidden cookie roiling my stomach, she cornered me into admitting I'd eaten it.  After that, mother explained to me what I'd done wrong, and why it was wrong.  She told me I could have no more cookies for two weeks.  It felt like a death sentence, but I lived through it.  

But that was where it began.  The first time that voice had coaxed me into doing a wrong action like that.  And the thing is, when you listen to the voice once, it is that much easier to listen to it again, and again, and again...

As I grew up, it became an old friend.  I  took its advice all the time.  Of course, I thought I had a choice.  I thought I could turn it off or on like flicking a switch.  That I could have all I wanted and still listen to it.  Perhaps that is what Adam and Eve thought before the Fall. 

But as time went on, and I entered college, I realized that the voice was starting to do me some harm.  I wanted to party when it would be better to study.  

"No, not tonight," I said into my phone.  "I've got to study for that test coming up next week.  Can't afford a bad grade on this one." 

The person at the other end of the phone tried to wheedle me into it, but I presented the same reason, and they told me it was my loss.  With that, we hung up.  I sighed in relief at having that over with and cracked open my textbook. 

I got along for about half an hour.  But occasionally, my mind drifted towards the good time all my friends must be having right now.  This party had been much talked of for the last week, it promised to have all the things a party should, food, drinks, drama...

No, I had to study for this test.  I couldn't fail the course.

As I sat back forward to keep on studying, the voice spoke, the one I'd been trying to keep silent all evening.  I could study tomorrow evening instead.

For a moment, I had two pathways before me.  Shove the thought aside, and continue on, or listen to what it had to say.  It was an alluring prospect...

I ran through all that I had to do tomorrow.  Technically, I didn't have time to study then...  But if I was quick about things, maybe I could make it work...

Just as I had done when I was looking at the cookies in my mother's kitchen, I didn't think these words.  I didn't verbalize them to myself, if I did, the other sensible and practical side of me would come out and demolish my foolishness.  I just mulled over it in the back of my mind as I continued reading.

It was next morning, as I lay in bed after having spent a late night at that party, that I realized how stupid that had been.  I felt terrible, and knew studying wouldn't go well in this state.

This was my own thoughts this time, but the voice was the one pushing them into my mind.  Yes, it said, just stay in bed.  You'll get up and do some studying later, when you feel better.

I'm sure you can guess where that led me.  

No, I didn't get any studying done that day.  I truly did intend to study, but it always seemed there was something else, until Sunday night before the test. By cramming as much as I could into my head that night, I passed with a C.  

But what scared me was that I hadn't been able to stop myself from making those choices.  I thought back to that Friday evening, and Saturday morning.  Why had I let myself do that?

I wrestled for the next two years with that voice.  Sometimes, I did win.  And right after I did, it seemed that I fell even harder.  I didn't know what was wrong with me, but there seemed to be no stopping this.  What I wanted to do, I couldn't do.  And what I liked doing, but was harming me, I couldn't stop. 

I hated that part of me, did everything I could to get away from it.  This was something different from addiction, but was in many ways like it.  I hated that voice, but didn't know how to live without it, and could never separate myself from it. 

It led from me being a nice girl, to getting kicked out of college because of my wild behavior.  Outside, I looked like a confident sassy woman.  Inside, I was terrified of what was happening to me.  

I was on the verge of giving into that voice.  Just letting it have free rein.  If you can't beat them, join them, right?  But I knew what that would lead to, and I couldn't accept it.  

I made one last plea for help one night, as I lay in a crummy hotel room bed.  I need help from someone.  I can't do this anymore, I'm not strong enough.  Is anyone strong enough?

It wasn't a prayer, but it was enough.  Because I finally admitted that I wasn't enough.  

There was a girl who'd been like me, but had her life turned around.  I remembered I had her number the next morning. I was desperate to know, how had she done it?  The voice tried to talk me out of it, but I punched the call button before it could get a good grip on me. 

When I asked, she willingly and excitedly told me that it'd been Jesus.

And I had to believe her.  It couldn't be her who had done it. I knew for myself that it couldn't be, for who had tried harder than I? 

I told Him if he could, I'd let Him do it for me too.  And He did.  He didn't take away the voice, but He broke its power.

Now, one might be wondering, who was that voice that I was listening to?  Was it a demon?  I'm sure in some cases it was, especially later on as I listen to it more. 

But most of the time, it was me.  

It was me who wanted all these things.  I'd always been thinking that the voice was somehow separate from me.  But it'd never been.  If it had, perhaps I could have dominated over it.  But because it was me, I never would've been able to break free. 

I was not enough.

But He was. 

Author's Note:  

Just to be clear, This Was Me is fully fiction. The title and style might sound like I'm talking about my own life events, but I'm not. The character in this story is completely separate from me.

The theme that my partner and I agreed on to write for our short stories was 'dark compulsions'.  I thought it was a good one. 

It's a hard thing to admit that what makes you do wrong is yourself.  We are that way.  And the more we give into ourselves, the easier it is, and the more twisted we become. We have a choice between ourselves, or Jesus.  Being 'Lord' over ourselves, or admitting His Lordship.  

I cannot change who I am.  But it is Christ who has made the difference for me and for any other Christian who has tried to live as He has called them.  We still fall.  But freedom comes from His grace.