Monster I'd Become

The empty highway loomed before me. It was dark and I could only see what was directly in front of my headlights. Occasionally a car would pass going the opposite direction, but they were few and far between.
I was driving home from a friend’s house. My mother had cautioned me to leave before it got dark and started to rain, but I didn’t listen to her.
It wasn’t raining very hard, I could still see the road as clear as I would’ve been able to if it weren’t raining.
I saw a car getting ready to go by me, so I turned my headlights on dim. As the car drove by, I glanced at my hands in the light from their headlights.
I felt my face pale as I saw my hands. The skin was pale, wrinkled, and veined. My hands resembled my grandmother’s more than my own.
“Oh my gosh” I said aloud to myself. Why did my hands look like I was in my 70’s? I’m only 17. I thought these things to myself. I knew that there was a parking lot coming up soon, so I turned my lights back on bright and drove faster.
I felt silly for being so frightened, but it had looked so real. I almost didn’t turn in, thinking it had just been something from the way the light was on my hands. When I got to the parking lot, I stopped the car and looked down at my hands again. They still looked old and wrinkled. What was wrong with me? Does my face look like this too?
My hands were shaking as I turned on the overhead light to open the mirror on my sun visor. When I looked in the mirror, my eyes looked the same, but my skin was wrinkled and sagging.
I was so scared that I started to cry. Something was wrong with me, and I didn’t know what it was.
I drove myself out of the parking lot, fighting off the tears. My body ached and my hands were getting open sores on them. It hurt so bad that I had to pull over. I thought that I was going to die.
I thought about my family and how badly I treated them. I thought about how spiteful I’d been when things didn’t go my way. Anguish wasted over me as I thought about how horrible I’d become. I had a couple close friends, but no one else wanted to spend time with me.
I thought about God. I hadn’t been very faithful to church, or to my personal relationship with Christ. My life had taken a turn for the bad.
I looked in the mirror again and saw the monster I’d become. I knew that some things had to change in my life. I knew that I had to start treating people better, I knew that I had to get over myself, but most of all, I knew that I had to get back to God.
I prayed for thirty minutes in my car. I begged for forgiveness and asked for help.
The pain stopped almost immediately. I was filled with wonder and looked into the mirror. Already things were changing back to normal. The sores were gone and my face was looking more like me.
I made a vow then to never stray from Him again.