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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: First World Problem (04/17/14)
I Want

Little girl hiding behind her mother’s skirts, sun glinting on light brown curls, face pressed into soft cotton. Sad blue eyes focused on a row of drab front doors all the way down the street. When evening came there were daddies behind those doors, except hers. It made her feel inferior. She didn’t know the word, but she knew the feeling and it lingered like the smell of damp laundry drying in the tiny kitchen.

It lodged in her soul and hardened her heart against what she did have. A loving mother, grandparents, a precious sister. Sometimes a voice in the night called her name. But she didn’t recognise it as her Heavenly Father. In the night she just wanted a daddy.

Little girl, half grown, Wellington boots trailing through thick snow. Feathery white flakes settling on upturned face, nestling like a cotton wool cap on damp hair. She was on her way to visit her best friend who lived in the big house with the huge imposing ornamental gates. She craved a house like her friend’s house. Such a house would give her status and contentment.

Little girl, grown up, wedding day dawning. She took the pretty yellow dress from the hanger, holding it against her slender body. It wasn’t the long white wedding dress she had dreamed of and she wouldn’t be stepping out of a big black limo outside an old church, wedding bells ringing, bridesmaids waiting. But it was pretty. She took the borrowed gold sandals from their box and laid them by her bed. Clipping her long brown hair to one side with a delicate yellow silk orchid, she gazed into the mirror, longing for the beautiful white wedding she had stood and watched only last week.

He was waiting for her as she stepped out of the hired car outside the Registry Office. A small group of friends greeted her, smiles lighting up eager faces. His eyes never left her face as they made their vows. Yet the recklessness of acceptance assailed her soul like a passing cloud momentarily obliterating the sun. There was no doubt in her mind that he loved her. Everything in his being cried out his feelings as he placed the thin gold ring on her finger. But she wanted more than love. She wanted a lavish white wedding like her friend‘s wedding. An enormous well furnished house, a pristine white nursery, like her sister’s, for the tiny secret nestling in that hidden place. A hint of resentment flitted like a butterfly around her heart and she allowed it to linger. But there was no turning back.

Little girl at heart, mid-life crisis looming. Kids grown up. Solid old house with a big bay window, curtained in flouncing frills and shining with crystal droplets of autumn rain. A lavish rainbow spanned the houses opposite like a promise in a dark night. A Bible lay open on the desk and she turned the pages with opal ringed fingers. Diamonds had not yet found a niche in her jewel box, but a loving husband was working all hours to satisfy her craving for a diamond ring like her sister wore.

The account of Adam and Eve in the garden absorbed her thoughts for a while. She considered the story of all they had been given and yet Eve craved what she had been told she could not have. Satisfying her craving she had listened to the voice of temptation and taken the forbidden fruit, entangling her husband in the sin, destroying their existence in the beautiful garden. Staining their relationship with God.

The words, ‘You shall not covet’ were trawled from the depths of her mind. As a new Christian she had not fully understood their meaning, but now it was like a revelation. Covetousness had ruled her life. It was destructive. The cause of discontent, greed. It divided families, created division between nations, caused wars and reduced men to savage instincts in their intrepid race for the acquisition of what had been allocated to others. And it had all begun way before Adam and Eve, when Satan and his angels had been hurled down to the earth following the great battle, because Satan had coveted God’s glory and power.

Little girl quietly weeping. Head bowed in silent prayer. In middle age she had found her Father and He had called her His child. Repentant head lifted to accept His forgiveness. Covetousness overwhelmed by love. A new beginning.
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This article has been read 607 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Lisa Johnson
04/25/14
This is such a well written entry- I expect that it will do well... but beyond that, it has such a profound a thought provoking message. I enjoyed the progression of the story and especially liked the way you tied it to Satan's fall.
Lisa Johnson
04/25/14
and thought provoking
C D Swanson 
04/25/14
Well done! A clearly well written entry that gives the reader pause to ponder and reflect on the message it brings forth.

God bless~
Joe Moreland
04/27/14
You got so much into the word limit, but it didn't feel cramped or crowded (the way my own often do). There was breathing room and your pace was steady, deliberate and building. The pictures you painted with your words are so vivid in my mind's eye that they linger there still.

This is truly masterful work and I now want to go hide my own entry from this week so no one will read it and compare.

Thank you for sharing it with us.
Charla Diehl
04/27/14
Wow--great imagery and conflict throughout this perfectly paced drama. So happy that you wrote a great ending for your MC, while pointing your readers to a much needed message in this world of increasing greed. I expect to find this entry on the Editor's Choice list. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.
Tracy Nunes 
04/28/14
This is one of those entries where you are swept in from the first line, eager to know what happens to the little girl. You did an amazing job of setting the stage of both the context of her surroundings and the content of her heart. And, you left me impacted by the message. Simply beautiful.
Laura Hawbaker
04/30/14
Enjoyed reading this entry. Almost read more like a poem than prose. The use of the word "trawled" took me by surprise. I always thought trawl was a fishing term. When I looked it up in my old Merriam Webster the only definition listed for the verb was "to catch fish with a large net" but when I looked in up on the on-line edition of Merriam Webster I found the definition "to search through something in order to find something" I always like to learn new words or ways to use words!