Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Purposefulness (Purpose in Life) (05/25/06)
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TITLE: Mesha | Previous Challenge Entry
By Tracy Finney
05/30/06 -
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“I’m sorry Mesha, you can’t go. You are much too little and you could get hurt. You stay here and look after momma.” Johnny, her big brother, patted her golden curls.
“Why does every one say that? Why do you think I am too little?” Mesha’s tanned chubby face had turned to a scowl. Her arms folded in front of her confirmed she wasn’t satisfied with staying home.
“Mesha, I don’t have time to explain this again. Please go find Momma, tell her we are leaving, and kiss her goodbye for me.” Johnny bent down and softly kissed the determined child good-bye.
“Ok, but I want to go!” Mesha stomped her foot one last time to emphasis her disappointment. Her countenance softened as she waved farewell to her brother.
Mesha turned and skipped down the garden path that led to her home. The red brick house was warm and inviting; many comforting moments had taken place within it’s walls. Mesha bounded up the stairs and paused at the screen door. She could hear her mother humming a soft gentle tune; thoughts, pictures and voices flooded into her head. She knew that song her mother was humming. It had been a long time since she heard that tune, but Mesha was sure she recognized it.
“Momma,” Mesha called out as she pushed opened the screen door. “Johnny said goodbye.” The little girl appeared in the doorway, a puzzled look on her face.
“Would you like a cookie,” Momma asked giving her daughter a peck on her forehead.
“Yes, I would, but can I ask you a question?” Although Mesha was only seven she was a very thoughtful, inquisitive child.
“Of course,” Momma said while she prepared a glass of milk and two cookies for her daughter, “Your question doesn’t have anything to do with why you couldn’t go with Johnny, does it?” Momma glanced over her shoulder at Mesha, watching for her reaction.
“Well, why couldn’t I go with him? I don’t understand.”
“Darling, you are only seven, and, well, it could be dangerous.” Momma’s eye saddened.
“It’s because of Daddy, right?”
Momma turned from her child’s gaze; tears began filling her eyes. Slowly Momma began to nod her head and speak. “Yes, it is because of your daddy.” Momma quickly turned back to embrace the small frame of her daughter’s body. “Yes darling. We can’t let you go because of what happened to your father.”
“But daddy is with Jesus now; that isn’t bad. You said he gave his life so people could know God. I want to be like Daddy. I want to tell people about Jesus.
Momma wrapped her arms around her sweet little child. “Mesh, I know you want to tell people about Jesus; and you will. As a matter of you already can. But you can’t go with Johnny, not now. It’s dangerous where he goes. I pray for him all the time. Your daddy, he was a wonderful man. He would go to the inner the inner cities, just like Johnny. Sometimes, he would get hurt there. Even though, he’d still go back, he knew how much God loved the people there, and he knew he had to tell them.”
Mesha was sitting in her momma’s lap, she gently caressed her momma’s face as tears began to stream down.
“Don’t you understand,” Momma began again after wiping her eyes with the kitchen towel. “I just can’t let you go, I can’t lose you. When you are older, like Johnny, then you may go if you still want to.”
“I understand Momma,” Mesha softly said. “I won’t ask to go again." Mesha looked hopefully in her mother’s eyes.
"Momma?”
Momma sniffled before she could reply. “What is it baby?”
“You were humming a song when I came home; what was it?”
“It was the song your daddy sang to me at our w-e-d…” Momma’s sobbing broke in before she finished her sentence.
“That’s right!” Mesha was excited. She remembered her Momma sing that song to her over and over before her father died. “It’s a beautiful song, Momma. Do you think Daddy was singing it with you just then?”
Momma paused. Scenes from her life flooded into her mind, the last one being her wedding day and that handsome husband of her’s singing that song. “You know Mesha, I think, I think he just might have been.”
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