Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Bridge (07/31/08)
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TITLE: the branch | Previous Challenge Entry
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08/03/08 -
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But we all knew the truth. If you came out the one door, you were a recipient of the services women receive when they come out of that establishment.
They went to breakfast. The lady in the apron served fresh hot eggs and steaming coffee with toast crisp at the edges. “You feelin’ okay honey?”
“I’m not—I mean,” in the morning sun she smelled his newspaper. It would be the last morning she would smell his paper, as he was off to Chicago and a job and there was no room for her on this journey, “I’m gonna be okay.”
The waitress placed her hand on Aricel’s shoulder. “Let me give you something, sweetheart.”
Seven years later, Aricel opened the small silk bag that covered the tiny bible. She concentrated over the noise of her small children in the next room, remembering the words the waitress had given, “You always remember this. You always remember, God forgives all. God heals everything.”
That morning years back she had gone home and slept. Slept it all away she thought. But the sun had been recognizing her more and more these days, her age, her loneliness, her thoughts.
Aricel opened her bible and fought back tears. Until this day, nothing in this world had been enough to heal Aricel. Not even the touch of that waitress as she’d handed Aricel the bible in a very random act of resolute kindness. But as Aricel opened this page, she located these words, the words of her Creator that seemed to finally speak to her directly.
“The thought of my suffering and homelessness
is bitter beyond words.
I will never forget this awful time,
as I grieve over my loss.
Yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this:
The faithful love of the LORD never ends!
His mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning.
I say to myself, “The LORD is my inheritance;
therefore, I will hope in him!” Lamentations 3:19-24
For no one is abandoned
by the Lord forever.
Though he brings grief, he also shows compassion
because of the greatness of his unfailing love.
For he does not enjoy hurting people
or causing them sorrow.” Lamentations 3:31-33
“I am a leaf, a twig…” she began to herself, “On my own I can’t survive. All along, I have been a well-connected branch to the largest, oldest tree. That tree is Him.
There is no sin on this earth that is ever going to dislocate me from my Creator. How could I not have known? The wounds on this branch,” the tears rolled down as the sun hit her lovely face, “He definitely can heal, He will heal and He has always intended to heal.”
That morning, Aricel began a study into those words on a path both promising and painful, and the blessings began to simultaneously pour out on her in countless ways, on her children, on her mother who had never understood the painful and abrupt change in her daughter.
Adam, the loving man she had married five years prior, looked at Aricel one morning. He saw his bride truly alight for the first time. She began to speak to him in that early sun as he fastened his tie.
“Sweetheart, I am sorry I’ve been so distant. But I’ve learned so much. I know now more than ever before I am a loved child, and I belong to our great and amazing, abundant father in heaven. I wasn’t ready to accept it before. I was very scared. But through this pain and healing, I have learned He rules over us all. He keeps us all well.
He created me. And He created you. I couldn’t imagine it before but He treasures me and He treasures you every single precious day. I can see now there is no wound He can be stopped from healing, no sin He is unable to forgive.”
Adam embraced Aricel in the morning light. He felt her trust melt into him. He saw the promise in her abundant, gracious eyes.
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