Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: PROMISE (09/02/21)
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TITLE: The Shawlies | Previous Challenge Entry
By Arlene Baker
09/09/21 -
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“Thank you, no. I have what I need. However…” I paused to seek guidance.
Father, you love this woman. Give me the proper words to speak. A deep breath. I smiled.
“Dear one. I only want to extend an invitation to you.” I moved a step closer.
Suspicion darkened her weary eyes as she scrutinized me from head to toe. How I knew her thoughts. Same as the other shawlies working the streets of Galway, peddling fish or produce. The word “shawlie” developed from the large, black shawls each of them wore against Ireland’s damp and cold. I proceeded with care. Love for these women bubbled up in me. Poor. Proud. Smart. How they needed God’s love.
“What be a fine lady wanting with us?” she hissed.
“I’m not a fine lady. Only Amy Carmichael. I wish to tell you of God’s immense love for you.”
“Ha!” she spat. “Aye, that be the God I want to be aknowin’. He sure is loving us out here, working 'till we be droppin’. Treated like cow’s dung by better-off folk.” A sharp glare. “Like you. Go away, lady, and stop wasting my time. I have me two fatherless children to feed.”
“I am fatherless as well.”
The girl’s head jerked up.
“Yes, dear one, I am fatherless.” I nodded. “True, I was raised comfortably. We had a good, sturdy home, plenty to eat and adequate clothing. That all changed when my father died.”
“I ain’t never even had that,” the girl grunted. “I suppose ’twould be harder to have and lose, than to never taste it a’tall.”
“Yes, it was a terrible shock. I am the eldest of seven children, so Mother needs me to help with the younger. We know hunger. Loss. But, God’s love carries us through it all.”
“How can he be loving us when things is so unfair?”
“That is a fair question. I won’t pretend to have an answer. But, I am willing to tackle that and any others you or the other shawlie girls have at a Bible Study I hold in the Welcome Center.” I told her the address. “Please come.”
“I ain’t fit.”
“Nobody is fit. Do clothes determine the heart? Inside, we are all the same. We all need God’s love to redeem us. Please come.”
Instead, she turned to yell at passersby. “Fresh fish. Get your fresh fish here. Caught this morning, it was.”
I waited while a serving girl looked over her offerings.
“Can’t bring nothin’ but the best to the missus,” she explained. “Or, I be looking at a beating.”
“She ain’t going to beat you over this,” the shawlie insisted. “I got me the best herring in these parts, I tell ye.”
The serving girl made her selection, the two haggled over a price, then the vendor wrapped the purchase in old paper. The girl left. I smiled again.
“Do you know what Jesus said to his followers?” I asked.
“Nay.” Reluctantly, she glanced my way as the street emptied. “It be important?”
“He asked if they would like to fish for men.”
“Fish for men?” she gasped. “He ate people?” Her thin frame shivered, from dread or the cutting north wind. She pulled the distinctive black shawl tighter about her chilled cheeks.
“No.” I allowed a gentle laugh. “He meant to go find people who were interested in truth. Which is what I am doing now. I’m fishing for people who are hungry.” I placed a hand over my heart. “In here. Hungry to know God. Hungry to find meaning in life.”
“Hungry!” She hooted. “We all be hungry. We ain’t got no book learning. That be for you folks. We just be wantin’ to fill our bellies.”
“Interesting that you mention that. There was a woman who complained of thirst. Jesus told her, if she believed in him, rivers of living water would flow from her belly.”
“Yer Jesus ain’t right.” She tapped her head. “Up here.”
“It is symbolic talk,” I explained. “God wants to feed you in your heart. Your soul. When that is satisfied, it makes the harshness of life easier to bear. Does that make sense to you?”
“Maybe.” She hesitated. Her eyes darted left and right. She leaned closer. “You really think this God of yours loves the likes of us?”
“Yes.” I laid a hand on her arm. “I promise he does.”
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I thoroughly enjoyed your colorful brogue and scene.
Well done.