Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: The Inner Person (09/09/10)
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TITLE: Kaylie's Dance | Previous Challenge Entry
By Patricia Turner
09/15/10 -
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The court attendant bowed low before her.
“Princess Kaylie”, he murmured, taking her diminutive hand in his gloved one and escorting her through the doors of the ballroom.
Kaylie's tongue slipped between her lips as she concentrated.
The lights of the ballroom dazzled her senses. The room was a shifting kaleidoscope of rubies, emeralds, sapphires and topaz.
She waved her hand to shoo the fly away.
The buzzing sound was silenced as the ladies and gentlemen ceased their conversations and bowed as she swished past in a gown of pure satin in azure blue. The tiny seed pearls glimmered, refracting the light of a thousand candles.
“Kaylie, what are you writing? May I see?” Miss Melinda knelt beside her.
The shy girl moved to cover the paper with a tiny hand, refusing to look up.
“I promise, I won't say anything if you don't want me to. I just want to take a peek. I'll bet you have a good story there.” Melinda spoke with gentle reassurance.
Slowly, Kaylie moved her hand away from the paper, not looking at the woman.
Melinda remained at her eye level as she read the page.
Finally she looked up with a tender smile.
'”This is you, isn't it? I like how you've painted the room and I think you'd be very pretty in azure blue.”
The child said nothing.
“I'd love to visit that ballroom and see all those pretty gowns.” Melinda tried again.
Kaylie pressed a button on the chair and moved away to a window, remaining silent.
Melinda stood up and watched her charge wistfully.
“Kaylie, one day you will dance, and you will see such a beautiful place.” she ventured, thoughtfully.
“Not me!” Kaylie's small hands went up angrily, then dropped like two small doves, helplessly into her lap.
Melinda turned and looked in the direction of a book that lay on a shelf across the room.
Crossing to stand by the wheelchair at the window, she gazed out at the apple orchard that hugged the small school.
It was late autumn. Most of the apples were gone from the trees as winter approached, its coming forecast by high thin clouds of ice crystals bathing the ground below in a soft light. Idly, she watched a cascade of leaves, red and gold, swirl through the trees and across the lawn.
A swallow darted into the eaves of the building, reminding Melinda of a favorite passage.
“Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young— a place near your altar, O LORD Almighty, my King and my God. “
On the heels of that scripture, came the remembrance of another. She went to the shelf, took the book and turning to the page, brought it to the window.
“Kaylie, it's time for our devotionals.” She paused momentarily. Kaylie continued to stared listlessly out the window, evidently missing the beauty of the afternoon.
Beginning at verse six of the twelfth chapter of Luke's gospel, Melinda read:
Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”
Melinda peeked over the book. Still no response; no change in the little girl's demeanor.
Kneeling down by the chair, Melinda pleaded gently, “Lord, work in her. Help her to see.”
Aloud she said, “Kaylie, you believe don't you?”
After a while, the child nodded slightly, but with no change in her expression. Her hands lay like children's empty gloves in her lap.
“The same Lord who lives inside you child, is bigger than anything else you face. I know, He found me a home and a purpose here, when I had none.”
Kaylie finally looked at her and Melinda told her story.
Some years later, a young woman sat in a wheelchair, watching the budding green leaves of a spring morning. A small smile of remembrance tickled her lips.
Turning her wheelchair back to the room, she clearly saw the scene.
It was just as she had written in that long ago story. Only this time, there was a magnificent Prince, waiting for her, and she took His hand and they waltzed gaily among the lights and the kaleidoscope in a ballroom in her heart.
Scripture references from the NIV
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Would like to hear what Melinda's story was.
Would also like to know what actually is her dream come true.