There is a place you find yourself in when it has all been
too much, when the worst has happened and yet you are still breathing. The
ritual wailing of the mourners had already started, but inside her head there
was an empty silence, reverberating only with hopelessness. There was no life
left in her except the basic, inexorable functions of a body she no longer
fully inhabited. She did not even feel the tears that trickled helplessly down
her face, but the mourners did, and it worried them far more than a dramatic
exhibition of grief.
She knew, though she feared the sin of saying it, that she
did not want to live in a world that did not contain her daughter. All during
the girl’s short illness she had bargained and pleaded with God to spare the
child, but the girl was dead. She might as well have been asking favours of the
rocks and stones.
She had even sent her husband off to seek the Healer, who
was supposed to be in the town, but it was too late. The girl was dead – and
those words, however they were weighed and turned, bore down on her with their
crushing weight. Her only child, her love and her joy, was gone from the world,
and all the lights had been turned out. She wondered, heavily and drearily, in
the wasteland beyond passion, if God really cared for mothers, or daughters at
all. Perhaps He only answered prayers for sons?
There was a commotion at the door: her husband was back with
the Healer. Why were they bothering? It was too late -- everything was too
late. Even the unvoiced thoughts tasted like ash in the back of her throat. She
heard the Healer rebuking the mourners, crazily saying that the child was still
asleep. Did He think they were naive children, who could not tell the
difference between sleep and death? The sudden silence made her ache; she
realised that their wailing had actually help her detach from the pain. Now the
bitter knife was twisting afresh in her own heart.
The Healer shooed the mourners away and entered the room
with just a few people. She shrank back into the shadows, unable to deal with
this intrusion. She felt as if this was a charade for someone else’s benefit,
but a cruel mockery of her grief. But his keen eyes sought her where she hid,
and smiled with such gentle understanding that she had to take notice. There was no mockery in Him at all.
He moved to the bed where the child lay, and took her by the
hand, and spoke. “Little girl, I say unto you arise!” The voice was soft, and
incredibly tender, but He spoke with such authority that, in that moment, she
had no trouble believing that death itself would have to obey Him. And
immediately the child arose, got up and walked around.
What do you do when you stand in the middle of a miracle? She
was dazed, stunned as her world revolved into a new position. Was this real?
Could this be? Can the dead be restored to life? Does God answer the prayers of
an ordinary woman? Who was this Healer, and, if He really did have the power of
God, why should He come into her house? She was afraid to move, to touch her
child, for fear the miracle should dissolve and the agony return.
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