Short Stories

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Love is as strong as death. My eyes moistened when Judy’s face appeared in my inward eye. I looked around. An eerie shadow of silence prevailed reflecting the real state of my heart. A glance around informed me that my mother had left for work, my father was in the garden, while my two younger brothers were off to school. Therefore none were physically present to see those secret tears or sense its source. Loneliness, a weapon of satan struck me hard to shed tears.

Judy, truly a rare ruby to behold who had enslaved my soul lived many miles away in a ranch. Given an opportunity to stay in my aunt Janet’s house, I had overstayed and missed the business ship twice just to be in the company of Judy. I had walked back home on foot without being bothered about the biting cold for Judy sang like a lark warming my heart.

Spring season spritely sang sweet songs. My neighbor Polly, a five year old kept repeating a rhyme, “Thank you God for the world so sweet. Thank you God for the food we eat. Thank you God for the birds that sing. Thank you God for everything.” Once upon a time, besides attending church, I offered prayers and read Scriptures regularly. Then everything turned topsy turvy after meeting Judy. While in her company all the above made sense to me and when she was not there, depression descended and dwelt with me. Her presence meant fullness and absence evidently filled my cup with emptiness. Now, it has been a long time since I remembered God. With thoughts accumulating like snow turning into a mammoth mountain of ice, I was left questioning, “How on earth can I forget her?”

Hardly had this question darted like an arrow from the quiver of my heart, Vincent, one among my friends knocked at the door questioning, “Kevin! Are you ready?” After much reluctance I had accepted to join Vincent in a youth programme at church because my parents felt that it would do me some good. Perhaps they had guessed my plight to some extent. Forcing a smile, closing the door behind I walked towards my friend, and we both strolled towards the church.

While the message began, I saw a dream. In that dream I witnessed Judy holding the hands of her husband come skipping towards me cheerfully. I questioned God, “How can I be free? Will not all these thoughts of her linger with me until death?” At that time, I saw a drop of blood falling from heaven. A voice told me, “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from all sins.” Immediately an indescribable peace and joy pervaded my heart. At once, the image of Judy and her husband disappeared whilst that entire place turned into a well-watered garden with a ray of light falling on me.

“Create in me a clean heart O Lord! And renew a right spirit within me.” King David’s psalm became a personal possession to me. Bonds of one’s haunting past are difficult to be broken and forgotten except by he blood of Jesus Christ. Exactly at that moment, I heard the preacher say, “Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43:18, 19). God has a purpose in your life and desires to make it beautiful. Come to Christ, He who dissolved the past life of a convict crucified along with Him on a cross can put an end to your past however shameful it might be.”

From that day onwards, whenever satan tries to pull me down into emptiness placing the picture of Judy before me, the Holy Spirit keeps filling me with indescribable peace and joy bringing to my remembrance the blameless blood shed on the Cross of Calvary. God set up a wonderful family life for me when I surrendered my heart to Him. I became an enlightened man so full of God’s grace. Now God has kept me as guide and a source of comfort to those struggling to be set free from the fetters of their past. If water has to turn into wine, the abiding presence of the “WORD” which became flesh in us is a must.

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