Cry In The Night | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Cry In The Night | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
07/31/24
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For three nights, the pitiful whimper of the newborn tore at his heart. His new wife’s cries of anguish wrapped around him like a shroud. There was nothing he could do. Except pray. And fast. Where was the mercy of The Almighty at a moment like this? He curled into the blankets on the floor, pleading into the darkness and silence.

The sword in his gut twisted again as his actions' significance rose like a dragon to terrorize him. A stream of ice in his veins chilled him to the core and he pulled the blankets tighter. A drum beat pulsed in his head. Merciless grips squeezed his neck, his shoulders, and his back.

Undoubtedly, he deserved this pain, agony, and retribution. But how could someone who had everything feel like they had nothing? How could someone so strong feel so helpless? How could he have known that a moment of indiscretion could have such consequences?

The diagnosis had been clear. The little one will die. But why? Why should innocence pay? If the Creator went to all the trouble of knitting such a wonder together, why waste it in a few days of rasping breath? Why toss a boulder into the pond of suffering with all its ripples when a pebble would have been enough to get the message across?

Yes, it was sin. He didn’t need reminders from friends and neighbors. The merciful words of his closest advisor that this blight had been covered, this folly had been redeemed, this transgression was forgiven, fell like melting snow. He wasn’t going to die. Good, but why should the child? Why should the innocent die for the guilty?
The fourth night came and went with no change. What would it take to change the mind of the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe? “Eat!” his friends urged. How could he eat when his world was ending? When mercy might come from one more hour of self-denial.

What an injustice. The story had trapped him in his own folly. He’d have been angry if his friend’s confrontation hadn’t been so right. He’d worked so hard to keep the secret and yet now that secret bit like a viper. The venom of shame coursed through his soul, paralyzing any joy that had come with the birth of his son.

The fifth night offered no ease to the pangs in his heart. “Spare the little one,” he pleaded to the silent heavens. “Spare the suffering of my wife. Take out your justice on me.” Nightmares squeezed him with the strength of a boa constrictor, suffocating his prayers. Images tumbled through his mind of a snarling prophet declaring ‘you are the man, you are the man, you are the man.”

Drenched in sweat, he refused to bathe and show mercy to himself. His hair hung knotted, greasy, tangled. “I’ll turn away the crown. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions; Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.”

The carpeted walls and floors smothered the echoes of heaven. Clenched fists, face to the floor, groanings beyond words—still nothing.

The sixth day and night. A fever. The child no longer suckling. A silence that tears. What good are the best physicians when they can’t save the one you love? What good are the best musicians when they can’t comfort your soul? What good are the best of friends when their presence feels like judge and jury cutting off your hope? What good is the Sovereign One when he won’t bend his will or change his mind?

“For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only. Have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”

Where is mercy when you need it? What sacrifice will you accept? There is nothing left but brokenness.

The seventh day. Quiet whispers all around. “Is the child dead?”

“Yes.”

“My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.”

Ah, mercy. In a house of bloodshed, this little one alone will escape the suffering and pain of a chaotic world. Ah mercy, that guilt is covered.”

2 Samuel 12; Psalm 51

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