Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Persecuted (08/22/24)
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TITLE: All Who Live Godly Lives... | Previous Challenge Entry
By Lois Eaton
08/28/24 -
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The fog had gone. Clear sunlight was always bad news. Nothing could be hidden from the guards. The gathering that afternoon would be noticed. Penalties would follow.
Eight years of living in fear – and she was only eleven.
Rina’s memory of BEFORE was very limited. She knew better than to talk about them. But she was certain there had been a lot more food, and warm clothes for winter, and beds. Most of all, there were no guards, and her father was alive. She had been very young. Probably just her imagination.
There was BEFORE – if it was real - and there was AFTER.
AFTER had started with her father’s dream. He excitedly told his family about the man who came to him in a dream. The strange man who looked only partly Asian, and had those holes – one in each of his hands, near the wrist. The strange man exuded an atmosphere of peace. No-one in the family had ever felt such peace. But as father spoke about it, they all felt the peace – and wanted more.
That was when mother said, “I have something I have been hiding.” She dug under her bed and brought out a BOOK. A BOOK!
Only the very rich – those blessed by the Great Leader – had access to much the way of books.
“It is the forbidden book.”
Gasps then shocked silence. Rina started straining to hear the Strong Ones coming to arrest them all. She had been listening for them ever since.
And they came.
It took them weeks to find out about THE BOOK. But they found out in the end and came. Father saw them coming.
He said to mother, “You must live to care for the children. God will forgive me the lie I am about to tell. Be faithful to God and raise the children to love Him.”
He told the guards that he had found the book recently, and brought it home. He added that his wife had been horrified and wanted to turn it over to the police but he had not let her.
They took father away and Rina had never seen or heard from him again. She doubted if she would recognise him anymore – assuming that he was still alive. Most unlikely.
The guards returned with a truck and took mother and the children. Mother was silent for weeks. Everything changed. No beds. No nice clothes. Very little food – and even that little bit was horrible, although hunger drove Rina to eat it. Short lessons every day about how blessed they were to be given another chance. Long hours of hard physical labour no matter what the weather, or how sick they felt. Beatings and torture for anyone who did not work hard enough.
Then one day mother started talking again. She talked and talked about the things they had read in the FORBIDDEN BOOK. She talked about this man called Jesus, and how He was God’s Son.
Rina screwed up her face in confusion. She thought that there was no God. But somehow God seemed real to mother.
Then that amazing night when He became real to Rina and her brothers and sisters! Mother cried tears of joy when, one after another, late at night, they committed their lives to God and His Son, Jesus.
They knew they should keep it a secret. But secrets are very hard to keep when you are young and suddenly find yourself happy and at peace. Muscles still hurt from sleeping on a cold concrete floor. Hunger was still ever present. But what did they matter? Jesus, Who was coming soon to set up HIS Kingdom loved them and had chosen them.
Rina found the idea that she mattered to God amazingly beyond anything she had ever felt or understood before.
She could not keep it to herself.
So now she was going to die. But she was at peace.
She looked at the smelly, weeping sores on her body from where she had been burnt, chained up over a fire. Suddenly she realised that even if they did not execute her today, as promised, she would die soon. But she was at peace. Soon there would be no more pain. Just the love of God. What else mattered?
What was that verse her mother had taught them? “All who live Godly lives will suffer persecution.”
God considered her worthy to suffer for His Name. How she loved Him.
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November 1 is the Persecuted Church's Remembrance Day - this reading (or acted out) would be very impactful.
Blessings