Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Dumbfounded (02/20/25)
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TITLE: Speechless, a Monologue | Previous Challenge Entry
By Laurie Kiel
02/27/25 -
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Speechless. There have been times when Jesus left me dumbfounded and speechless.
It all started when somehow, somewhere seven demons entered my body. How, when? Does it matter?
Those seven demons haunted my days and my nights. They consumed my thoughts and actions.
Being speechless would have been such a relief. Silence would have been such solace. But instead, the demons filled my mouth with words. Words that slashed, words that crashed, words that mashed my day and night together until I didn’t know what time it was, what day it was. Every day was the same, a day from Hades.
I had given up every hope and every dream. My future was a mass of cackling demons mocking every thought.
“You think you can do that! You’re helpless, you’re hopeless. Not even Jehovah could love you.”
Not even Jehovah could love me.
Unloved, unworthy,
And then this rabbi walked into my life. I didn’t know who he was, but the demons inside me knew. They howled in protest at his presence. I later found out his name was Jesus. And this Jesus commanded that they leave … and they did.
As I looked into the beautiful, love-filled eyes of Jesus, I was dumbfounded. I was free!
Joyous at my freedom, I couldn’t say anything but collapsed in worship at his feet. My words finally came, “My Lord, my Savior.”
And then came another time when I was dumbfounded, speechless in disbelief. Jesus had been arrested? Betrayed by Judas? Oh, I had always mistrusted that Judas. But my thoughts flew away from thoughts of Judas to thoughts of my Lord. He was at Pilate’s.
I got close enough to hear Pilate ask the crowd if they wanted him to release the thief, Barabbas, or Jesus. I stopped my mad dash as I heard the crowd roar “Barabbas!” and “Crucify him!.”
I was speechless and bewildered. My mind couldn’t comprehend how this could have happened.
But that was only the beginning of the nightmare.
They crucified Jesus!! How could they kill him?
I had no words but one.
WHY?????
Three days. Three days of unanswerable questions. There were no words, just a wordless wail of grief. I was dumbfounded. HOW could this have happened?
Some of us went to anoint his body. REPEATS PHRASE SLOWLY. Anoint … his… BODY. I didn’t understand. I thought he was the Messiah but how could I believe in a dead Messiah?
I wept outside of the tomb. Pain was too deep for anything but tears. I peered into the tomb and was again dumbfounded.
There were two men dressed in white where Jesus’ body was supposed to be. One at the head, one at the end, but he was GONE.
The tomb was EMPTY! It wasn’t enough for them to steal his life, our hope, our heart. They had to steal his BODY.
What were they asking me? WHY was I crying? How could they even ask that? Why did they THINK I was crying? But I told them, “They have taken my Lord away and I don’t know where they have put him.” (John 20:13 NIV) And then I saw another man, who was he, the gardener? And he too asked me why I was crying, but he also asked who I was looking for.
I took a deep breath and told him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” (John 20:15 NIV).
No matter where they took him, I would get him. But then he said the most beautiful word in the world, at least when said by a voice I thought I would never hear again.
“Mary,” Jesus says tenderly.
Once again, I am dumbfounded, but this time I am not speechless.
“Rabboni!” I cry and fall at his feet and cling to him.
I wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t fooled. Jesus IS the Messiah, and he has conquered death.
Time and again, Jesus has confounded me and left me speechless.
Why should that surprise me?
He is greater than my demons.
Greater than my past.
Greater than my dreams, even the broken ones, (PAUSE) ESPECIALLY the broken ones
My Lord.
When my soul is confounded
And I don’t know what to say
I pour all my hurts and hopes in the only word that matters
Jesus
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