story time

L

aying over her bed, watching her sleep. She slept all day and all night for years and years now. Waking only to seize and toss and turn by the devil’s watch. She suffers and I cannot do anything to get my daughter back. All I want is for her to play. I want her to run down to the river and seize rocks and tadpoles and put them in a jug and keep them as a pet. I want her to jump over the rocks and play in the ocean. I want her to eat potatoes and complain about eating her corn at dinner. All I want is her to sleep like a child of God, and not of the devil. I want her to be good.

 I would have done anything for her.

Anything.

       I would have walked miles to find Him to cure her. I would have waited for Him to knock on the door to cure her. I would have died and gone to heaven just to speak to Him to cure her.

One day left her for just a moment to go and fetch some water from the well in the region of Tyre and Sidon. The walk was not that long, and I walk it almost every day. But today was different. I could tell not just by the crowds, or by the people. But there was something.....something in the air, a sort of peace among us.

It was then....then is when I saw Him.

He was standing clear out of the blue dead center about 40 ft away from me. I dropped my jug and ran straight past the well towards the healer crying out,

“Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly”.

 

He did not answer. I was running towards him even more heavily now, screaming,

“Jesus, Lord, please, help me healer”.

His disciples were crowded around him whispering things in his ears. It didn’t bother me what people thought of my screaming and running because what did I have to lose?

I knelt before Him with my head kissing the dirt, and my hands upon his feet pleading,

“Lord, help me”.

All I could think is Yes! This is it! This is her time to be cured, but all he said to me is,

“I it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs”. 

But I thought differently, I said,

“Yes it is, Lord. Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table”.

And at that moment. He smiled and replied,

“Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted”.

       I pleaded thank you and kissed his palm. He went on with his men on the path and he never looked back. He never check to see if she was really healed. It was as if he knew I would be here. As if he knew that  when I would walk out the door that I would come back and she would be a child of God again. It is as if all my troubles were gone instantly at that moment that he grinned. 

       I walked home that night without a jug of water. I walked into the house and surly, there she was. Lying on the bed sleeping like I had left her. But there was something different about her since the time when I left. 

She was smiling.

Smiling in her sleep. 

I called her name and she awoke with a child-like grin. The kind of grin that says, today is a new day, tomorrow is a new today.

Derived from Matthew 15:21-28 (Through the eyes of the Canaanite woman)