Fierce Beauty (17 page)

We might lose sight of Jesus, but He
never
loses sight of us.

Friend, there is no wilderness of despair so vast that His hope cannot reach. There is no depth of pain so deep that His peace cannot find. There is no anguish of soul so great that His love cannot conquer. There is no place you can go where His saving grace cannot redeem you. All that He is and all that He offers to you is as near as your lips and your heart.
Anyone
who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Our loving and merciful Father is always standing by, ready to lead us home.

Editor’s Note:
Read more about Sue in “Friendship,” chapter 20 of Kim’s book
Bridge Called Hope
.

THE WARRIOR

It was late evening, and I was still working on a laptop in my secluded lookout on the crest at our ranch. Long gone was the golden glow of the setting sun’s last rays. In its place, as if on a timeless theater stage, the dark sky had silently ushered in the twinkling glow of countless stars. Hardly aware of the beauty above me, I was captivated by a scene playing out in my mind. Surging forth like a primeval play was the image of a solitary woman surrounded by dark shapes, preparing to make a mortal choice …

The woman stood in the dim light. Her hair was blowing gently in an unseen breeze. Her feet were wide apart, her weight balanced evenly. She narrowed her eyes on the objects before her: a golden crown in her left hand and a silver sword in her right. She repeatedly glanced at first one item, then the other.

Suddenly, purposefully, she looked straight up.

Evil curses began filling the air. “You
can’t
do it. You’re too weak!” hissed one shadow. “You deserve to stay where you are!” cried another. “Don’t do it! Don’t
do
it!”

Seemingly oblivious to the voices, the woman lowered her chin and blinked. As she studied the crown again, sliding the forefinger of her left hand along the edge of an emerald, she smiled. Voices seethed all around her: “Yes! Yes, you love this!” She turned the crown upside down and
examined its rim, the golden sphere that for so many years had rested upon her head.

The woman’s smile slowly twisted into a dark frown.

Her next thoughts came from the deepest corner of her heart, from a place of pain and rushing awareness, so powerful that they filled the air as if she were speaking aloud:

“This exquisite crown would guarantee me the admiration, acceptance, and honor of men. It would also unite me to a life of serving … myself. By choosing it, I would be bound to a public life of praise and a private life of purposeless, selfish ambition. I would reign as a princess, rule my own life, and become my own god.” Evil murmurs of agreement and praise rose around her like blinding black smoke.

The woman turned her attention to the sword in her other hand.

“This ordinary sword would promise a life of ongoing confrontation, rejection, and ridicule by many. It would also bond me to a life of serving others before myself. By choosing it, I would become a servant of the Most High King, bound to a public life of allegiance to Him and a private life of love, peace, joy, and eternal purpose.”

A slow smile spread across the woman’s beautiful lips. Her smile increased in brilliance until it split into honest, energetic laughter.

Holding what once held her, the woman extended her left arm. Then she opened her hand and let the crown fall.

Wicked and foul screams shrieked all around her. “No! No!
Noooooo!
”

The crown dropped heavily. It bounced on its lower rim and turned over onto its glittering side. The golden sphere rolled in a lazy semicircle, its faceted gems flashing in multicolored radiance, until it finally came to a stop.

The woman gazed at the dazzling former prison that she had lived most of her days building, rationalizing, defending … and worshiping. Demonic witnesses held their breath.

What she saw for the first time was just how much of her life had been spent enslaved within the crown’s indulgent golden bars. Around
her, more vile blasphemies spewed out of the darkness. Staring at the lustrous hell she had once embraced, she smiled again. This time it was a knowing grin of righteous justice.

She realized that as long as she wore this crown, she was already dead.

But it didn’t have to be so. This was not her end. It was her beginning.

Her great enemy had used this decadent fortress of selfishness to encircle and captivate her thoughts, control her actions, and nearly destroy her life. She knew that in all fairness the moment had come to return the favor. With a determination for retribution reserved only for demonic hordes, she breathed through clenched teeth, “It’s time for payback!”

The woman lifted her foot over the crown and stamped it again and again, crushing the crown into what it had always been—a radiant pile of trash.

A hideous chorus of screams shrieked all around her. The darkness that veiled the woman instantly began to burn away in the presence of a growing light that emanated from her chest. Right before the narrowed evil eyes that encircled her, the woman was being transformed.

After a last devastating blow with her foot, she seemed satisfied with the complete destruction of what had nearly destroyed her. Pleased there was no surviving portion of the crown that could be resurrected, the woman stepped over it. She pushed back her hair, wiped her brow, and looked up once more.

The woman raised the point of her sword as high as she could, drew in a massive breath, and shouted in a voice loud enough for the heavens to hear, “For the King alone!”

Instantly white-hot light pulsed from the center of her torso. Its blinding flash scattered the black swarm around her. The brilliant glow spread like an accelerated sunrise through her entire being. Once the radiance reached her perimeters, it began to build. As it continued to
gather intensity, a deafening crackle filled the air. What looked like her skin began to fracture as if it were sunbaked mud. Each crack grew wider until her covering was pulled so tight that it strained to hold her.

Finally, in a series of sharp snaps, her exterior exploded in a rancid hail of filmy gray scales. Gone were the slimy, man-made attempts at creating beauty. Gone was the pride; gone was the fear; gone was the selfish justification. Gone was the
princess
.

In her place stood a warrior.

Several years ago someone I love very much shared with me an account from her life, one that has since changed mine.

On a five-day canoe trip through the Okefenokee Swamp on the Georgia-Florida border, Misheal and I paddled down what seemed a long-forgotten waterway. We set out, two ponytailed explorers, with several dry bags filled with our gear and enough food to last the length of our trip. Because the swamp is a wildlife reserve, it is also a haven for thousands of American alligators. We entered their black-water kingdom cupped in a sixteen-foot canoe. Our conversation meandered with the same unhurried luxury as the river upon which we traveled.

I encouraged my friend’s heart with the news that no one venturing into the Okefenokee has ever been seriously injured by an alligator, in part because all adventurers are required to paddle a specified distance of up to twelve miles a day to reach a series of elevated platforms. The raised floors were designed to give travelers a safe place to pitch their tents at night. Each wooden campsite rises several feet out of the water and above the reach of cruising alligators. Twenty feet long by twenty-eight feet wide, these stages are among the few places in the swamp where the gators cannot climb.

Having made this trip before, I knew the inhabitants of this wilderness grow to approximately fourteen feet in length and have a mouth lined with dozens of prehistoric-looking teeth. Backing those teeth is a
set of jaws that have produced one of the strongest bite pressures ever recorded. With that bit of information firmly in mind, combined with the understanding that these ancient predators are primarily nocturnal hunters, locating our platform before dark each day was always a high priority. Actually, as fearsome as they look and truly are in their habitat, most alligators are very shy. Other than those who’ve been fed by tourists, they do not naturally seek interaction with humans.

Since it was my friend’s first trip to the swamp, I wanted her to be in the front of our canoe so she could see, without distraction, the matchless beauty this unique setting has to offer. Selfishly, I also wanted to be the steersman in the back of our boat so I could see her reaction to each miraculous wonder God had stowed within this hidden place.

Perhaps lulled by the magnificent, embracing arms of the cypress trees overhead or the intense privacy of utter silence, it was within this sanctuary that Misheal’s remarkable story began to emerge.

After several days of navigating the swamp and many alligator encounters, we paddled on in silent synchronization. Our words wandered as aimlessly as the brilliant blue dragonflies that danced around us. Eventually our dialogue moved toward the difficulties of our childhoods. Once we rounded this conversational bend, I observed a change in my dark-haired friend. Her back and upper body subtly stiffened, and her voice thinned. Clearly, our words were nearing something very painful in her past.