The strains of a violin drifted from the path near the lake, and Nita let the sound relax her as she pulled a clean shrimp from the pile and popped off the head. The little food shanty she owned with her sisters would be busy with customers before the sun finished yawning.

Bea, the youngest sister, sauntered from the shanty’s open back door, as usual in no hurry to help with the day’s catch. “Where’s Kenny?” Bea asked, squinting in the direction of Kenny’s violining. “Why ain’t he over here helping?”

“You’re one to question somebody else’s workin,” Mya said in her low, sweet voice. “Sit down and start shelling and leave the boy to his music. He’s so good even the birds come to hear him.”

Nita smiled to herself while her wet fingers flew over hard shells and soft flesh. Her Kenny sure could play, and with that violin he’d never spend his adult days sweating behind a shanty shop for a meager living.

Bea dropped her crate near the tub and sat. “Birds? Those are pigeons.”

“Same difference.”

“Nu-unh. It’s like calling moths butterflies. Everybody knows moths ain’t butterflies.”

“What’s moths got to do with anything?” Mya said. “When birds come to sing and dance with a boy and his instrument, it’s God’s way of saying that’s what he was made to do. Just like you having two hands separate from yo mouth means you was made to talk and work at the same time, Bea.”

Bea picked up a shrimp with slow ease. “If those birds were pretty like doves or herons, maybe. But pigeons are beggar birds. If ain’t nothing but pigeons flocking to him, maybe what God’s really saying is he’ll be no better than—”

“Bea.” The empty shell Nita tossed in the bucket landed with a faint crackle. She pushed her shoulders back, her muscles aching after so much bending over.

The violin sang an extended, mournful note, as if entreating Nita to choose her words carefully. She looked at her baby sister. So pretty. So careless.

“That is your nephew,” Nita said. “My son. What the world will say to and about him don’t hold a candle to what comes from his own. You will speak life to your nephew, ya hear? You will speak life over my son.” She gestured toward the sky. “Moths and pigeons are just as much God’s creation as the rest of ‘em, so don’t ever again speak such as to cast doubt on my Kenny’s worth.”

And she resumed shelling the shrimp with fervor, ignoring her sister’s stunned expression and listening to her son’s gift breathe on the wind.

*This is the third story (written previously during a 10 minute prompt response session) in my Stories Along the Way series. There was a young boy in the original image and there were birds around him, but he didn’t have a violin. The ten minute timer found me at “no better than,” but I knew where I was going with the moral of this story so I added the end later. “Speak life” is a phrase I’m passionate about and a principle I live by, because “life and death are in the power of the tongue.” ~Proverbs 18:21

What’s a principle you hold near and dear?

A lone fruit pulsed in the tree’s center like a beating heart. And it was beautiful, its colors of fire.

Ancient markings etched the length and breadth of the trunk, declaring the fruit forbidden. But I was not barred from it. I could physically reach out and touch it. Take it. Taste it.

And I did.

And nothing changed—in the garden anyway.

The cool, plush grass still cushioned my barefoot steps. The sun still caressed the skin of my arms and warmed me with the light of its gaze. But something inside me shriveled and turned. It twisted with what I now know to be fear. Shame.

I hid myself hoping to escape the reach of this new…

…sickness?

And that—the tree—is how this endless war started.

One touch. One taste.

One choice.

*This is the second story (written previously during a 10 minute prompt response session) in my Stories Along the Way series. I don’t remember the exact image for this story, except that the main subject was a tree with great mystique like the one pictured.

Have you ever wondered at the stories various trees have witnessed or been touched by? Just the thought fills me with awe. I hope you enjoy this second story. Have a blessed weekend.

While looking for something else (isn’t that always the case?), I recently found all of those prompt response stories. I’ve decided to share a few of them here in a series titled Stories Along the Way. For each story, I’ll do my best to describe the photo that inspired it or attach a similar image.

The first story in this series is titled “The Dying Lights.” The photo for inspiration was an aerial map of the world at night with scattered lights. I hope you enjoy.

THE DYING LIGHTS

“Do you see them?” Kiran asked.

“We all see them,” Terah responded, his voice even. “But there is nothing we can do. He has commanded that we wait until the appointed time.”

“But when will that be?” Kiran dipped forward, his large wings lifting and falling in slow beats. “Their lamps are growing dim, and the time draws near.”

“The time is His. You know this and I know it. We all know.”

“But it draws near,” Kiran said again. “I feel it.” He flew higher, his flight taking on an agitated rhythm like the worried pacing of mortals.  “If He returns now, before the lamps go out, then it won’t be too late. If He…” his voice trailed off.

The soft patter of wings against wind filled the silence.

When Kiran spoke again, his voice was full of emotion. “She’s changing,” he said. “That’s her lamp.” He pointed, his arm lifting slowly as if weighted by the words he spoke. “Right there.”

He’d watched over Cyen from birth. He’d known of her long before then, loved her long before then. The words of men could not explain what ministering to her and coming before Father’s throne on her behalf meant to him.

But the times had changed drastically in her youth, and she had changed with them.

She, his Cyen, a scoffer. Loving the world that hated her. Losing her love for the One who died for her. Her lamp was dimming, its oil burning low, and despite Kiran’s best efforts she was fading away from Him. From Truth. From Life.

“You love her,” Terah said.

“Yes.”

“And you are worried for her, Kiran? Afraid even?”

“Yes,” Kiran said, his voice a choked whisper.

“Even though you know the truth?”

Kiran’s wings drooped. Yes, he knew the truth. He saw it mapped out below him in a land of souls where the lights faded and blackened toward the west. And there was Cyen’s light, dissolving like a final sunset ahead of eternal darkness.

The truth. It made him feel how humans looked when they anguished and declared their hearts broken. It made him long for the return of the Son, for a command to go forth and wage war on the powers of darkness, for anything that would save the precious soul entrusted to his care.

Before time ran out.

“You do know the truth, don’t you, Kiran?”

“I do,” he said.

“That He loves her much more than you?”

“What?” Kiran looked to his brother.

“She is His, Kiran,” Terah said, his gaze still on the land below. His massive wings rippled on either side of him. Iridescent shades of purple, gray, and teal shimmering in the light of the stars. “Yes, their lamps grow dim. And Father alone knows when Yeshua will return. All of this is truth. But none, not one, will be snatched from His hand. That is also truth.”

Terah turned to Kiran, his gaze tender. “Does He not command the time that you worry is running out? Did He not speak light into existence?” He laughed, the sound full of the wisdom of his position and rank.

Kiran’s breath hitched. “But—“

“So we do not watch their lamps, brother,” Terah interrupted. “We watch and wait for Him.”

I will wear white, and my hair will be thick and long and kinky and curling against beads of sweat on my temple and trickling down the back of my neck

The sun will boast over a cloudless sky. It will be hot, but not too hot, and the wind will pour like a ladle of cool water over my dark, clammy skin

I will run and have no fear of bugs nor predators nor snakes nor pits in the ground. I will run and not stumble

I will run and smile and chase after Him. I’ll run to Him. I’ll run with Him.

To the east, to the north, the south, and the west—the field does not end

Like an ocean teeming with majestic creations, my sea of flowers will swell with dragonflies and butterflies and creatures winged in riotous color. It will buzz with flight and sing a song of wind-whipped stalks, waving as I run past with quick, light steps

The field will cheer me on, clapping and swaying and saying in prose, “Look! There she goes!” And, “Look! He is with her!”

And then, as the sun dips and the heat cools and the breeze dwindles and the clouds gather,

…as the song descends to a murmur…

I will drop to the ground, surrounded on all sides in the soft embrace of velvety stems, sweating and spent and content and at peace

I will curl up in my field, my curls at His feet, and I will sleep in His peace and dwell in His safety.

And there, again, I will dream of a walk—no, a run—in a sea of long-stemmed, wheat-like flowers

(Originally posted circa April 2013)

I could tell by the look in the nurse’s eyes she wasn’t sure I understood what she’d said. We stared at each other, she with brow lifted waiting for some sign of comprehension on my end, me drifting inside myself with a host of “what ifs” tumbling through my mind.

My twins, due in two months, would be delivered in a matter of hours. The medical staff had done their best to keep them in, and now they had no choice but to take them out surgically.

In part I felt relieved. My son, whose water had burst five days earlier, and whose heart stopped with every contraction, couldn’t possibly survive much longer. I understood the need for such an early delivery. The nurse, however, wanted me to acknowledge the risks: long-term disabilities, breathing difficulties, jaundice, stunted growth, brain defects, perhaps even death. My husband squeezed my hand and spoke for me. Yes, we understood. Yes, we were prepared.

But, no…I wasn’t.

I remember the cold in that room; the blanket tucked around my swollen body warmed me about as effectively as it could’ve warmed a block of ice. I was a new mother who’d never seen or held one of my children. Prepared for the worst? I wanted nothing to do with it.

In my mind’s eye I saw my children alive and healthy, growing and happy, from the first toddled steps to the first days of school, then on to camping trips, family vacations, and game days. That’s what I had prepared for. My heart, which others wanted me to coax into being ready for anything, was defiant and unyielding in its loyalty to the original plan. Come what may, problems and all, I wanted those babies.

But soon enough, as with every other time when my will rushed to the frontlines of battle and tossed it’s proud locks, words buried in my core began to whisper what I knew all along to be true. It wasn’t my choice, and no amount of will could change that. Whether either twin would suck their first breath of God-given air, or pass quietly on to their Maker, was out of my hands.

I had to lay before Him the desire of my heart—that He let my babies live—then plant my will facedown on the floor in submission to His and accept whatever He chose for me. And in all that still know that He loved me, was for me, and would forever be my King. Though the surrender hurt me, it prepared me in the way the doctors and nurses wanted me to be prepared.

What strange creatures we are! What in us makes us believe when we’re willing to let go of something it means we’ve already lost it? For though I still had hope and knew God could not only let the twins live but make them completely healthy, I cringed in preparation for loss.

I look back on that now, nineteen years which seem to have passed as quickly as nineteen glorious sunsets, and I can imagine Him looking down at me on that rather hard, sterile rollaway, His eyes full of compassion as He examined the fears suppressed beneath my brave exterior. He knew I would love Him no matter what—perhaps He just wanted me to know it too—then He blessed me with two healthy, beautiful babies.

Our twins turned nineteen recently. As they reminisce over the fun they had entering the last year of their teens, I sit back and look at them in celebration—not just celebrating their lives, but also glorifying the worthy, mighty Father who gave them life. He who did not spare His own Son spared both my son and my daughter.

And He is now, and will forever be, my King.