A TREE BY THE SEA

Looking up from the book laying across her lap a woman sits surrounded by tall grass. There is a slight breeze rustling the leaves of the aged trees bending over the river’s edge. The young woman inhales a deep breath. Jesus. She’s heard His story and memorized Sunday school prayers. She’s come to the end of herself and asked God if He’s there.

She’s felt Him answer with a tangible presence of power and love, yet she’s wondered if this book is really enough. Could the words written on these pages change the course of her life? She feels a stirring inside. Could she really just believe? Could she really find forgiveness and inner peace?

It was her young husband who had held up this Bible and told her it contained the answers that she sought. Except the more she read it the more confused she got. Her husband had told her all other paths mixed truth and lies, but by reading this holy book she would find that Jesus really is the Christ. It seemed odd to her though as she began in the beginning and read about the temple sacrifice. It wasn’t until she read about the man, Jesus, who claimed to be the way, the truth and the life, that she realized she didn’t need to bring a lamb to a priest to have her heart purified.

This day it all starts to make sence. The presence in her room from years before, the testimony of her husband telling her, “Jesus is Lord,” and the words in these pages as sits beside the rivers edge.

“Jesus,” she whispers, “I know you are true. I want to follow you.”

It’s like the wind and the river are one. They blow through her and flow out of her as she feels God’s Spirit come.

Her own spirit feels alive. She gathers her belongings and walks back to the orchard camp where she resides. Her insides bursting with joy. She can’t help but testify of her new found knowing.

“What happened to you? Your face is glowing…” her friend asks.

Joseph is a seeker too.

She laughs, “It’s all true. Jesus is showing us the way to life. All we do is decide.”

Her friend’s words pierce her heart like an arrow, “Oh, so now you will be a person who’s mind is narrow…”

The disappointment in her good friend’s response feels like a slap in the face, but nothing can erase the change that happened to her. He rejects the claims of Jesus as Christ. He’s looked into the Bible and denies His diety. A prophet, yes maybe. But the son of God freeing the world from sin? Giving all people His gift of love and accepentance? Her friend tries to explain, how Jesus is an offence. How could one man be the only way? What about the rest of the world who could never believe? The ones born in a time and place where it would be impossible to recieve even a whisper of the truth. How could she be so decieved?

Her friend seems angry. The young woman has to admit that she doesn’t know. But as her confusion begins to grow, peace settles in her soul.

The woman’s husband isn’t home, and as her friend continues to debate her, the young woman’s mind begins to roam.

“Righteousness and justice are the foundations of Your throne…”

The words written so long ago, by a king who severly lacked both, for a God to whom he dared to draw close, a dichotomy explained in prose.

“Mercy and truth go before Your face…”

The king who wrote this psalm a thousand years before the birth of his Lord saw truth and grace. The Messiah, the fullness of the law, the Word who was in the beginning and is God. Yet this mercy, this justice, this righteousness, could it be summed up in only one truth? Could the God who created all things become human too?

The one who holds the stars in His hand was born on the earth as a man. Fully God in corruptable flesh, fulfilling the law with His holiness.

Her husband comes in from the fields and her friend finally yeilds. The woman’s new faith has replaced her uncertainty. She believes. Her husband notices the change too. Some of her excitement fades as she explains the change inside. When her husband embraces her, she is relieved. She knows that he is pleased, and her troubled mind is eased.

Yet Joe’s questions remain. Her brow furrows as she ponders the word,

“Faith.”