A Warrior's Redemption

  *****

  Krista leaned up against the side of the small room she was locked in. She was the only one in the room, for which she was grateful. They had reached the city in the late afternoon and it wasn’t long after that she had been separated from the rest of the women in the wagon and sent up to this upper room of the slave market building.

  All her tears gone, she sat in complete apathy of emotion. What did it matter anymore anyway? No matter what she did nor how hard she tried she couldn’t escape the curse of her birth. She was a slave and no matter what she did to wipe out the ugly stain of her life’s history it just came back to plague her again and again.

  The illusive dream of gaining her freedom had been crushed once again. There really was no point in searching after freedom anymore, in fact what was the point to even living? Her hand closed over the little piece of broken pottery that she had found earlier in her cell and she brought the little piece of pottery up to her face and contemplated it more closely.

  The shard of pottery had one sharp edge. It was sharp enough to do the job. She bit her lip as she brought it up and held it to her wrist. Scared by the decision she had made, but seeing no other way out, she glanced up.

  “If you’re up there God, I’m sorry, but I just can’t take it anymore! I know what’s going to happen tomorrow and I would rather die than experience any more of what this life has to offer me!”

  She looked down at her hand and made to pull the pottery across her wrist, but her hand wouldn’t move. She tried again and it still wouldn’t move. She could move her hand back from her wrist, but when it was against her wrist it wouldn’t move!

  She gritted her teeth and strained with everything she had but her hand wouldn’t move. Uttering a cry of sheer frustration and anger, she drew the piece of pottery back and hurled it against the opposite wall of the room.

  It shattered into dozens of tiny little pieces. As the pieces fell, several dusted down onto the robe of the figure of a man sitting against the wall across from her. The man calmly reached up and brushed the fragments of baked clay off his shoulder. Krista gasped and flattened herself back against the wall.

  “Who are you?” she whispered in fear.

  “A messenger from the Creator of all life.”

  Krista choked out, “God?”

  The figure nodded solemnly and real fear fell upon Krista, as she realized that the Creator had seen what she had been trying to do.

  Was this messenger going to kill her for what she had tried to do? The absurdity of the situation, given that had just been what she had been trying to do, caused her to almost laugh out hysterically, but she held it in at the last second.

  The messenger across from her smiled. It was a nice smile, surely he wasn’t about to kill her, she thought to herself.

  “Peace Krista. I have not been sent to cause you harm, but rather to bear you good tidings.”

  Good tidings? She was about to be sold as a slave for the third time in her life. What could possibly be good about anything that could come of her current situation? The messenger across from her had claimed to have been sent by the Creator and he had appeared out of nowhere, which testified to a higher power at play within the room than could be faked.

  It would be unwise to doubt what he was saying, no matter how unbelievable it seemed, because she’d already seen the unbelievable take place before. She remembered full well what had happened in the arena at Santarus.

  She decided to test out the waters a bit, “Good tidings?”

  “Yes, tomorrow you will be set free from the bondage that has oppressed you your whole life.”

  “Set free?” Krista asked, as tears flowed down her cheeks.

  She wanted to ask, ‘Are you sure?’ but that wasn’t the thing to say. But not being able to put off confirming what he had just said, at least a little, she asked, “Really?”

  She was going to make the messenger angry she just knew it, but all he did was smile warmly again at her and nod his head in confirmation.

  Not being able to help it she asked, “Why?”

  “Don’t you want to be free Krista? Haven’t you prayed for this to happen?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t think the Creator was listening to me.”

  “The Creator is always listening Krista. He has never ceased from caring for your plight. He mourns every tear that’s falling down your face even now.”

  Krista couldn’t take anymore. A sudden belief in the Creator, like she had never had before, coursed through her. She fell forward onto her face and cried, completely overcome by what was happening.

  The Creator had heard her cry for help. The Creator was going to set her free. The Creator loved even a slave like her, enough to send an angel with a message of promise just for her.

  “Thank You! Thank You!” Krista said over and over, as she felt faith come into her and change her as it washed away the layers of bitterness from her life.

  She saw her life, as if through a fast moving lens and, as bad as it had been, now all she could see was how she had been kept all along the way by a Divine hand and how it had never been as bad as it could have been.

  “I love you God!” Krista whispered against the floor, as she felt peace begin to take away all of her fears.

  “Come here dear one,” the messenger said, as he pulled her up to lean against him, putting an arm around her consolingly.

  Gradually she calmed down and the messenger asked, “Ready for tomorrow?”

  “Yes!” Krista said firmly.

  “Good! Now I must leave you, but do not fear as the message I have been sent to deliver to you will even so come to pass.”

  The messenger rose up off the floor and headed toward the door.

  “Wait! You haven’t told me what will happen tomorrow!” Krista cried out, half starting to her feet to follow after the messenger.

  He turned towards her, “Only have faith and you will see all that the Creator has said will come to pass. You will have freedom and joy added to you tomorrow in overflowing abundance.”

  The angel turned once more and walked through the door of the cell. Krista got shakily to her feet and moved to the door and touched it. The door was very real and yet the messenger had simply walked through it!

  She went back to where she had been sitting. Drawing her knees up she hugged them to herself as over and over again her mind re-lived everything the messenger had said. Tomorrow she would be free.

  Not only free, but full of joy too. She could never have asked for more and she closed her eyes in contented peace and rested in anticipation of the future to come.