The Girl Behind the Red Rope

by Ted Dekker

  “The only way to know yourself in and as the light is to let go of all your attachments to who you think you are in this world. You know the sayings: hate your entire life, deny yourself, take up the cross. All these mean the same thing. Let go of the meaning you give life in all your judgments of value based on the knowledge of good and evil. You’ve heard this?”

  “Jesus said those things,” I said, knowing the verses well. They were some of Rose’s favorites, but she hadn’t put it that way.

  “Yes, Jesus, who made a way for all to see and be who they are beyond their blindness. This is the only way to know yourself in and as the light. You don’t let go of the world because it’s bad. You let go because your attachment to your fear-based self blinds you to who you are as the light. Simple.”

  He turned around in a circle, gazing at an invisible horizon. “Here, with so few distractions, letting go will be easier for you.” His eyes were bright. “Ready?”

  “For what?”

  He spun around, waving me forward. “Come on!”

  And then he was running, laughing. Caught up in his excitement, I took off after him. It was like running on air because there still was no definition to anything.

  I glanced ahead, trying to see what was coming, but all I saw was more white. It hardly looked like an “ahead” at all, but I was moving, my feet smacking the hard surface under me.

  I heard it before I saw it. Out of nowhere it appeared. I nearly stumbled, but I managed to stay upright as I pulled up and stared at the scene.

  There, against the perfectly white backdrop, thundered a massive waterfall, fed by the sky and spreading out into a large crystal pool. The wall of beautiful green and blue water, roaring in its majesty, was the width of Haven Valley at least. I jerked my head up but couldn’t see its source. It appeared to extend forever.

  A waterfall out of nowhere in a place that seemed fictional . . . Amazement filled me. Eli had rushed all the way to the pool’s edge and was on his knees, bending toward the glassy surface, watching it swirl. He looked back over his shoulder and waved me closer.

  Drawn to the water, I hurried forward, dropped to my knees beside Eli, and stared at the crystal pool. Waves of light wove their way through the water just beneath the surface like thousands of glowing ribbons.

  The water’s alive, I thought. It’s not just water.

  “Think of it as love.” Eli looked up at me with round eyes. “God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. God is love, and whoever aligns to true love aligns to that light.”

  Knowledge returned to me in a flash, and I spoke what I knew. “The light of the world.”

  “All-powerful, all-consuming, infinite, having no beginning and no end. The same light that made you in its likeness. It is you and in you. It always has been.”

  But I’d been blind to it.

  My fingers were trembling. It was as if a long-lost melody was coming back to me after a lifetime of deafness. As if my eyes were being opened for the first time since I’d been delivered from my mother’s womb.

  “Watch.” Eli cupped his palm and dipped it into the water. He drew his hand back up, held it inches below his chin, and spoke, keeping his eyes fixed on the small pool of water in his hand. “Love, dear one. The love that knows no wrong like the light knows no darkness.” Then he lifted his hand to his lips and tipped the water into his mouth. He spread his arms and beamed at the sky as his little body trembled with joy. “Love, daughter of heaven! Drink the light that is love!”

  I turned back to the water as longing deep inside of me roared to life. Without another thought, I dipped my hand into the water. The power of the water tingled on my fingers and palm.

  Daughter, light of the world, there is nothing to fear. Drink of my love. Let go of your whole life and become who you’ve always been.

  Daughter? A lump gathered in my throat. Daughter of whom? The name came from beyond my memories and learned behaviors. Beyond my past and hopes for the future. I knew that name not with my mind but with my heart.

  Father.

  Without hesitation I brought my hand to my lips and drank the water. The moment it hit my mouth, everything around me shifted. There was no longer a waterfall, or a boy, or a pool, or Grace. The waters of love and light engulfed all I thought there should be and left me with only what was.

  Father. The source of my being. Love. Pure light that filled every corner and cell of my body yet reached beyond me because it couldn’t be limited. It couldn’t be contained. And I was in it, fully braided with the light that held me in perfect love, free from all fear and trouble and darkness. Because in my Father there was no darkness.

  In that moment, I knew who I was. Knew beyond understanding. I was experiencing love all around me and in me. I was awakening to who I always had been.

  I closed my eyes, tilted my head back, and began to shake with the power of it all.

  My Father is light, and in him there is no darkness. I am the light of the world.

  My Father is love, and as I experience true love I experience him, he in me and I in him, as one. There is no fear in true love, the love that holds no record of wrong. That love is the evidence of being in the light.

  Overwhelmed, I hung my head and wept like a child. It was so simple. Tears of gratefulness and wonder fell from my eyes. I felt like I was being reborn into a whole new perception of all that existed. How could I have missed this?

  For a long time all I heard was the thundering waterfall, which to me was like the thundering of love through my mind, my veins, my bones. I knew that love. I experienced it. I was it.

  How long I knelt there, I don’t know. Maybe an eternity. And then my weeping turned to sniffles and I gave a huge sigh.

  Eli, I thought. Where is Eli?

  I opened my eyes, and the moment I did, the thundering waterfall was gone. I blinked in the dim light of the cell.

  I was back!

  I started to stand, but my legs were too weak and I collapsed back on my heels, twisting to see the cell.

  Eli was leaning against the bars, arms crossed, smiling at me. “Hello, daughter. It’s so nice to meet you again.”

  Mouth gaping, I stared at him, then glanced around to see that Bobbie was gone.

  “Was that real?” I stammered. “Did that really happen?”

  “You tell me.”

  But I already knew. Nothing had ever been so real.

  Eli pushed himself off the bars and stepped up to me, reached for my shoulder, and took a knee so we were the same height. “Now you know who you are,” he said, searching my eyes.

  I swallowed and let my experience fill me. “Yes.” My voice came out thin, choked by emotion.

  “In this world you will have troubles,” he said. “It’s okay. They are all only opportunities to let go and see yourself as you truly are. Be glad, because the light has overcome and all those troubles are only shadows.”

  I nodded.

  “The first shadow you will face is Sylous.”

  I had forgotten about Rose and Sylous and my terrible standing in Haven Valley.

  My child! I placed my hand on my belly, and new questions filled my mind.

  He gave me a nod. “Then ask.”

  I hesitated. “The Fury . . . Who are they?”

  “They’re the fear you and the whole world create in denial of the light, thinking that fear will protect you,” he said. “But whatever’s done in fear only creates more fear. Love creates more love. You see the Fury as monsters, but I see them as what they are. Shadows.”

  His revelation stunned me.

  “Then why didn’t you stand up to them?”

  He smiled patiently. “Listen to what I said, Grace. They. Are. Shadows. There’s nothing to stand up to.”

  “But they attacked us. You’re saying our own fears attacked us?”

  “Because you don’t know who you are. Most of what you call the devil is actually your own fear manifesting. But they don’t exist in the light. I can’t
force you to believe in the light, but now you know the truth.”

  Was it really that simple?

  “Language makes it hard to understand, but yes,” he said, eyes twinkling. “It really is that simple.”

  “What about Sylous?”

  “Sylous is different. A religious spirit not made by you, but still a shadow. The world is full of his kind, they just remain hidden behind the fear they feed on. You’ll understand much more soon, I promise.”

  “Why didn’t you use your power to stop him?”

  “But I am. Right now, through you.” He beamed like a proud teacher. “Just remember, he only has the power you give him through your fear.”

  It really did sound simple. And yet . . .

  I lowered my eyes as the memory of my mother being whipped flooded me. I could feel the shadow fall over me. I’d seen her body as it fell to the ground. How could I live with her death? A knot filled my throat and I tried to fight my emotion, but the more I did, the more I sank.

  “I have nothing left in this world,” I whispered.

  “That’s a perfect place to start,” Eli said. “You were born into the world of shadows to rise past those shadows, just like everyone. To find the light in the darkness. Nothing else matters.”

  I looked past him to the dark hallway beyond the bars. Dark, cold, so very real now. How could I have gone from such wonder to such worry in the space of just a few minutes?

  “Because you’re still clinging to who you thought you were,” he said.

  “But my mother . . .”

  “Isn’t who you thought she was either. She’s alive and well.”

  A gentle breeze brushed across my shoulders there in that basement cell, and my heart leaped. The draft caressed my face, warm and easy, smelling of lilacs and roses, wrapping itself around me in a loving embrace.

  Daughter.

  I recognized my mother’s voice immediately, and tears sprang to my eyes. “Mother?”

  Do not be afraid, Grace. There’s nothing to be afraid of.

  My spirit soared in response to her voice, because I knew then that the boy was right. My mother had not died. In a strange way I couldn’t put my finger on, my concern for her vanished. I wasn’t thinking of her anymore.

  I was thinking of the waterfall and the voice I’d heard there as my Father’s love thundered through me. My body started to shake again from my shoulders to my ankles. It could hardly contain the power the memory of his voice brought.

  Light of the world, there is nothing to fear.

  As I knelt there on the cold floor, lost in his presence, I suddenly wanted to weep and dance at the same time.

  Drink of my love. Remember who you are, daughter.

  “I will,” I breathed, barely able to speak. “I will.” And I thought, Not my will but yours, because I’m one with you in truth.

  My last resolve to cling to the way I had known myself—as Grace in Haven Valley—broke with that thought. As though I was once more by the crystal lake, my Father’s love crashed through me. There were no words to describe the unity I felt with my Father in that moment. Perhaps it was more profound here than in the white place, because I was experiencing truth while in a dark cell.

  Joy that I couldn’t contain boiled up inside of me, and suddenly I was leaning back on my knees, laughing at the ceiling, letting tears of joy stream down my cheeks as the gentle breeze that had brought my Father’s voice swirled around me.

  My mother was in that breeze.

  I impulsively jumped to my feet and began to spin, arms stretched wide.

  Eli was laughing like the child he was, though he wasn’t really a child. He mimicked me, twirling. “Yes, yes, yes! She knows! She knows!”

  Anyone peering into the cell would surely have concluded that we’d both lost our minds. But the ways of the spirit were insane to blind minds. If knowing the Father was insanity, we were celebrating that insanity.

  Eli and I danced, laughing, caught up in boundless joy and peace. I had no thoughts of the past or what would come. I was just there with my Father, Eli, and the clarity of who I truly was.

  Much later it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard Eli’s voice for a while. I settled and looked around. The cell was dark and empty except for me and the pot in the corner. Not a sound could be heard.

  He’s gone, I thought.

  But no, Eli was never gone.

  Chapter

  Thirty-Four

  THE FIRST THING I SAW WHEN I WOKE UP WAS THE light. Not the light from my dream, but daylight coming in through the window.

  I sat up and the reality of that dank cell crashed into my awareness. Eli had been here. Or had that all just been a dream? No, not a dream. I’d been awake with Eli, who’d shown me who I was. Who my Father was. Where my mother was.

  And yet here I was, imprisoned and in terrible trouble.

  I stood and walked to the bars between me and the next cell. The basement was empty. My heart raced as slivers of doubt cut into my mind.

  “Eli?”

  No response.

  I moved back to the bench and sat, then closed my eyes. A tremble had taken to my fingers. I began to whisper Eli’s truth out loud, desperate to feel the love and warmth from before.

  There is no fear in love.

  “Is that really what you believe?”

  I opened my eyes and saw Bobbie standing on the other side of my cell door, arms crossed.

  “All because some little kid came to you in your dreams and said so?”

  But this was Bobbie, who I now knew had to be a Fury, because she was full of fear—the wisdom of the world, desperate to protect me.

  “You’re a Fury, aren’t you?”

  She blinked. “Yes, but deep down you’ve always known that, haven’t you? And not all Fury are the same. I’m only here to help you. That’s what wisdom does.”

  Maybe I always had known.

  “That’s what the wisdom of the world does,” I corrected her. “And what I experienced with Eli wasn’t a dream.”

  “Are you sure? Is that what you’re going to tell Rose when they come for you? That Eli came back from the dead, showed up in your cell, and told you there is no fear in love?”

  I didn’t respond.

  “It sounds insane,” Bobbie said. “Because you can’t begin to believe that it’s possible to live without fear. Does that mean no one knows how to love? Because everyone lives in fear of something. Fear of being ridiculed, fear of heresy. Even God fears, for goodness’ sake. He fears for you!”

  “My Father fears nothing, including my failure.”

  “Not true,” she snapped. “What is true is that soon they’ll come to collect you, and we need to make sure you don’t mess this up.” She eyed me, clearly annoyed by my apparent dismissal of her. “Even if the boy is right, you won’t do anyone any good locked up here. Play their game. To the Romans, be a Roman. Speak their language. Repent. It’ll set you free to teach them all this love stuff over time.”

  She made good sense, though what she meant by repent was very different from what Eli meant by it.

  A thought blossomed in the back of my mind as I stared at Bobbie. You manifest what you believe. You create it. Whatever I did in fear only created more fear. Fury. But if I was in the love that held no record of wrong, more of that love would come. Regardless of what I did, I didn’t want to do it in fear.

  Bobbie tilted her head slightly and gave me a questioning look. “What nonsense are you trying to believe now?”

  The door at the top of the stairs creaked open. Bobbie and I both turned to watch as heavy boots started down the stairs, one pair and then another. Tanner and Marshall. They were coming to collect me for my appearance before the community, just as Bobbie had said.

  “It’s time,” Tanner said.

  Bobbie had moved to the side, her eyes still trained on me. “Use common sense,” she said. “It is the only way to ensure your protection.”

  Marshall unlocked my cell and ushered me
forward.

  Bobbie was still present and speaking. “Protect yourself, Grace. Please, for my sake.”

  For her sake, because her existence depended on me remaining in fear. She was of my own making, a Fury.

  Tanner and Marshall kept me close as they guided me up the stairs and out of the basement. I squinted against the bright sun. It was already hot. The streets were empty as they led me to the Chapel.

  Bobbie was suddenly in front of me, eyes drilling into mine. “Think of your baby!”

  The air of peace and truth that had started collecting around me stilled. Yes, what of my baby? Didn’t I have an obligation to fear for my unborn child?

  Tanner and Marshall ushered me in through the double doors of the Chapel, and the eyes of the Holy Family shifted to stare at me. Some of them looked sad. Others looked as though they pitied me. Who wouldn’t, after what I’d suffered? After what my mother had suffered?

  Most watched me with uncertain, shifting eyes. I felt sorry for them. They were only slaves to what they’d been told and believed, like all in the world. And I saw in their eyes the power that the whole world, regardless of creed or religion, had bound itself to.

  Fear.

  I remembered standing on the mountain with Eli beside me, looking down on this city and seeing it drenched in thick darkness. Fear tucked into every nook and cranny, every corner, every plank of wood.

  Fear.

  Fear.

  Fear.

  Jamie caught my eye as they led me up the center aisle. He showed no emotion. Whatever had happened to him on the mountain had changed him. But I already knew what had happened to him. He’d been filled with more fear than he’d ever known, and that fear was manifesting as anger, because anger was just another form of fear. A reaction against the fear of loss.

  Andrew sat two seats over from Jamie, watching me with a pitying frown. He was fearing for both me and how my fate would reflect on him.

  The children were looking at me with round eyes, fearing the unknown.

  Colin, the most vocal of the council members, scowled, fearing that what he disapproved of would be allowed and bring harm.

  Everywhere I looked now, all I saw was fear. All darkness was fear, and much of what my religion had taught me was based in that fear. How could we all have missed such an obvious observation?