by Tracy Higley
~Part IV~
Though she had seen that the words of her fellow traveler, telling her that she could not be loved by the king unless she earned that love, were a lie, it still took many days for her to get free of the striving, the striving to earn the king’s love, the knight’s love, and even the love of her fellow travelers. She feared being insignificant, and it was not at all easy to rest in the truth that that she was fully loved and accepted and had no need to earn it from anywhere. She grew discouraged at times that each day she would slip into the old habits of working and serving to please others and gain their approval, as if it would fill her heart. Until at last one day she shared her heart with the knight, and he spent many minutes assuring her of his love for her, of the king’s love for her.
“I am still afraid,” she said, “that although this truth will carry me through today, tomorrow I will awake and forget and try again to earn love.”
“Yes, of course you will forget,” he said with a patient smile. “That is why you must ask me to tell you again tomorrow.”
“And what of the day after that?” she said, biting her lip.
“Yes, and the day after that, and the next day and the next.”
“You will never stop telling me?” she asked in wonder.
“Child, I will never stop telling you. Come to me every day, and I will remind you of this truth and set your heart free.”
And she found it was true! Each morning it was as if the knight had rescued her once again. Not from a cell or a dungeon, but from an invisible web that seemed to spin itself around her each night as she slept, binding her when she woke and making her believe the lie again. She had only to look to her knight, with a plea for deliverance in her eyes, and he would come and slash away at the invisible web, and she was once again rescued and free.
Her friend and partner on the dappled horse grew even more dear to her in those days, as they shared their stories together and walked the path side-by side.
She still fetched wood at times, still mended bedding and carried water. But it was with a freedom that enjoyed serving thus, that found joy in loving others out of her love for the knight and even the unseen king, not driven by a need to earn their love.
The lesson of his love was driven deeper into her heart each day, until she found it bubbling back out again, and spilling onto those around her who seemed to struggle with the same lie. Rescued! she would whisper to them. Each and every day! And she would speak of his love, his unconditional and unearned love, and tell them how it had freed her and could free them, too. And one morning after he had set her free from her invisible web and she was sharing this truth with a fellow traveler, she looked down to realize that the knife was in her own hands, and it was she that freed her friend from his web. And she looked up and found the eyes of the knight on her, his smile bright, and felt the overwhelming joy of having been used to free another on behalf of the knight and the king.
But there came a day when once again the knight warned them of danger ahead. “This will be no threatening storm, no dark weather that can be outrun,” he said. And they came upon a small fortress, which he bid them to enter.
Inside, they found a stockpile of metal objects which, in the murky gloom, it took her a few moments to understand. Jumbled together there on the floor of the fortress were numerous swords and helmets and chain mail, such as the knight himself had always worn.
“Suit up,” he charged, and the travelers, some eagerly and others with trepidation, advanced on the pile of weaponry.
“Indeed this will be a battle like none other we have seen,” she thought as she lifted a sword by its hilt and carefully fished a helmet from the stash. “It looks as though we will be set upon by a fierce enemy.” She tried to fit the helmet on her head, but it felt loose and foolish. She returned it to the pile. “Who am I to fight in a battle?” she thought. “I have never even held a sword.” She pulled a vest of chain mail over her head and tried to fix its straps tight around her chest. “I will be slain at once,” she thought. “The enemy will laugh to see me advance on them.”
The knight drew close and helped her choose a helmet that fit her better. “You have many to fight for you,” she said, pointing her chin in the direction of the others. “I am not qualified, and would better serve you if I stayed in the camp.”
“You must fight,” he said simply.
“I cannot, truly I cannot,” she said, her voice pleading now.
“You are needed. And you will be given the strength you lack.”
“Please,” she was begging now, “Please, send someone else.” She spoke from fear now, she knew. Fear that she would not have what it took to fight well.
The knight’s mouth tightened and he bowed his head slightly. “It is your choice,” he said, and she felt the rush of relief in her chest. She reached to remove the helmet, but he stayed her hand. “Keep it,” he said, and she dared not argue.
They went out of the fortress, armed and ready, at least some of them. She did not expect the battle to be so quickly upon them. Along the horizon rose a dark smudge that swelled and advanced and struck terror into the group.
“Courage!” the knight called among them, and raised his sword to lead the charge.
But she did not charge. She stayed back as the others surged forward across the plain. Her friend and partner pushed forward without a backward glance and she watched with a mixture of fear and envy.
All through the day the battle raged, but she watched from a distance, preparing a meal for when the warriors returned, building a fire, then sitting and fretting over the chaos in the distance.
At last it was over and the dark force that had attacked lay fallen on the field or retreated back into the distance. The warriors returned, as all warriors do, tensed with battle-fury, bloodied and weary, shouting praises to each other and filled up with the righteousness of their cause and the victory they had earned.
Her partner dropped beside her at the fire and said only, “you should have been there.”
She swallowed her shame and said nothing.
More battles were fought in the days to come. Not all of the travelers-turned-warriors would return. Each night her partner would tell her of some who had fallen, and often their defeat seemed tied to a faltering, a falling back that happened when the enemy managed to convince them that they were not actually children of the king, that they were nothing more than dungeon mud, and no one would ever love them.
She hated to hear this, for it was the very lie that she herself had once believed so thoroughly and was still in need of rescue from each morning. To think that her friends fell in battle because of this very lie, it wounded her as if she too fought on the bloody plain.
She sat alone beside the fire one evening, and even her friend and partner could not distract her from her thoughts. He left her to them, as she wished, and she tossed chips of wood into the fire and felt herself grow more envious of the warriors who fought well, and more depressed at the warriors who fell victim to the lie, and more hopeless over her worthlessness in the fight.
And then he was beside her, the knight, as she knew he would be, for he always came when her heart grew heavy and some part of her wished for him to come.
“You are needed,” he said again, as he had said that morning in the fortress when they first received their armor. “Critical to the battle.”
She made ready to argue, but somehow the truth of it pierced her before she had the chance. “They believe the lie,” she said quietly.
He nodded. “And you must share the truth. It is your gifting.”
“My gifting?” She had not heard this word before.
“Have you not seen how you have been used to break the web that binds others?”
“But I am still in need of rescue myself,” she said. “Every day.”
He smiled. “Yes, and it will continue to be so. But you are also gifted to share with others the truth you have found. You are a teach
er, you are an exhorter. And you are needed.”
Her eyes filled with tears at his words, for they struck a part of her she hadn’t yet known – that part which deeply longed to be needed, to be used, to be part of this great kingdom that was to come and even now battled forces of evil as they journeyed.
“Find your armor,” the knight whispered, and he rose to leave her. “You will soon wear it.”
And in the days to come, the armor became a part of her, as she found herself again and again in the midst of the fray, shouting words of truth to her fellow travelers as they fought.
“Courage, friends!” she would yell. “Your Father the King awaits you, and loves you!” and sometimes, “Close your ears to the lies, warriors! The enemy would weaken you with deceit, but you are loved and you are precious to the King!”
And with her words she watched spines stiffen and swords rise and chins lift, and she saw that she had been given a vital role to play.
She saw, too, that they had each been given a role. Not everyone had been called to shout truth through the ranks as she had. Her friend and partner traveled close beside her, and often he would be there to offer her a sip of water when she grew faint, to raise his sword to fend off an attack she did not see, to encourage her with words meant only for her. In the evenings, when the battle was done and she lay spent beside the fire, he would often groom her horse, or repair tears in her chain mail. And she saw that this was his special gifting, to ride alongside her and be of help to her, and her heart swelled to realize that each of them had been gifted and that his was a gift meant for her good.
The days of quiet travel were far behind them now, she realized that night. They grew closer to the kingdom, and thus the journey grew more deadly. They would battle together for the kingdom and for each other, until they reached that glorious land. She sometimes longed for those peaceful days, but she also saw that they had been preparation, and that even then she had longed for this greater calling, this greater purpose in the kingdom. That to journey on in peace would have eventually grown wearisome. For adventures are always better and make one stronger, and just as she was not made for the dungeon, nor meant to earn the king’s love, she was not meant for a life of purposelessness, either, and by giving her a battle to fight, she had, in a sense, once again been rescued.