Friday, December 9, 2011

The Miracle Unveils


December 9th. Three more days to go. I can't believe how fast this month is

flying by, especially with me doing this.

I want to thank one and all for your ongoing support. My doctor called me on Monday evening with the results of the Brain MRI...actually I called the office during the day and the nurse told me I was on my doc's call list to discuss the results.

That's never a good sign. It's true I had a mini-stroke...a much milder one than the one I had in 2008, but there's also evidence I am in the early stages of MS...so keeping my brain active is vitally important, but I want Y'all

(thank you Gail) to promise me if my words become mishmashed too badly to please let me know. I need you to help me know when it is time for me to let

Nudge, my inner voice, take a long...permanent...vacation.

And on that note...let's begin:


THE MIRACLE UNVEILS
by
L.J. Holmes

Celestial angels, a choir conducted by God.

On the twilight before the advent, the world seems still, but from this distance, the truth is revealed; only to those with eyes that see beyond all veils.
Glittering stars twinkle here, above the atmosphere. Moonbeams shimmer and dance around the lone body of the child. His soft, sweet body, propped on the billowy cloud, he leans over, just a little, so he can peer down, at the lush earthy topography below.

Opening his eyes, like the lens on a rapid speed camera's shutter, he giggled with his exhilaration, eager to see what awaits below. 'Soon,' he claps, his body vibrating with excited glee while narrowing his gaze to zoom in on just one home.

'That one,' he  quivered happily. 'The one with the blue-black shutters!'

One day, one day very soon, his human feet would pitter-patter inside that suburban house, and oh what a cherished little boy he'd be.

'Soon,' he thought yet again, his finger-tips tingling as he clapped in merry abandon. 'Oh my,' his little mind gasped. 'There he is! The man who will be my very own.'

With avid attention, the cherub watched the tall man unfold himself from the narrow confines of the land-craft; they call them cars, and stand up. 'Oh My!' Would he one day look like this man so tall?

The ethereal child gnawed on that question a second or two, arching his small head this way and that, taking intricate note of the tall man's finest details.

'Blue eyes,' the cherub nodded. 'Yes,' he reflected quite honestly, 'I would very much like having blue eyes too.' He liked blue...it was the color of the sky supporting the cloud he bounced on.

'Dark, expertly cut hair,' the child continued. 'Perhaps a bit too expertly cut, but all-in-all, not bad. Not on the whole, anyway. The hair? That would be a minor thing, just a snip of a thing.'

He giggled at his joke then sobered. He felt certain, knowing himself, given time, and careful direction, from close exposure to one such as he, the man would find the looser, happier little boy still living within.

Actually, that would be his task; his assignment so to speak, reintroducing the man to his little boy, still lurking around, buried by time, beneath the mantle of the big man shell. A daunting task, but one he eagerly anticipated creating.

"Yes, him! He is your job!" the Big Boss had lovingly commanded back at Home Base...how long ago?

Above the child, another shimmering white-gold cloud descended. Joseph, the child's mentor, stood on the larger cloud.

The child adored his mentor and was deleriously happy to see him heading his way.

Once even with the child's cloud, Joseph stepped from his billowy conveyance onto the child's. Looking past the child, with knowing eyes, Joseph cracked an almost grin. "Busy observing your future father, Zachary?"

Zachary blushed...well as much as a cherub could. "He's a busy man," Zachary responded shyly.

"Too busy," Joseph agreed, wisely. "Sometimes we have noted, once in the flesh the spirit forgets. The flesh changes them. We do not fully know why, but suspsect the denisty of form, or the lowering of spiritual rites cause this. All we really know for sure, is the struggle our children face in flesh, pushes all of this," Joseph said, waving his white robed arm expansively to include everything surrounding them, "out of mind. In their daily grind, sadly, they forget."

Joseph turned back to look deeply into the cherub's eyes, locking the young one with his power from the ages. "It is our job to intervene when we sense they are ready to learn again."

"Will he hear us?" Zachary frowned.

"Not without a major wrestling," Joseph responded, sorrowfully. He shook his flowing white mane. "We have been trying to reach him for quite some time, but hurts from long ago, have built determind defenses around his heart and his soul.

"The choices he has made have bent his spirit low. He thinks he is unworthy. We've tried to guide him, but he shakes off our whispers; calls us his imagination, if you can but guess. So the veil grows thicker between us with each passing year."

Joseph turned his saddened eyes back beyond the clouds down to the house with the blue-black shutters. "He chooses to ignore us; refuses to slow down long enough to hear our tender voices. You, Zachary, My Wee Young Cherub, will open his heart, so our songs can sing, and remind him of us and what a miracle he really is."

It was an important assignment. Zachary hoped he was up to the task. The last thing he wanted to do, was disappoint the Big Man upstairs.

"Will I be allowed to remember?"

Joseph's radiating gold eyes, gentled upon the face of the wee cherub. "You will always hold the memory of us inside you, but you will have to pass through the Veils of Gossamer at birth."

The Veils of Gossamer, as any entry level cherub knew, was the portal between spirit and flesh. Once Zachary's spirit moved through its fine netting into the density of flesh, being created this night for him, his spirit memories would begin to dim.

'How would he help the man if he did not remember?'

Joseph heard the cherub's silent musings. "Look around Little One. All clouds carry messengers from us. Angels every single one of them in God's Mighty Batallion. You may not remember we are here, Little Zachary; you may not hear our voices; you may even believe, like many do, that what you hear is only your own imagination at work.

"But, you will still hear us, and a seed will take root and spread." Joseph stressed pointing towards the man below. "To help him find his inner light, though, you need do no more than just be Zachary. He will find his miracle just from that."

Zachary smiled, a beatific child's smile. He looked upon the many angels riding the puffy clouds, and then back at the man disappearing into the house. "I will like being his little boy," he softly decreed.

Joseph's smile this time grew so brilliant, a stream of multi-colored sparklers shot out and lit up the Earth-bound sky.

Down below, just as the man turned to close the door behind him, a rainbow, more beautiful than any he'd seen before, stretched as far across the sky as he could see, igniting a happy spark, deep inside him.

He may not be aware of it yet, this man down below, but on the hovering cloud Zachary and Joseph both knew, the miracle had just begun.
To all my readers, I wish you a glorious, miracle filled Holiday Season and all the days to follow.

5 comments:

Tanja said...

"Once Zachary's spirit moved through its fine netting into the density of flesh... his spirit memories would begin to dim." This is like the Jewsih story that says an angel puts his fingers to our lips when we are born and we forget what we knew "before". I loved this story - one of your very best.

gail roughton branan said...

Lin. You have many many years of many many stories left. Stay strong. Believe. Love. Live. Imagine. Write.

Barbara Ehrentreu said...

I agree with Tanja. My mother used to tell me this story about why we have that little dent between our nose and lips. She said babies know everything, but then when it's time to be born, Gabriel, the head angel, puts his finger on us and makes that mark so we'll forget all we knew. This is a beautiful story and aside from a few typos, it is perfect.

hotcha12 said...

OOOOOHHH LIN! I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL SINCE I HAD A CORTICAL STROKE THAT LEFT ME PARALYZED ON BOTH SIDES IN 1997 BUT THANK GOD MY RIGHT CAME BACK WHICH IS MY DOMINANT SIDE! I STILL DO ALL ON MY COMPUTER AND REVIEW BOOKS TO KEEP MY BRAIN ACTIVE. YOU ARE MY HERO!!

Lin said...

That's so sweet of you. Thank you. My first mini-stroke had my right side drooping. It took a year to regain full use of my right side. This one has effected my right side, but not as severely.

Your story makes me proud. We are fighters, you and I, both tested on the battlefield. There are no Purple Hearts for our battles, but we deserve them nonetheless.

Thank you for honoring me with your comment. I will cherish it.