Chapter 44 Dress Me as a Pauper

There was a haunting once that began as a subtle and benign breeze, one with feathery fingers stroking.

It swirled around my ankles, up and under my exquisite yet concealing fabric. Ever so cautiously, it started to massage the tenacious texture of my skin, this very resolve of my own making, lingering in search of some pressure point. It was coaxing me to yield, kneading against my muscles and tendons; privileged and pampered as they were.

But I ignored it, and so a chill set upon me, upsetting the warmth I enjoyed and the comfort I craved.

Surely, I thought, there would be some place to hide from this, some excuse or anxious shadow to shelter me. But the search was pointless, for it would not relent; it slithered under the door frames and sought me over the window sills, through the very crevices of my refusal.

It found me wherever I was.

For want of my surrender, it evoked a disturbance of mind, body and soul; it knew that I was merely dancing around the borders and the fringes, where instead, should I enter fully in, awaiting me was the finishing design of His new attire. It wasn’t fancy, He warned me, this wardrobe of the margins, but He promised it was just.

And it would always be enough.

Yet, I still argued, justifying to Him that at least I was dancing there on the outskirts, which is more than most, as if that should be enough. But I knew, deep down where longings go, that I was merely flirting with the notion of real surrender.

And so this haunting continued for a lifetime.

Then, the breeze which previously teased and enticed to live and suffer and die among the least of these, transformed suddenly into a forceful gust of wind, and soon a gale was upon me, churning and shouting with a thundering voice all its own.

So, naked I stood, exposed; I couldn't ignore that I was among those who were first, but all the same I begged to be last and I pleaded some small camel to my side, to fulfill some perceived prerequisite, to shove and squeeze through the piercing eye of any needle, though none could be found.

It was folly, and much too late, for I had been rich.

~ ~ ~

So, waking now from this ever present nightmare, I implore You to relentlessly taunt me and torment me. Dress me as a pauper. Bring forth the strength of Your prevailing wind and teach me how to give these trappings away. More and more of them!

And then, even more still.

Until I have nothing left but You.