The Power of Love
By Kate Everson
Smashwords edition
Copyright 2011 Kate Everson
Thank you for downloading this free ebook. This book is not to be reproduced. Please encourage your friends to download their own edition at smashwords.com
The gold cross on the monk’s chain swayed back and forth as he climbed the rocky hill to his hut. It was a steep climb, forged years ago by his brothers, to make a retreat where they could pray and be alone. How could they have known what lay ahead?
The Vikings had come. Would they come again? Would they kill and steal? So many had been lost. And for what? A few boxes of gold, some tattered garments and a bit of bread and wine. For that, lives had been lost.
Nathaniel remembered some of them who had been slaughtered in the last raid. They were his brothers. While he hid in the stone cellar, he had heard their cries. When he came out, there was nothing left. No one. God had spared him. But why?
Nathaniel had crept around the bodies, weeping, trying to make sense of it all. He gathered what was left of their shattered corpses and buried them together. He placed a cross on the shallow grave and offered the bodies to their Maker.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” he said softly.
And now he was back at the retreat, hoping to gather his thoughts in prayer, searching for lost hope.
“Pater Noster… ” he started.
Then he heard something like the bleating of a lamb. It came from beneath the stones. He jumped up, frightened, for his thoughts were still on the Vikings. But this was no Viking sound. No yelling and shouting and cursing and killing. No, this was a soft crying, a barely perceptible noise that called to him.
Nathaniel leaped up from his prayers and started searching for the source of that sound. There was not supposed to be anyone here but him, in this isolated location.
He found her, wrapped in a blanket. She was just an infant, and God only knew how she got there. She looked so frail, so white, and her cry was painful to hear.
She could not have been more than a few days old, but she had the most beautiful blue eyes. The baby stared at Nathaniel and stopped crying. He picked her up and held her softly in his arms, rocking her gently. A tiny smile appeared on her mouth.
Quickly, Nathaniel went to his stash of food and found some goat’s milk, dipped his fingers in it and offered it to the baby. She sucked at them eagerly. Nathaniel went into the hut and cared for the baby as much as he could, with his little experience, and planned to take her back to the village.
He wrapped her up warmly and began his journey down the hill to where there was a small settlement a few miles below. Surely, someone would take the baby off his hands.
But when he got there, the villagers shunned him for he was ragged and strange-looking, his beard having grown long and his skin darkened by the sun over the years. He must have looked like one of the hill people that never mixed with the rest of society.
“Help me,” he cried, holding out the baby. “Please.”
One old woman saw what he had and opened her door to him. He went in gratefully and placed the baby on the wood table by the hearth. She nodded and went to get some milk for it, nodding and singing. Nathaniel was grateful. But still, he wondered where this child had even come from. He asked the old lady if she had any idea. She said, “Oh yes, I do. It must have been that street woman who gave birth to it up there and abandoned it. She has no husband, you know.”
Nathaniel nodded. “Where is she now?” he asked.
“Oh, up to no good, I’m sure,” the old lady answered. “Never was one for doing the right thing.”
And the monk left the baby in the care of the old woman and walked slowly back up the hill to his retreat. The woods were friendly, their limbs reaching out to him. But he only thought of her. He prayed for her safety.
Nathaniel stayed in the hut for days, eating very little, seeking sustenance in the Lord. But he could not stop thinking about the child and the mother who had left her there. So one day he walked back down into the village and began to search. He asked around and soon found out the woman’s name.
“Ah, you must mean Maggie,” they said. “That would be her all right.”
Nathaniel found Maggie in a small shack on the outskirts of town. She was not that old, but looked haggard and worn. He suspected life had not been good to her.
“Maggie,” he said. “I have come to talk to you.”
He sat with her and held her hands, comforting her. He told her how he had found the baby and that it was safe now in the hands of the old lady. She began to cry.
“Oh I am so sorry,” she sobbed. “But what could I do? I have no money, no way to take care of it. I had to hide my shame.”
Nathaniel said a prayer with her, offering all the Lord’s forgiveness and mercy to this poor creature.
Then he said, “Now you must forgive yourself and try to lead a better life. God loves you.”
Maggie cried even harder. “How could he love me?” she wailed. “I am nothing. Worse than nothing. Not worthy of any love.”
Nathaniel smiled. “He loves us all, worthy or not,” he said. “For He is worthy.”
Maggie did not really believe him, but Nathaniel made her a promise. If she came to visit him in the retreat once a week, they could pray together and he would help her know God. Amazingly, she agreed. She saw something in this kindly monk that she needed. He would not use her like the other men had. He had something much more to offer. Perhaps she could regain her soul.
So every week, Maggie would climb the hill and pray with Nathaniel. It was not easy for her, and she had a lot of repenting to do before she could even speak to God. But slowly, she began to feel His presence in her heart.
After some time, Maggie was ready to start her new life. She got a job as a cleaner in the church and made enough money to finally have a decent place of her own, and to get her baby back and take care of it. She carried the child proudly with her wherever she went. She did not care what people said. She loved the baby, whom she called Mariah, after the Mother of God.
The next time she went to visit Nathaniel she could not thank him enough. She had regained her life because of his love and compassion for her, unworthy as she was.
“No, it was not my love, it was God’s,” Nathaniel smiled. “Through his Love, we all have perfect redemption. The Power of His Love is the the most wonderful thing of all.”
The End
See also The Power of Light, and A Message of Hope, and A Message of Faith.