Obedience

One thing was for sure, as the little maid grew, her father found discipline to be one of the first traits which he wanted her to learn. He started with very small things so that obeying would become a habit. Perhaps, you don’t think a KING would pay attention to small, everyday things like dressing a little girl’s hair every morning.  Nobody really knows where the KING learned how to dress a maiden’s hair - but then, he has many mysteries that no one understands. His hands would fly in lyric arcs as he combed her long, silky hair so that all hairs lined up obediently ready for parting and pinning. 

As she grew, the KING wisely taught her to dress her own hair – one step at a time. It took a graceful curve in the line of the comb’s movement, a twist in the wrist to wind a curl, precise placement of the fingers as she pinned the bundle. Of course, this took several years, with the KING doing less and less as her fingers and hands learned to obey the patterns she was being taught.  By the time she was six years old, an amazing thing happened.  One morning she rose up before the morning star had set and went to sit in front of the glass at her table. Cautiously, but with an inner confidence, she let her hands and fingers remember the habits of obedience she had been practicing every day under the close tutelage of her father.  Yes, it worked!  She was six and almost a lady – father would be so proud. Obeying father always made her feel so close to him as did dis-obedience make her feel so alone. She would lose him. However, then all she needed to do was to come to him carrying her little penitent heart, holding it out to his mercy. Much later she would find out that he would not allow anything, not even her greatest disobedience, to separate her from him.

                   

 

                                                         Humility

 

The tiny baby under the KING’s cloak survived and physically flourished under the KING’s nourishing fatherhood. Now, I said she flourished physically – but it was not so in her soul. Too young to remember her rescue from the palace steps, her soul had fury in it Her heart knew it had been abused, rejected and abandoned and was disconsolate. Small though she was, this fury sometimes broke out in her and she tasted bitterness as she clenched her angry fists and reacted with pushing hands.

 

Such was the kind of storm raging in her one morning while she was planting springs seeds. Her whole body shook like an earth quake as she pounded the dirt with her seed stick and then stomped the ground. The tears came following fast. The KING watched paternally from the door of the goat shed – for he saw all things. He sighed deeply and walked to his little maid and knelt in the fresh earth next to her. Her face turned down to the ground and her shoulders were rigid as he lifted her face in his hands he said; Your anger, bitterness and jealousy are separating you from my love. There’s no room in your soul for my love. I want you to run with all your might into my arms when your heart is having a terrible storm. Then, as I hold you tight in my arms the storm will be squeezed dry and you will only feel my love.

 

But, those little hands pushed the KING’s hands away and then pushed out her chest and started to plant those seeds with a new fury. The KING, being so wise, knew he couldn’t reach her heart at that moment. Therefore, he finished cleaning the goat shed, chopping the wood and fixing the midday meal before this small maid would collapsed on the ground, frustrated and exhausted.

Suddenly, the KING was holding her small tear-stained face in his oversized hands and scooping her up in his long arms. He sat with her nesting in his lap in a large rocking chair on the front porch and sang a song whose notes soaked up her tears – now, she would listen. Her fists were limp as he softly said; Yes, you were left for the vultures to devour, but I have rescued you and chosen freely to be your Father - to love you. All your work earns you not one measurement of my love. Will you allow me to provide and protect you? It gives me such pleasure.

 

Yes, she would stop trying to earn her bread and cheese at the table. When the storm in her soul returned she would remember his song and run into his arms. It’s a mistake to think that very small people are too young to learn very large lessons of life. The small maid, not yet five years of age, was already learning in the KING’s meticulous mentoring care. What could he have in mind for this adopted child?