TOTW

Sorry! I was (and still am) sick, so I forgot to post this yesterday:



      She tried not to tremble like a leaf in the wind. He had not shouted yet, had not raised his gravelly voice a decibel, though it was as menacing as a lion's roar. The words were coated in poison. She knew it. And she knew that she must either give in or be crushed yet again.
     “It is all we ask, girl. This country is so big – has so many opportunities for a beautiful girl like you, yet you choose to rot away in prison. We do not want this. You must want this, though, for we have given you chance after chance to leave. We tire of asking, of giving the same offer that is denied time and time again,” He paused to let it sink in. “So I offer you one more time. Denounce this Jesus, and we promise to let you go. If not – you die.” Until now, she had stared straight ahead at the steel-gray buttons on the man's uniform. Now she raised them to look squarely into the man's icy, blue eyes. She willed her voice not to shake.
     “I will never deny my Savior. Do to me what you will, I will always love Jesus.”
     “Well, if you want to die – it's your choice,” He said.
     “I gladly die for the glory of the One Who died for my eternal life.” The man turned, and barked something to a guard at the cell door, who let the man out and slammed the door behind him.
     The girl sank to the dirt of her cell. She repeated the words of a Psalm she remembered the old minister having said. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me...” She knelt quietly moving her lips in prayer for an hour.
     The sudden noise of the door to her cell being opened caused her to stir. A guard entered and grabbed her roughly by her arm. He jerked her out of her cell, down a long, dim corridor, and out into the dark night. A line of prisoners stood in front of a pit. Soldiers who had rifles pointed at them stood beyond it. Some of the prisoners wept openly. They screamed for mercy. Others stood in stoic silence without a trace of fear in their eyes. The girl took her place beside a young child who looked up at her and smiled. His eyes shone with peace. A peace that she hoped she mirrored as perfectly.
     The captain gave the signal and the rifles' report echoed through the dusty hills. The girl felt a piercing pain as she collapsed into the pit. The next thing she knew were the arms of Jesus.

-Aylin