Teaser Tuesday

The book A Prisoner by No Crime of My Own has been professionally edited and will be published this year. To pique interest, I will share tidbits from the manuscript with you each Tuesday.

Chapter 13 – An Olympic Race

People often claim to hunger for truth, but seldom like the taste when it’s served up.  

 ~ A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin

During these years, a dream stuck with me.  Through a colorless haze, I was a spectator at an ancient arena, somewhat like the Roman coliseum. I was sitting on the sidelines watching this epic race. For some unknown reason, the race had been going on for years. In fact, the people had been running this race for so long that all their hair was long and grey. They were dressed like Romans in white robes, tied at the waist with leather sandals elaborately strapped to their feet.  Hundreds were on the track.  

As I continued to watch them go ‘round and ‘round and ‘round, a man walked up to me. He had been in this race longer than anyone. His hair was gray in color, his eyes were soft blue, and he had a beard that was unkept and very long. He’d been in the race so long that his beard was glistening with ice. It seemed this detail wasn’t an indication of coldness but more that he was deeply weathered.  

He walked up to me and stood still for a minute or two. Then he looked right at me and said, “Get back in the race.” 

I woke up and immediately knew what the message of the dream was. I had to carry on no matter what the cost. Absolutely exhausted, I had just come out of a very abusive seventeen-year marriage, broken, I believed, beyond repair. I had no idea what lay ahead of me but the battle to get out of that violent marriage had drained me. The prison of my childhood and then the confinement of my marriage had taken my self-worth, courage, and my will to go on living at times.  

If I had known then what I know now, I would have looked at that man in my dream and told him I can’t. I just can’t. I would have pleaded with him that I didn’t have the will or desire to continue. I had no idea what was next, but got the message deep in my soul that I had to stay in the race and keeping trying. God was with that man in my dream, and He was with me. 

. . . to be continued . . .