The Light in Izzy's Room

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My hands began to shake as I hastily removed the black, satin ribbon from its secure place from around my neck.  I quickly glanced behind me before examining the silky strand that dangled an aged, black skeleton key. My heart began to beat faster; its loud rhythmic drum beat filled my ears and drowned out the scuffling, stomping noises coming from the stairway behind me.  The key was mesmerizing as it gently and elegantly twisted and swayed in the hall's dim light.  The end of my journey was near, I was so close; now it was just down to getting this ancient key into that lock. 

"Don't open it!" a voice hissed breathlessly from the top of the stairs behind me.  Startled back into reality, I jumped and let out a small, sharp scream. I hunched my shoulders in fear and grasped the key tightly in my fist.  "You will NOT stop me....I AM going to open this door!"  I answered forcefully as my voice quivered. I waited for him to pounce, but he paused.  He was just as curious as I was as to the contents of this secret room.  I released the key from my sweaty grip and began to struggle trying to fit the key into its lock.  "Please!!" I frantically whispered. I dared not to look over my shoulder, I knew he was there, ready to do whatever necessary to keep me from the room's contents. I could not steady my hand!  My eyes filled with tears as I failed over and over again trying to fit the key into its keyhole.   I closed my eyes and my heart fell to the tips of my dirty, worn boots.  It wasn't going to fit. I couldn't make my key fit.  Wet sloppy tears began to freely fall drenching my face and splashing unto my hand and key.  I dropped to my knees in surrender. It was over.  I hung my head and sobbed, my body heaving as I prayed silently and awaited my fate.  

A thud and a muffled moan answered my unspoken plea and in a matter of moments, I was being lifted to my feet.  "Be still, Isabell.  I'm here."  My knees were so weak, I felt as if they would buckle at any moment.  I was tired and drained and just ready to be done!  Mr. Goudwyne steadied me with one of his arms around my waist and with his free hand over mine, together we effortlessly slid the key into its lock.  With a click and a low creak the door grumbled open.   The sleepy room seemed to yawn awake; it's breath heavily dank from being sentenced to decades of deep slumber.  After making sure I was strong enough to stand on my own, my master knelt down and picked up his lantern and entered the room first, confident and unafraid.  The rooms darkness was so thick, it almost consumed him....even with the lantern.  "Sir, I don't know if I can. I mean.....I don't know if I really, truly want to find out.  Mr. Goudwyne, I'm scared."  My voice trailed off in shame.  After everything I had endured in America, it was here, on English soil.... in my master's home....in my home... that I couldn't do something as simple as entering a single darkened room. Mr. Goudwyne held the lantern up, its light illuminated his strong features.  His brown eyes were soft and comforting.  He didn't speak, he just held out his hand for me.  I held my breath as I shuffled in,  His strong hand found mine and gently he guided me in.  "Daughter, welcome home."  he spoke to me quietly in the dark room.  Daughter? My weary heart began to slowly beat again.  Is that how he saw me?  An orphan he took in and had pity on... that is who I was!  Fragile, broken, useless.....a servant in his home was all I had hoped to be.  To hear him call me daughter began to fill the vast void that I had searched a new continent across the ocean to find.  "Come, Izzy.  We have a room to explore."  He held the lantern out in front of us in the thick, black darkness.   The lantern's light began to pulse and swell, burning through the inky dark and chasing it back into shadow to the far reaches of the mysterious room.........
                                   ~abridged excerpt from"The Journey of Izzy"~

                                                                          
 "Hey, wait a minute...don't stop!"  The story satellite signal from my brain was suddenly interrupted and the "clickety-clackey" sound my fingers made as they danced over the laptop keys abruptly came to a halt.  Dishearteningly I watched as both my characters froze rock solid into place. "But wait!  Izzy...what's in the room??" I stared blankly at the blinking cursor at the end of my last typed word; each annoying blink hungrily begging for me to type more.  Eventually, I do regain a teeny-tiny flicker of signal, not strong enough to deliver more of my story line, however, but just strong enough to serve a six word snack for my pulsing cursor.... "What do you think you're doing?!"


~ Psalms 36:9  "For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light we shall see light."

"I have no clue, you tell me, Mr. Cursor! You greedy gobbler!" I answer back, annoyed I couldn't provide for my hungry cursor.  Ohhhh! This is all my son's fault! He thought it'd be neat for us to take his high school "One Year Adventure Novel" English course together.  Both of us, by the end of the school year, according to the author/teacher of this writing course, should have an adventure novel written. I had a few characters and a story line in mind that I had somewhat developed over the summer, so I thought, sure, why not? I managed to regain my composure and squinted my eyes in my imagination to try to see something more in my story's mysterious secret room.  After all, I have a starving cursor to feed! Mentally, I grabbed hold of Izzy's shoulder's and try the ol' hopping up and down technique to try to sneak a peak over her head.  The blinding light from Mr. Goudwyne's lantern had washed over the room so intensely that I couldn't see anything in the room but my story's two figures.  I walk around my characters and stop in front of Izzy and begin to examine my work.  If I can't see what's in this room, I might as well get to know her better.


~Ecclesiastes 11:7  "Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun."

With hands on my hips, a squint and a slight tilt to my head, I look over my Izzy.  Still frozen in place, one hand grasped in the hand of her master, the other raised to her face, I take notice that Isabell definitely did not fit the mold of the "day".  Her skin, tan and almost sunburned, would have been frowned upon by women in her time era.  A low class, savage is how English society would have seen her.   Examining closer, I noticed there were more flaws to Izzy's skin beyond its darkened pigment.  Scattered scratches and scars littered her raised, bare, forearm....."All these from her adventures in America"? I wondered.  "Or could some be older?"  Some of Izzy's long dark blond hair rested gracefully on her arm.   Waist length, thick and wavy, she wore it long and loose.  Shinning in the rooms light like glimmering threads were strawberry and lighter blond highlights that nearly sparkled from her neatly groomed hair.  Her hair color, I noted, is the perfect frame for her big, brown eyes.  Ducking under her raised arm, I delightfully noticed tiny fiery, red flecks in her partially squinted eyes that danced as they reflected the rooms light.  I smiled at the subtle hint her eyes gave cluing me to her spirited, fiery and challenging personality.  "A girl after my own heart", I though with a chuckle.  That alone was enough to make me like her....but the moment I began to fall in love her.....was when I noticed the globby wet tears that clung to her tanned, weathered cheeks and moistened her scratched, raised hand.



~"He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him." Daniel 2:22

 Izzy, the girl clinging tightly to her master's hand, looks incredibly brave to me.  It's not her  weathered and worn exterior or the fiery red flecks in her eyes but it's her beautiful blind obedience. Fighting the urge to run, she obediently follows her masters voice into the room's stifling darkness.  She shakes, she shuffles and she cries but through the discomfort Izzy bravely chooses to reach.  I look down at my hands and remember how much they shook at the door handle of my own room.  Glancing over Izzy's shoulder I see my room's door open wide to a dark abyss.  "At least YOU have light, Izzy..." My voice echoed, noticing the stark contrast in lighting between the two rooms.  "When you're done here, Mr. G, could you please help me out and shine a little light across the hall?" I said in a slightly condescending tone.  He remained motionless and continued to stare blankly over the top of my head.  I reached to turn him around, to light the room myself when a quiet, still voice spoke.  "I'm already here."  "You are?" my heart argued.  "But you can't be......its so dark!"  II Chor. 6:14 burned into thoughts......"What communion hath light with darkness."  Maybe I'm seeing this all wrong.  Could it possibly be, that my darkened room isn't really dark at all?  If Jesus is there, it can't be.  Izzy's posture; her eyes in partial squint, arm held up to shield her eyes from the lantern's blindingly bright light; reveals to me..... darkness isn't all that can keep us from seeing.  Sometimes, Jesus' bright light can be so blinding, it can hide our rooms contents and its only when He allows His light to softly fade that we can see what He has for us.  With a quick kiss on Izzy's cheek, I thank her.  It's time to regain my own journey.... across the hall in my own room.  My feet may shuffle, my hands may shake, and tears may stain my cheeks but its decided....whatever room Jesus opens for me, I'm choosing not to run.....but to reach instead.