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Tag: fiction

  • A Temporary Throne – 47

    A Temporary Throne – 47

    CHAPTER 47

    I awoke suddenly (or so I thought).

    I looked all around me in disoriented confusion as I sat up in bed. I was not in the Temporary Throne or in Heaven. No sign of Joseph and his brothers, either.

    No longer was I in the presence of the LORD. I felt an imposing anxiousness of fear rolling over the place where I lay. (It was not my room.) I began to quiver with fear, and then shake with coldness as if I lay in the middle of a night-mare and could not wake up. I wanted to cry out to God, but could not.

    I closed my eyes (for I could not see anyway) and I began to listen to my most unfamiliar surroundings.

    Was I in a cave? An unfamiliar house? A grave? (“Lord, please don’t let this be a casket,” I thought with great fear.)

    Fear! I had been in great awe in the presence of the LORD; but never in fear. (The dream must be over; but what is this horrible nightmare?)

    I heard from a great distance a muffled sound of wailing voices – crying and crying out, shouting in anguish and seemingly loud whispers of the weakest of pleas. What was this? Where was I?

    I could smell something, too – an unfamiliar far-off stench, a choking reminder of the most unpleasant things from stagnant seashore and pungent pollution from the mills from when I once held my breath until I drove by… What was it?

    A chilling memory of black and white photos came to mind as I thought of opening a steel garbage can not knowing what to see and smell inside.

    It was Auschwitz! It was carcass upon carcass.

    I screamed at the sight and sound and smell of death. I did not wake up.

    To be continued…

    A Temporary Throne is an original work of Roger Harned,
    © Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved by the author.

  • A Temporary Throne – 46

    A Temporary Throne – 46

    CHAPTER 46

    WOULD YOU SAVE JOSEPH FROM THE PIT?

    WOULD YOU SAVE HIM FROM HIS STEP-BROTHERS?

    Once more I sat on the Temporary Throne in the Throne-room of Heaven in conversation with the Living God, Judge of all men.

    The LORD had shown me the ongoing competition of Leah and Rachel. The LORD had shown me the step-mothers of Joseph: Bilhah and Zilpah. The LORD had shown me a hundred-year-old Israel with the young boy Benjamin as Joseph had now traveled to encounter his brothers, watching over thousands of sheep on hillside pastures.

    Joseph was wearing a colorful royal-looking robe as he approached these older men in their working clothes.

    Of course, they were jealous. (They had reason enough.) And I knew of the dream Joseph was about to reveal to his step-brothers.

    Yes – all ten were step-brothers!

    Now I understood even more that Joseph’s only brother, son of his deceased mother Rachel, remained behind under the watchful eyes of grandfatherly-looking Israel, father to them all – yet still mourning the great loss of Joseph’s mother, Jacob’s most beloved wife of so many years.

    Yes… in thinking about the LORD’s question. Of course I would save poor young Joseph from any more suffering.

    Joseph had gone through enough already. This young man had suffered enough (even as my own young daughter had suffered when her mother had died when she was a child). Joseph’s mother had died. (He deserved some consolation.)

    His father was of age he was certainly near death… and then Joseph (and Benjamin, for whom he would be responsible) would be at the mercy of Reuben and the other step-brothers (who were unlikely to show any mercy).  Why… they would do anything to further their own blessings; like the supplanting of Esau by Jacob his father, I thought – but there were ten of them – 10 brothers.

    Yes! I would do something to save Joseph from all that.

    But what?

    To be continued…

    A Temporary Throne is an original work of Roger Harned,

    © Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved by the author.

  • A Temporary Throne – 45

    A Temporary Throne – 45

    CHAPTER 45

    Genesis 37:4  But his brothers hated Joseph because their father loved him more than the rest of them. They couldn’t say a kind word to him.

    “I guess I understand the competition between twelve brothers,” I said to the LORD as I observed Joseph in his glorious robes approaching his four half-brothers.

    YOU UNDERSTAND COMPETITION BETWEEN STEP-CHILDREN FROM YOUR OWN LIFE.

    “That I do,” I either thought or said in response to the LORD.

    YOU HAVE SEEN AND UNDERSTAND COMPETITION BETWEEN BROTHERS AND FAMILY LEADERS.

    YOU HAVE SEEN COMPETITION BETWEEN FATHER-IN-LAW AND SON-IN-LAW.

    I remembered the competition between Laban and Jacob, which seemed to be ongoing until Jacob and his wives and family departed to return to Canaan.

    YOU HAVE NOT UNDERSTOOD HOW THE RESULT OF THE COMPETITION BETWEEN SISTERS AND WIVES IS SEED OF THE SCENE BEFORE US.

    JOSEPH HAS NOT ONLY ELEVEN BROTHERS, HE HAS THREE COMPETING STEP-MOTHERS.

    To be continued…

    A Temporary Throne is an original work of Roger Harned,

    © Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved by the author.