THE PRICELESS VALUE OF FREEDOM

DISCLAIMER : The following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event.

SUGGESTION : This story is a follow up of THE PRICELESS VALUE OF R100, last week’s post on RedeemedPioneer.  Readers are encouraged to read that story before reading this one.

I will help you clean up this mess.  Ella stepped away from the comfort of his hugging embrace, sat back down beside John and allowed Tim’s words to sink in.  Even her current trauma-infused brain registers the profound irony - that this man has been doing exactly that since the very beginning.  Other than John, he helps her clean up every mess which she shares with him AND he has not caused a single one of those messes.  She is courageous, he is compassionate and together, in transparent honesty and with respectful consideration, they have embarked on a journey to expose, treat and heal her pain.  THIS mess, however, is VERY different and the pain is significantly deeper.  Tim is well aware of this, and, as if he could read her mind, with one short phone call, he secures a professional reinforcement to join their team for the next part of Ella’s journey.

Two years ago, Harry and Denise brought Ella back to her hometown, and as they did with her newborn son ten years before, opened up their home and hearts to her.  Ella spent most of the flight home alternating between crying and praying while firmly clutching two pictures in her hands.  The pictures which Jacob painted after his dreams.  One of her and the other of her beloved John in Jesus’ embrace.  On that plane, Ella surrendered her life to Jesus and by the time she stepped off the plane, it looked like a dark, giant boulder had been lifted from her tiny shoulders.  This trip clarified to Harry and Denise why Jacob’s pictures evoked such an intense emotional response from Tim.  At first glance, tears welled up in Tim’s eyes, and by the time he handed the pictures back to Jacob, he was barely able to utter the words Thank you before he, abruptly, excused himself.  Unlike Harry and Denise, Tim KNOWS both John and Ella and Jacob’s pictures are of THEM.  During Ella’s 5-month-stay with Harry and Denise, she formed a special bond with Jacob and immersed herself into various ministries of a church made up of people who welcomed her with open arms and unconditional love.  Harry, Denise & Jacob’s church.  Tim’s church.  Ella’s church.  Harry and Denise are Mamma & Pappa.  Ella is Mommy.  Ella went back to work for Bruno and he decided to train Ella up to be restaurant manager.  He also gave her the title deed to the same furnished flat she occupied before she left.  He now considers her to be his heir, dotes on his new grandson and attends the English services at her church.  Soon after returning, Ella learned that Don died in a freak accident while visiting Russia on a ministry trip and that her estranged parents had both succumbed to COVID19 within days of each other.  Tim committted to coaching Ella in her compound grieving process.  Although it appeared that both Tim and Ella moved on from visible grief about John, the gnawing lack of closure, caused them to, merely, internalise their mourning of a beloved husband and son.  Neither of them had been prepared to let go of the hope that someday, somehow, John will return.  They hoped.  They prayed.

Twelve years ago, as Ella went into labour, John received news that a ravaging inferno had completely destroyed his childhood home and farm.  There were contradicting reports about the whereabouts of his beloved Mama and Gogo.  They were not only his only living relatives, but they had sacrificed everything to raise him.  On the one hand, there were reports about their tragic demise and on the other hand, reports about them being critically injured and admitted to hospital.  John HAD to go and he had Ella’s blessing to do so.  The plan was for John to be away for only a few days, a week at most, but then he vanished without a trace.  Both reports were partially correct.  Mama’s bravery saved Gogo.  She managed to carry Gogo to a fire fighter who rushed her to a waiting ambulance.  Mama collapsed and by the time the fireman came back for her, the flames had already engulfed her frail fatigued body.  Gogo had not suffered any major burns, but she was admitted to hospital for severe smoke inhalation.  But the smoke caused coronary thrombosis and by the time John arrived at her bedside, he was just in time to hold her hand and witness how a myocardial infarction drained the last bit of life from her eyes.  John was livid and he left the hospital fuelled with a bone-chilling hate visible in his tired eyes.  A confrontation turned into an altercation.  There was a brutal gang assault.  Taken hostage.  Held in captivity.  Tortured.  Escape.  Head-trauma-induced amnesia.  Missionary hospital.  By the time John had recovered from all of his injuries, he had no idea who he was or where he had come from.  Missionary David Bradshaw took him in and employed him at the missionary hospital.  Despite John’s amnesia, it was clear to David that John had had extensive medical training and John became an invaluable asset to the little hospital.  Over time, David applied various therapeutic methodologies in attempts to recover John’s memories, but all his efforts failed.  Then one morning, years later, following the discharge of a little patient whom John grew particularly fond of, John was changing the sheets of the bed the little one occupied when something on the floor caught his eye.  It was an open children’s Bible.  John picked it up and when he saw the picture, his legs buckled and while gravity drew his body to the ground, the giant fog of amnesia suddenly left him.  I AM JOHN MORAKE.  JESUS LOVES ME.  I HAVE A WIFE AND A CHILD.  MY FATHER IS TIMOTHY JOHNSON.  That night neither John nor David slept as John told David his story.  The next morning David took John to a bus stop to start his long journey home to his family.  Their farewell was touching and filled with emotion, and David sent John off with his fondest blessing.  As the two of them agreed before departure, David went straight back to his office in the hospital and called Tim Johnson.

Upon returning from work one evening, Ella found John, fast asleep on the couch in front of the TV.  An ecstatic Tim called her the previous day to inform her that John is not only alive, but that he is returning home and that he is eagerly awaiting news about John’s arrival whereupon he will drop him off at home.  John asked David to call the man who became his father and the only man with enough loving compassionate tenderness to prepare his beloved wife for his return.  In complete shock, Ella stared at John for a good few minutes before she could regroup and decide on how to wake him.  She wanted to hug him forever AND she wanted to beat the crap out of him.  She noticed that he was visibly thinner with a large scar across his face and it looked like he had aged about 20 years, but he was still her handsome husband.  She decided against violence and when he took her into his embrace shortly after her gentle stroking woke him, she knew that she had made the right choice.  They cried, unashamedly, in each other’s embrace for what seemed like many hours.  John spent most of the night attempting to fill in the blanks of his life story during the decade of his absence.  Ella was unable to comprehend the full magnitude and John was unable to explain it.  Jacob took to John like a fish takes to water and every time that he calls John Daddy, streams of joy would exit John’s eyes.  John pleaded with Tim to teach him to be a Godly father to Jacob and Tim willingly agreed.  Tim pleaded with John not to suppress the pain from his horrific captivity ordeal and he offered to get him the required help.  John willingly agreed.  

Last night, John and Ella went to their local cinema to watch the movie Sound of Freedom on the opening night.  They have come to love watching Angel Studios’ The Chosen together and Sound of Freedom is another one of this studio’s productions.  The unspeakably atrocious theme of children being sold into sex slavery breaks both of their hearts and the film’s unofficial motto of GOD’S CHILDREN IS NOT FOR SALE resonates in perfect harmony with their own life rhythms.  At the time of the post-credit scene, Ella realised that the cardboard tray on her lap which housed her sweets and popcorn was reduced to a pitiful crumpled, tattered flap of cardboard.  Although she relaxed her death grip on the cardboard structure, the damage to it was irreparable.  A few jelly sweets were visible in the cardboard folds, and the popcorn bowl was gone.  At the very end, when the house lights of the cinema were turned on, she found her overturned popcorn bowl on the floor with spilled popcorn everywhere.  The popcorn bowl had likely been violently evicted from its spot during one of the many startling scenes.  John helped her scoop handsful of popcorn back into the bowl, but when her involuntary shaking caused her to knock over the bowl a third time, John decided that it was time to abort the effort and take his visibly traumatised wife home.  On the way home, John realised that the movie triggered new flashbacks in Ella.  Uncle Don did much more than just touch Ella and he used more than just his hands to do so.  He was not just a dirty old man, he was a paedophile.  John spent that night, the first of many, comforting his Ella as she navigated through multiple night terrors.  

Today is not the first time that Ella finds herself seriously bent out of shape during a session with Tim.  However, today is the first time where she is unable to reign in her emotion at all.  It broke out like the water of the Hoover Dam in the movie San Andreas when a massive earthquake crippled the structural integrity of the dam walls.  It is raw.  It is primitive.  It is unstoppable.  This time she would not need to go home and analyse the hidden, carefully controlled, feelings behind her responses to Tim’s words.  It is all exposed, right there, like the scattered popcorn all over the cinema floor.  Her earthquake was a series of triggers during the movie Sound of Freedom.  It reached a perfect 10 on the Richter scale when The Scorpion unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants.  Ella became Rocío.  Uncle Don became The Scorpion.  Ella is shaking and sobbing uncontrollably now while John is holding her in his arms.  In the cinema last night, she vomited into her mouth and was able to swallow it down.  Not this morning.  Tim’s office floor rug is covered in vomit, her vomit.  Visceral. Violent. Vile.  When Ella finally regained a little bit of her composure back, she got up and apologised for the vomit, promised to clean it up and then broke down again.  I don’t know how to do this…this mess is suffocating me!  Little Ella had no Timoteo (Spanish version of Timothy, after the protagonist Timothy Ballard in the movie) to rescue her, but grown Ella has a faithful fatherly friend Timothy (Tim Johnson), committed to journey with her on her road to healing.  Tim got up from his chair at the same time as Ella, sidestepped the vomit-soaked floor rug, and when Ella broke down again, he took her into his fatherly embrace.  He held her tight until she calmed down and then he spoke the most comforting words, This is not your fault and I will help you clean up this mess.