Healer: Spiritual Gifts #1

FOUR

Mother Mildred tended the laboring mother. It proved a difficult labor for such a small woman; that is if she could be called a woman. The midwife had presided over young Elizabeth's birth some fifteen years before. That girls should be made to marry at such innocent ages was a questionable and, in her mind, dangerous practice.

She had lost count of the stillborn births and the deaths of the mothers she had attended over the years; each loss left a minute rip in her soul. Yet she continued to preside over these children while they gave birth to their children and then watch them die early deaths from complications of fever and blood loss. If they survived, their husband expected the girls to resume marriage duties quickly. It was not infrequent that a second birth followed before the end of the baby's first year.

Mother Mildred glanced at the lovely young woman seated nearby. Ariane had become the trusted apprentice she always envisioned having by her side. The few she had trained in prior years never achieved the same degree of skill or dedication to the craft as Ariane displayed, even without the advantage of a God-given gift. Together she and Ariane lost few patients and were sought after for their healing skills from over much of Norden Weinrebe. More importantly, the young woman had reached an age few girls saw without a husband and several children to care for. At nineteen, Ariane had received no suitors.

Which was just as well, Mother Mildred thought in private. She alone knew Ariane's destiny was not in the small village which had shunned her mother for years. After nearly twenty years, Serena continued to struggle with acceptance, while the girl had earned the respect of the villagers over the past twelve years with her sweet nature and her position as midwife apprentice.

The midwife recalled the day, thirteen years before, a frantic mother called her to the tiny hovel at the edge of the woods. It was the day Mother Mildred's life mission truly began.

Mother Mildred slowly approached the little hut. As she did, the dream which haunted her sleep over six years before scrolled through her mind. She would not allow the disturbing images to deter her from her appointed task. Over the years of serving the Lord, the midwife had learned to sense the difference between her gift and a dream. What she experienced was no dream. The child had an ordained destiny. The belt adorning the girl's waist bore confirmation of the girl's power.

Her brisk knock at the small wooden door was answered quickly by the woman befriended only weeks before the disturbing vision. Upon arriving on foot in Mother Mildred's isolated village in the Norden Weinrebe, the young woman had been exhausted and laden with child, but refused to provide where she came from nor did she identify the father of her baby. When her time came, the young mother delivered her infant without difficulty. The baby girl was strong and well-loved by her lone parent; however, even as her skilled hands handed the baby to the Serena, the midwife knew the child to be special.

Mother Mildred had hoped the child and her mother would be accepted into the village, but that was not to be the case. Shunned by the suspicious villagers as an outside and a woman of questionable moral character, Mother Mildred gave the woman a small hovel at the edge of town where she could raise her child in relative peace.

The door cracked open before being thrown open with a small cry of relief. Serena now stood before her in a trembling mass of nerves. Despite the expectation of Mother Mildred's visit, fear amplified every sound into a threat to her only child.

"Mother Mildred," Serena stammered, "I am thankful you were able to come so quickly. You are the only one I thought might understand."

The midwife sought to calm the anxious parent. "Hush, my dear! Tell me what this is about."