Then I saw long auburn hair and a soft reddish face. I gazed at her, thinking this must be a dream.

“Nicholas!” She smiled and stretched out her arms.

“Mom?!”

I closed and reopened my eyes, fearing she’d disappear like a cruel mirage. I never believed I’d see her again. The faith this woman tried to teach us, a faith my father and brothers and I always rejected … at last, it was vindicated.

Why didn’t I listen to her? Why did I come to love him so late?

Tears streaming down my face, I waved at Mom. Then my heart stopped as I saw someone beside her. A young woman, whose lovely face had haunted me a thousand nights, a face I hadn’t touched since she was five years old. She looked so much like Marci and Amy.

“Lee Ann!” I shouted, seeing the look of delight in my daughter’s eyes. I stared at her, speechless.

“Please, I have to enter,” I said, turning to the palace guard. “What’s the delay? You have to let me in now!”

At that moment someone stepped forward inside the gate. The milling crowd made way for him, as flimsy huts make way for a hurricane—but happily.

I saw him, no stranger to tears, wipe teardrops from people’s eyes. I wanted to cross so he could wipe mine. He was coming to welcome me in, as he had my comrades. I couldn’t wait.

I saw the banquet table just on the other side and inhaled its delightful fragrance. I hungered for the meal. This time when the scarred hands broke bread, I would see them differently.

I stepped forward, right to the threshold of Charis, past the guard with the book, who did nothing to restrain me. I longed to be freed from the throbbing pain in my temple, the ache in my neck, the injury under my eye, the bleeding sores on my hands, but more than any of those, the stinging scorpion inside, the web that entangled, the flying reptile that hovered and stalked.

I wanted to throw myself in unreservedly, to pour out myself into the cosmic celebration, to join a great river of water drops and be part of the great waterfall descending into a magnificent pool of praise—to lose myself and in so doing find myself.

I turned back and looked once more at the keeper of the book.

“Please. I don’t deserve to enter. My only claim is the price paid for me by another. The Woodsman. The Lamb. The Lion. The King!”

“Your name is written in the book,” he said at last.

“Let the labor pains end,” I cried. “Let the birth take place, let the umbilical cord to the old world be cut at last!”

I stepped forward to the open gate, ready to come home.

“No!” someone roared just inside the gates. “Not yet.”

It was the voice of the lion.