I Am Not Offended with You

Tuen Mimosa went out into the fields. In her arms lay her first-born son, for the blow had fallen upon her in a weak hour. She had never heard of Hagar; but in her grief she walked in Hagar’s steps. She hung her baby in a strip of cotton stuff and tied it to the branch of an acacia-tree. For a minute or two she swung the hammock gently till he slept, and then she went away alone and sat her down over against him a good way off, and she cried unto the Lord.

She had never learned to pray, never heard prayer except when we committed her to the love of the Lord, before we said good-bye. In Tamil we have four forms of the pronoun in the second person. There is thou, used by older to younger and superior to inferior; there is a second singular form, a trifle more deferential. The third is used generally from, say, child to father, and properly translated you; and there is one higher still, translated by such words as “your honour,” “your excellency.” In Tamil classic poetry, with a wonderful instinct for eternal values, the lowest of all, zhow, is used in addressing the Deity, who is recognized to transcend earth’s poor titles of respect. The Christian usage is to employ the slightly higher singular form.

Mimosa knew nothing of the classics, nor did she know Christian usage, so to her the most natural word was that which she would have used in speaking to her father; she said you.

*“O God,’’ she said aloud, and the words seemed to rise through the thin blue air above her, ‘‘O God, my husband has deceived me, his brother has deceived me, even my mother has deceived me, but You will not deceive me.”’

Then she waited a little, looking up, and stretching out her arms: “‘ Yes, they have all deceived me, but I am not offended with You. Whatever You do is good. What should I do without You? You are the Giver of health and strength and will to work. Are not these things better than riches or people’s help?’’ And again she waited a while.

Then, kneeling there in the open field, she drew the loose end of her sai round, and spread it, holding it open before the Lord. In some such way Ruth must have held her mantle when Boaz poured into it six measures of barley. To the Eastern women it means all that ever can be expressed of humble loving expectation: “For He said, ‘Go not empty.’’’ Thus Mimosa knelt: “‘ You will not deceive me.”’

The sun beat down on her; the little young cotton plants about her drooped their soft green leaves, but she knelt on, heeding nothing, her sari still spread out before her God: “I am an emptiness for You to fill.”’

Not one Scripture did she know, there was nothing from the Book of books for the Spirit to take and show to her at that moment. But His resources are limitless, and back to her troubled mind came the memory of a wise word of her father’s: ‘‘He who planted the tree will water it.’? Yes, God was her heavenly Gardener. Had He not planted His little tree, would He not water it? She dropped her sd@rz and rose.

Then what happened? Was it, as in that older story, that God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water and she went and drank of it? Suddenly all her weariness passed. She knew herself refreshed, invigorated. He had heard, her God had heard. She was not battling along as best she could, lonely, desolate. She had her God. ‘‘ Oh, what should I do without You?”’ The words rose like a triumph song. With the little gesture of the folded hands which is the universal Indian Amen, she bowed her head, and stood a moment drinking from the waters of comfort. And then she went to the tree where her baby swung in the light wind, and, taking him from it, threw the wisp of cloth across her shoulders, and walked back to her home filled with a peace that passed her understanding.