daughter. I am pleased to meet you, Little Chung-Cha.” With that, she broke the roll of bread in two, giving me the much larger of the pieces. Then, to my utter astonishment, the Old Woman raised her eyes, lifted up a glowing face toward the cement ceiling, and prayed in a loud and fearless voice.
“Gracious Father, King of the Universe, I praise you for this bread. And I praise you for my little daughter, Chung-Cha, whom you sent here to relieve my loneliness after twenty-three years of solitary confinement. Jesus, I ask that you bless this bread for the sake of my little daughter and nourish her spirit as you have already healed her body by your power and might. Amen.”
Bewildered, I glanced around for the guards I was sure would come and beat the Old Woman for her blasphemy against the state. When no one arrived, I feared that I was so delirious my mind had conjured up the image of the Old Woman. But the bread she gave me was real, and as I ate, its nourishment strengthened my very soul as if by some strange power.
“My little daughter Chung-Cha has had a long and difficult journey.” The Old Woman stretched out her leathery hand and tucked my hair behind my ear. My body trembled as my mind raced over the past seven years: the beatings I received from my school teacher, the humiliation I endured as Officer Yeong’s office maid, the torture I experienced in the underground detainment center. In all that time, I couldn’t recall anyone touching me with such gentleness.
I looked in amazement into the Old Woman’s deep blue eyes, and I began to cry. I was no longer a twenty-year-old woman but a young girl of twelve, overcome with grief and heartache. The Old Woman wrapped her arms around me and stroked my lice-infected hair.
“Peace, little daughter,” she whispered, leaning her chin on top of my head as she held me close to her chest. “Peace, little one. The God who heals, the Great I Am, will bring rest and comfort to your soul once again.”
Healing Balm
“I will heal their waywardness and love them freely.” Hosea 14:4
“Little daughter,” the Old Woman remarked one afternoon, “in the past weeks, you have told me about your friend Mee-Kyong. You have told me about the tragic events that led to your detainment here. You have told me about your mother and about the way she lost hope so many years ago. But you have not told me anything about your father. Why do you think this is?”
I sighed. In the refuge of the Old Woman’s cell, I found a rest my spirit never knew before. The Old Woman taught me hymns, the songs that my Mother refused to let me hear for fear that I would end up in a place like this. I listened for hours as the Old Woman voiced her prayers of praise and thanksgiving to the God whom I forsook so long ago.
I never before met anyone like the Old Woman. While Father’s faith was bold and reckless,the Old Woman’s love for her Savior was peaceful and pure, as soft as the gentle spring breeze that caressed my face so many years ago. I still didn’t understand why the guards allowed the Old Women to engage in such overt displays of faith. Nor could I fathom why they gave the Old Woman extra rations, why they spoke to her in hushed, almost reverent whispers, why they treated her with the deference and respect due a member of the Dear Leader’s family and not a prisoner in confinement. While a guest in the Old Woman’s cell, I was never hit, berated, or intimidated by a single guard. I longed to ask about the mysterious history of my hostess, but for the past two weeks, she listened only to facts about my life without offering any information about her own.
And now the Old Woman had her arm wrapped around me and was running her fingers through my hair as she did so many times. I had suffered so much at the hands of others that the Old Woman’s touch was at times actually painful for me to endure. And yet I couldn’t pull myself away but felt somehow