Called Against the Norm : romantic short stories for married couples

 The time was 20th December in the year 1875. In a time when women still wore clothes that covered every part of their body that should be covered. Although that was a good thing, one of the bad things about living in that time was women weren't welcome in the work place or allowed to go into ministry. People believed that a woman's place is in the home and she should never let her dreams take her away from the kitchen. If she finds herself dreaming of traveling to distant lands or making the world a better place she should pinch herself and tell her imaginations to travel back into the kitchen.

However, like is the case in every society. There would always be one person who would go against the norm and dare to be different. Of course such people always suffered for their defiance of the status quo. A lady named Elizabeth was one of such women.

Elizabeth has always had a relationship with God. As a child she would have conversations with God and most of the conversations were more of God revealing to her what his plan for her life was.

God made Elizabeth dream big dreams, but Elizabeth's friends made Elizabeth think within the kitchen. Her creativity was not to go beyond the four walls of a kitchen otherwise it is a bad woman who would make a bad wife and would eventually make a bad mother.

Elizabeth answered the call of God in her life as a teenager. She started her own ministry and she would travel on house back from one place to the other telling people about Jesus. Since she was a woman and the men in those days where largely ignorant, they never let a woman even try to lecture them on anything. A great many men got burnt when trying to take food with their bare hands from frying pans just because their wives where forbidden to teach them how stupid it is put your bare hands in a frying pan, so the men learnt by experience: painful experience. However, they still didn't change. They still felt that they were above being taught by women.

Due to this type of sad scenario, no man ever showed up at any of Elizabeth's teaching and miracle seminars.

At first, Elizabeth's teaching and miracle seminars where small and informal with sometimes only 3 or 6 females in attendance, so Elizabeth's parents only taught that their teenage daughter was riding around on her horse and making new friends but as soon as more people started coming, more miracles started happening and more women started spreading word about Elizabeth, and at this point Elizabeth's parents couldn't deny the fact that it was a ministry.

Elizabeth's parents showed up at one of her meetings, caused a scene and dragged her home. Her father also seized her horse from her. Not only was she forbidden to go anywhere, she was also punished for weeks and weeks to come. Soon Elizabeth poured water on her dreams. She doused the flames of God's destiny for her life. She had to think "Kitchen", "Kitchen", "Kitchen" and nothing else.

Years past by and even though she would occasionally think about what her life would have been like if she had kept on with God's call, she would also caution herself to think how society wanted her to think.

Elizabeth later got married and was free from her parent's roof and control but her husband was a piece of work himself. He didn't believe that women are meant to teach men or be in ministry.

This wouldn't have been Ok for Elizabeth but the thing was that 2 years after she married she felt the strong urge to fulfill her God given destiny. She tried to shake it off knowing what trouble it would bring between her and her husband but the conviction only burnt stronger with each passing day.

Elizabeth would often go out an preach but manage to come back early enough to cook for her husband. However, Elizabeth's husband didn't like the idea of his wife preaching at all. He would often do all he could to stop her from preaching but she would go right back to preaching the very next day.

It got to a point that he felt he had to give her an ultimatum. She had to stop preaching or else he would leave her for good and with no money.

Elizabeth didn't go out to preach the day after that. Her husband was very happy about it and he bragged to his friends about how he has finally tamed his wife.

While he was bragging, another friend of his came to him with the news that his wife was preaching in a big tent that she got set up in the middle of the city.

Elizabeth's husband was outraged. He fumed so much that you could almost see the steam coming out of his ears.

He swore before all his friends that he would divorce his wife immediately, after given her a piece of his mind. He began to march angrily in the direction that his wife was holding the tent crusade. Nothing in the world would ever stop him from divorcing his wife today not even if Abraham, Isaac and Jacob themselves were to appear before him and were to beg him not to.

When Elizabeth's husband approached the tent, the tent meeting had finished and only Elizabeth and a few volunteers where around.

As soon as Elizabeth saw her husband coming she ran out to him with out stretched arms and hugged him. He was shocked and was just about to tear her off him when she said, "Honey, the mayor's wife came with some of her friends. Her daughter got healed miraculously and she was so pleased that she gave us the keys to a mansion on a hill and also gave us that new horse and carriage over there plus those bags of food over there by the corner." Elizabeth now remembered that her husband most have something to tell her if he came all the way out her on foot so she asked, "Sweetie, is there anything you want to tell me."

Elizabeth's husband looked at the bag of food and then looked back at Elizabeth and said, "You see, I've always told you that you were born for ministry."

 

The End.