No one knew her name, including herself, because she had forgotten it long ago. To most, she was simply that strange lady who wandered the streets of their town, who slept beneath the bridge. Some said she was a witch, and perhaps this was closest to the truth. Certainly the authorities they called in to try to help her out could never seem to find her.

There was one thing only she knew: she prayed for her neighbors daily and daily watched her prayers answered, not always right away, but eventually. Mostly unnoticed except for the random acts of charity neighbors showered upon her, she prayed for those who helped feed and clothe her; she prayed even harder for those who did not. Perhaps she was not entirely in her right mind and perhaps that is because she was somewhere better still.

The whole town grieved when they found her body beneath the bridge. If only they knew the crown of glory that awaited her, a crown made not of gold or of silver, but of the gratitude of all those with whom she shared her love. Perhaps then, they would have rejoiced. Perhaps that is why, deep in their hearts, they did.

This is my entry for the A-Z Challenge. True confessions, I really hated the post I wrote for today so I scrapped it and wrote this this morning instead. I’m linking to Maire/Moya Brennan’s The Mighty One, a song I love. She wrote this song to honor the first Irish expedition to scale Mt. Everest, but I think it has a lot of other meaning in it, stepped in her own deep spiritual heritage. I came up with the title and the story to go with it on my way back from church, thinking about how we define greatness in the world and how many times the people we most admire are not the newspaper headline ones. Happy Friday! Halfway through the month!