A Maiden Sent from the Heavens

She wasn’t happy about it, but she’d been recalled to life for a reason. The Divine had told her it would be a relatively short, but essential trip back to Earth.

At a young age, and as an illiterate farm girl, she noticed something strange. She could still remember her time in Heaven, her conversations with the Divine, and still freely spoke to familiar angels in her dreams. The typical loss of memory of the afterlife did not befall her as it should have, and this puzzled her greatly.

Throughout her childhood, her village had suffered multiple raids, at one point the raiders even burnt down most of the homes. And yet, she and her family survived. If there was a profound mission for her on Earth, she didn’t know it.

As a teenager, at night she would speak with the angels, the conduits for conversation with the Divine, and voice her fears of failure. She cried upon the remembering the beauty of Heaven—violence on Earth was Hell after her experience of the afterlife. Afraid to speak up, she eventually admitted that the Divine seemed absent on Earth. Then, one of the archangels, Michael being one of his names, told her to speak with the king, and she will restore what was lost and mortals will remember her for all eternity.

It was no easy to gain counsel with the king, as brutal war raged and the two brothers, chaos and anarchy, roamed the land, in every street, in every field, over every tree and under every surrounding sea. She managed to convince two friendly soldiers to take her to see their commander at camp.

“S‘il vous plaît, I wish to speak with the king,” she said.

The commander gave a brief look at the girl, and laughed deep from his belly. “Don’t waste my time, hedge-born, je m’en fous.”

She stayed and each day asked again, telling the commander how vital it is, urging him to consider her mission was from God.

“God has left our country. Go back to your farm, crazy girl. If you’re not gone by tomorrow, I will tell my men you are no longer welcome at my camp, and they can do whatever they please.”

And then, at that very moment, she received a curious vision. Cavalry impaled by sharpened spikes, men falling to the ground with crossbow bolts in their bodies, and the king’s army running for their lives. As soon as she blinked, the vision disappeared.

“I… I regret to tell you, captain, of the defeat of the king’s army at the Battle of Rouvray,” she said. The commander stared at the girl for a while. Rouvray was far away, and no battles were reported to him.

The next day, a messenger arrived at camp, his horse drenched with sweat. He told the captain of the military reversal foretold by the girl. By the end of the day, the captain had changed his opinion of the girl. He agreed to take her to see the king.

The royal castle was far larger than any Earthly structure she had ever seen. There was a power emanating from the stones, even as the royal house was losing the war. To listen to an illiterate, teenage farm girl, the king surely had exhausted all other rational options. All was silent once she entered the royal court, and a crowd of nobles wearing rich and colorful clothing tore her apart with their suspicious eyes. Yet this did not stop her from focusing and seeing the king among them. The girl took a deep breath, and remembered Archangel Michael’s words. She took several steps closer to the king, and held eye contact, which impressed him.

“I am Joan of Arc, and I wish to bring God’s aid to Orléans and restore our country.”

This surprised the king and the surrounding nobles, as no one had told the girl what he looked like, and he hid in the crowd to test her.

After speaking privately with the King of France, Joan smiled as she knew her story would end well, which was not always the case with those chosen by the Divine.