The Centurion's Wife

Weaving the Destiny of a Queen in Postmenopause: The Coronation of ClaudiaIn the Roman world of Caesarea, power is measured by the leanness of a woman's waist, the lustrous river of her hair, and the razor-sharp clarity of a mind that never falters. But for Claudia, the wife of the centurion Cornelius, the mirrors have begun to whisper a different story. As she crosses the threshold of her fifties, Claudia finds herself caught in a "Stormy Sea" of change.
Her body, once a disciplined monument of Roman grace, feels like a "rusted gate" of aching bones and unexplained heat. Her "glory"-the dark hair of her youth-is thinning like morning mist, and the sharp "intellect" she once wielded like a blade is being replaced by a baffling, silver fog. To the Western world, she is a failing ruin; a medical patient to be pitied and shamed. But beyond the visible world of silk stolas and marble floors, a far more ancient conflict is raging.
While demonic legions huddle in the shadows, counting her fallen strands of hair as trophies and whispering lies of "the rot" and "irrelevance, " a heavenly host stands at attention. Where the shadows see decay, the angels see a foundation being poured. Where the accusers see a "hollow shell, " the Spirit sees a Queen being prepared for her true coronation. Guided by the quiet wisdom of Cornelius and the timeless truth of the Word, Claudia must choose: will she succumb to the "weights of the world" and the "shame of the Western voice"? Or will she recognize that her physical "weakness" is the very vacuum into which the power of Christ is rushing?"For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." (II Cor.
4:16)