ANGELS AT WAR
CHAPTER 10
CRICKET KARR AND THE ROCK STAR
CRICKET
SAYS JESUS: THE ONE WHO COMES TO ME I WILL BY NO MEANS CAST OUT (John 6:37)
“I had a gun to his head,” Sully told me with clenched teeth as tears ran down his cheeks. “I was gonna do it! I was starting to squeeze the trigger.”
He put his hands on his head and lowered his face down to the table. We sat in silence for a long minute. Then he raised his head, leaned back on the kitchen chair and sighed. His eyes transferring from the grainy brown wood of the table to the off white speckled ceiling. Hesitantly I asked, “What stopped you?”
Now his eyes shifted to me and then he leaned forward, calmly lacing his fingers and gently setting his hands on the table. “I thought for sure he would beg for his life. When he did, I fully intended to silence him forever… But he simply said, ‘go ahead, I deserve it.’”
“Then what did you do?”
He shrugged. “I left.”
“Do you have any regrets?”
“About leaving, or putting a gun to his head in the first place?”
“Both.”
He sighed heavily. “You know, I don’t think it couldn’t have worked out better. If I never got together with him in the first place, the hatred I felt would have kept festering. If I killed him and got away with it, the hatred would probably still be there. But coupled with paranoia of getting caught one day. If I killed him and got caught, it would have been a national headline and scandal. But when he was contrite, and I saw how broken he was, my hatred toward him pretty much left. I didn’t feel the love I once had for him. But the animosity was mostly gone.”
“What became of him?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen nor talked to him since, and don’t care to.”
“Isn’t it strange that a person can come to hate a person they once loved?”
“Very strange. It’s something I’ll never understand.”
“I suppose that’s because it falls under the mystery of iniquity category.”
“What’s iniquity?”
“Spiritual lawlessness. In other words, sin,” I replied and then showed him 2 Thessalonians 2:7.
He kept reading. My heart thrilled as I witnessed how interested he was in the Word of God. He asked me about verse nine. “Who is this actual lawless one verses eight and nine mention?”
I showed him 1 John 2:18-23, which speaks of antichrists. I had a bit of an inkling we were getting ahead of ourselves. He was new to the Bible, and we seemed to be skipping the basics and going right into deep truth. He had yet to accept Christ as his personal Savior. But several minutes later that would change. After reading these verses he frowned intently. “Who is the antichrist and when will he come? Do you know?”
“Keep in mind the Apostle John wrote this almost two thousand years ago. From that perspective they were yet to come, yet already in existence as well. See, read verse eighteen again. Simply put, antichrists try to usurp the authority of God found in His Word, the Holy Bible. Antichrist in its truest definition is putting itself in the place of Christ more so than being against Christ. In NAME, the antichrist is actually Christian.”
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“You’re blowing my mind,” Sully grinned. “And I don’t mean like I wanted to do to Jesse Parker.”
My eyebrows rose and he noticed my astonished expression. He chuckled, “I’m sorry, was that inappropriate?”
“That’s okay. You can speak your mind with me.”
He surprised me by taking my hand and smiling affectionately. “That’s one of the many reasons I like you.”
I wondered if I blushed. I clearly got the vibe his gaze was one of desire. But I was pretty naïve with things of a romantic nature. I was mostly asexual and very inexperienced. It also didn’t make sense that someone like Sully Sage, handsome, talented, famous, and wealthy, would be interested in someone like me. I was a plain Jane on a good day, while my sister was exquisitely beautiful on a bad day.
I grinned shyly. Sully took my smile for an invitation, and he leaned toward me with lips puckered. It took me by surprise, and I did something that 99 percent of heterosexual females wouldn’t have done. I blocked his mouth with my hand. I felt his soft lips on my palm. His eyebrows raised in surprise, and the comical appearance made me giggle.
“Mr. Sage, I’m not that kind of girl,” I playfully scolded.
He sat back in his chair and chuckled. “No, I suppose you’re not. I guess that’s one of the reasons I find you so incredibly attractive.”
I felt like I blushed again, and then a strange sensation ran through me that I didn’t recall experiencing before. I felt a flutter throughout my midsection, instigated by the opposite sex. Now I may have been ignorant about romance, but I at least had a measure of wisdom, based on reality. “Sully, you’re more suited for Violetta.”
He frowned and snorted. “Why? Because she looks like a Victoria’s Secret model in cowboy boots? You know she can’t stand me. We’re like oil and water.”
“You two could be like peanut butter and jelly if you’d both put pride aside.”
“Bah! That’s a laugh. Like I said, you know she can’t stand me.”
“I notice you didn’t say you can’t stand her.”
He shrugged. “As a matter of fact, I like her. I honestly have never met a more fiery woman in my life. Why after Poppy, and now you, she’s the most attractive woman I’ve ever met.”
“How could I possibly be the most attractive woman you’ve met after Poppy? You’ve met thousands of women. How could you say that about an ordinary woman like me?”
“You are anything but ordinary, Cricket.”
“I think a couple things are going on here, Sully. For one thing I thing you have a recency bias. And for another, I think your feelings for me are being miss placed for a deeper spiritual need you detect in yourself.”
“How can that be? I don’t understand.”
His words, how can that be, made me think of when Jesus was talking with Nicodemus in the Gospel of John chapter three. As Jesus was teaching him about a new spiritual birth, Nicodemus asked in verse nine, how can these things be? I had Sully go with me in the Bible to John chapter three. Then we slowly read from verse one through twenty-one.
What a wonderful ripple effect! I taught Sully about spiritual birth by using our Savior’s words as He taught Nicodemus about spiritual birth. I marveled as I contemplated countless others over the centuries doing just as I was doing with the words of Jesus Himself! My heart thrilled when I not only noticed a look concentration on Sully’s face, but also an expression of awe!
His lips moved silently as he followed along while I read aloud. We came to John 3:16, and he interrupted me after I read it. “I know that one!”
“Let’s read it again,” I said cheerily. He read aloud with me. “For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
His look of awe shifted to an expression of puzzlement. “All you have to do is believe?”
“That’s right!” I told him. “Romans 10:13 tells us that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
For good measure, I showed him a text from the Old Testament that said the same thing; Joel 2:32. His look of awe was back. “When can I call on the name of the Lord?”
“Right now!”
“But Cricket, I smoke and drink. I wanted to kill somebody. If you kissed me back, I would have been willing to take it to the bedroom if you consented. Same with your sister, if she didn’t kill me first.”
I laughed. “Trust me, you come to Christ to be cleansed from sin and walk in newness of life. You don’t clean up your life first and then come to Him. We are saved by grace through faith, not by works. But when you genuinely repent and surrender to Christ, the process of being cleansed and freed from sin begins. Old things pass away, behold all things become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
“I want to do this, Cricket.”
My head was spinning. I did not expect Sully to give his life to Christ upon our first Bible study. Especially after he tried to kiss me! I had given hundreds of Bible studies up to that point and never had someone tried to kiss me. There had been hugs shared. But it was as spiritual brother and sister, and spiritual sister with sister.
I prayed with him and then he did it! He asked Jesus into his life and heart! I was so filled with joy that any shyness I might have felt was absent and I began to sing ‘Just as I am.’ “Just as I am without one plea, Christ Jesus’s blood was shed for me…”
Sully had a stunned look on his face. A tear ran down his cheek. Just like a yawn causing someone else to yawn, his tear caused my own eyes to well with joy.
“Cricket, you sing beautifully.”
I humbly shrugged. Of course, did saying I shrugged humbly negate shrugging humbly? You know, the old adage that the second you think you’re humble you’re not.
He and I continued our Bible studies over the next few days. I was a bit concerned when he told me he had been spending evenings at Callie and Jeremey’s church. They were a wonderful couple, but they are a large congregation that tended to follow tradition over plain scripture teachings. Their pastor had warned them that I was a fanatic for taking the Bible so seriously. He even declared me to be a legalist without even speaking to me.
But so far Sully told me that he had mostly been jamming. This puzzled me at first as I thought he meant making fruit spread. He chuckled at my naivety and explained they were playing music. He invited me to come out to see them play, but I had already asked my mother to fill in for me multiple times at the flower shop in the last week, so I politely declined.
It was the afternoon, five days before Callie and Jeremey’s wedding. I was working on a large order at the flower shop when Violetta came in with our mother. Not long after Callie came in and addressed Violetta and me with a scold. I guess she figured our mom was too old to be included in her rebuke. “How come neither of you have come out to watch Sully jamming with our church band?”
“She’s talking about playing music, not making fruit spread,” I told Violetta.
My sister frowned at me, but wore a smirk as she said, “Ya think?”
“Do you realize millions of his fans pay good money to watch and listen to him sing from nose bleed seats in arenas across the world?” she continued. “Yet you two have neglected to come watch that beautiful voice come out of that handsome face from only feet away and for free!”
“I’ve had to work,” I replied.
“I’ve had… stuff to do,” Violetta stammered.
“Stuff to do?” Callie questioned. “You’re on vacation.”
“Why don’t you go tonight, dear?” Mom asked me. “I don’t mind filling in. I’m not out to pasture yet. And take that stubborn sister with you.”
“Mommy, that’s not nice,” Violetta whined.
“You’re usually mostly sweet along with a bit of sour, dear,” Mom said, kissing her cheek. “But lately you’re been more sour and hardly sweet at all.”
Our mother didn’t realize that it was the guy Callie wanted us to see that was causing Violetta’s discombobulation. But my sister went, as did I. Callie was right. What a treat it was to listen and watch Sully sing up close and personal. And there were only about thirty or forty people enjoying this privilege, so it was a rather intimate little show.
Violetta was as still as a statue while she stared at Sully. He was so good looking and then to witness the talent on top of it. It was easy to see how people make idols of other people, especially rock stars. And it should be no surprise. Bible scholars believe, based mostly on Ezekiel 28:13 and Isaiah 14:11, that before he fell and became Satan, Lucifer was a master musician in heaven. So it only goes to figure that music would be a main avenue he would use on this fallen planet to lead people astray.
After several songs Sully spoke to the small crowd, pointing out the four gentleman he played with. “These guys are beyond good.”
We all clapped. Then Matthew Warner, the leader of the church’s quartet, interjected, “Only because you’re joining us, Sully.”
Everyone clapped again with even more enthusiasm. Sully seemed genuinely embarrassed as he waved it off. This was interesting to me because in his biography when they showed clips of him playing live, he typically had all the swagger and cockiness of a classic narcissist.
He waved a hand at the band. “We’ve agreed to do a couple of songs after the wedding. I was hesitant because I didn’t want to take the spot light from Jeremey and Callie’s special day.”
Callie stepped in front of Sully, taking the microphone from him. “Help me out here people. Especially the ladies. Who wouldn’t want to be able to say that Sully Sage performed at their wedding?”
The clapping and cheers doubled in decibels. And then the band, with Sully on lead vocals, played the songs they would be playing at the wedding, ‘Angel’ by Casting Crowns and ‘Love Me Like I am’ by For King and Country. When he sang the chorus to ‘Love Me Like I am,’ he looked at me and winked. I smiled at him, winking back, knowing he was recalling me singing ‘Just As I am’ a few days previous.
Violetta looked at me with an inquisitive expression. When they finished, Sully walked over to my sister and me. “I’m glad you came, Cricket. After what you helped me experience the other day, I’ve gotten a fresh desire to learn new music. It’s been a blast playing with these guys.”
“I have to admit, it was wonderfully strange hearing you sing Christian music,” I told him.
He chuckled and nodded. Then he turned to my sister. Very meekly he said, “Violetta, I want to apologize for my arrogant attitude I’ve exhibited toward you. I’m truly sorry.”
She looked stunned. Then she quietly said, “I’m the one that should apologize.”
Sully smiled pleasantly, offered his hand, and said, “Friends?”
They shook, and then he turned my way, surprising me with a quick hug. Violetta and I left shortly thereafter. After we got in her truck, rather than starting the engine, she swiveled in my direction, eyeing me suspiciously. “What did you help Sully experience, and why did you and he exchange winks when he sang ‘Love Me Like I am’?”
