Tag: fiction

ANGELS AT WAR – CHAPTER 5

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 5

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

FOR WHO KNOWS WHAT IS GOOD FOR A MAN IN LIFE, ALL THE DAYS OF HIS VAIN LIFE WHICH HE PASSES LIKE A SHADOW? WHO CAN TELL A MAN WHAT WILL HAPPEN AFTER HIM UNDER THE SUN? (Ecclesiastes 6:12)

            “That a boy,” Vermillion said with malicious delight as Jimmy Stetson eyed the pretty blonde. Only he was studying her back side, not her hair follicles.

            “Christians like to talk of being thankful,” Vermillion told me. “Well Querida, I’m thankful for the sexual instinct. It is so easy to get humans to stray from the intended purpose of love and procreation, and into the ecstasy of lust.”

            Jimmy had just departed a record store at the mall. Music stores were quite prevalent in 1990. Lexi Bennet and her bestie had exited the clothing store directly across just a couple seconds ahead of him. Jimmy knew Lexi because she had lived next door to his sister for the last eight years. Vermillion encouraged him to become hypnotized by her Calvin Klein Jeans as she walked. Several times my former friend encouraged with the quiet mantra, ‘Little Lexi is now sexy Lexi.’

            As they left the mall, Lexi held the door for Jimmy. They made eye contact and her face lit up. “Oh hey! You’re Jill Kennon’s brother.”

            “I am,” he replied with a charming smile.

            “Jake, right?”

            “Jake’s our brother, I’m,” he almost called himself Jim, but wanted to appear closer to her age. Not that his twenty-two to her eighteen was that big of a difference. Not now anyway. But when he was eighteen and she was fourteen? Out of the question. “I’m Jimmy.”

            “Cool.”

            “So I understand you graduated high school last month.”

            “I did,” she beamed.

            “So what are you gonna do with your life?” he asked as they walked onto the parking lot.

            She giggled. “Now you sound like my dad.”

            Oh no, he didn’t want to go that direction! “I’m not prying, just curious.”

            “I’m gonna go to Kirkwood part time for now, until I decide what I want to do,” she said, referring to the local community college. “Plus I work at Younkers,” she told him, referring to the department store at the other end of the mall.

            “Nice,” he said as he threw a leg over a maroon Yamaha Vmax.

            “Wow, is this yours?”

            “No, I’m stealing it,” he joked.

            She gave his upper arm a playful shove, then aimed a flirtatious smile at him. “Will you give me a ride sometime?”

            “Absolutely. When?”

            “How about now? Give me a ride home? I’m sure you know where I live.”

            “Sure,” he replied happily. Oh how he loved his motorcycle! It sometimes picked up girls for him.

            She looked at her dark haired dark eyed friend. “Do you mind?”

            “Go for it,” she replied with a coy smile. “I’ll call you later about the party tonight.”

            “Awesome,” Lexi replied as she climbed on behind Jimmy. She was a little clumsy, having never ridden on a motorcycle before.

            As Lexi hugged Jimmy’s back side, he grinned at what a wonderful tool a motorcycle was for making time with the ladies. But as he cruised down Lexi’s street, his smile faded when he spotted his sister in her flower bed in front of her house. What was she doing home from work? Was it possible she wouldn’t notice?

            “Did you arrange that with Jimmy’s sister, or was it just chance?” Vermillion asked me as we watched the mini drama play begin.

            I just responded with what humans would consider a shrug. It’s impossible to explain the invisible realm. As deep as the Bible is, The Good Book is only a glimpse of the depths of God. ‘Can you search out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limits of the almighty? (Job 11:7). Even the sharpest people have a dim comprehension of spiritual things. ‘For they see through a mirror dimly.’ (1 Corinthians 13:12)

            “That was fun!” Lexi cooed into Jimmy’s ear. “Hey, do you want to go to a party tonight?”

            Perspectives could be hard to figure out. Twenty minutes ago Jimmy figured that Lexi’s and his age difference wasn’t much. But now, the thought of a party with a group of recent high school graduates would make him feel like a grandpa. “Thanks, but I don’t think so, Lexi.”

            She had climbed off his bike as he made his reply. She leaned in and placed a hand just above his knee. With a low sultry voice, she said, “Are you sure? I’ll make it worth your while.”

            Carnal desire stirred within him. Talk about a subtle, but not so subtle hint. She seemed to stick out her chest which was wrapped in a tight spaghetti strap top. His eyes wanted to feast on the lustful sight, but he glanced toward his sister in the neighboring yard instead.

            Vermillion caused her to focus on the weeds in her flower bed. I tried to have her ear catch her brother’s motorcycle as it pulled into Lexi’s driveway. Vermillion won. But a friend of Lexi’s passed in a car. Vermillion caused a glitch with her radio, trying to distract her from Lexi and her suitor. But right before her eyes diverted to the audio device, she caught sight of her gal pal with the studly fellow and honked.

            Jill Kennon glanced at the noise, and then back to her flower garden. Then her brain registered the familiar sight in her neighbor’s driveway, causing her to do a double take. She saw little Lexi Bennet leaning in close to her brother. Jimmy, wearing a sheepish smile, waved at his sibling.

            Jill stood, faced the couple, and began to march toward them. But instead of using one of her hands to return the greeting, she placed them on her hips. Lexi grinned happily and waved vigorously. “Hi, Mrs. Kennon. I ran into Jimmy at the mall and he was nice enough to give me a ride.”

            “So I see,” she replied with a fake smile. “He is so incredibly nice and thoughtful… Say brother dear, would you mind coming over and help me start my lawnmower? It pulls hard.”

            “I’ll be seeing you, Lex.”

            “I hope so,” she said with a coy smile.

            Did he hear his sister say, ‘No, you won’t.’

            Jimmy started his motorcycle and drove it one hundred feet and into his sister’s driveway. As he walked toward her garage, he said, “It doesn’t look like your lawn needs mowed.”

            “It doesn’t. Can you do me a favor and keep your hands off my young neighbor?”

            “My hands weren’t on her.”

            “Hers were on you?”

            “What can I say?” he grinned.

            “You can say you’ll stay away from my young neighbor. There are plenty of fish in the sea, so please keep away from little Lexi.”

            “Little Lexi is now sexy Lexi,” he joked, wiggling his eyebrows.

            Jill glared at her brother with hands on hips once again. How is it you could love somebody, but often dislike them, she wondered?

            “Come on, maybe I’m looking for love,” he grinned.

            “Looking for love in all the wrong places,” his sister sang the once popular country song. She had a good voice. The grin left his face. Why did he suddenly think of Jenny as she sang?

            “You just made him think of Jenny,” Vermillion declared, then shrugged. “I’m okay if he fornicates with her some more. Lead her even further away from the God she once knew.  But watch this. Guys are so easy to switch from feelings of love to lust.”

            Through his sisters garage window, Jimmy caught movement in Lexi’s back yard. His sister’s eighteen year old neighbor, in the fresh flush of womanhood, walked into her back yard wearing only a tiny red bikini. How did she change so fast? She kicked off her flip flops and lay on a fold out lawn chair. She almost seemed to aim her body at the garage window.

            Jill noticed her brother’s trance and said, “Let’s go in and have some lemonade.”

            “I’m good.”

            “I said lets go inside and have some lemonade!”

            “Yes, master,” Jimmy mocked.

            Jill cleared some newspapers off her kitchen table. I thought about telling Vermillion to ‘watch this’ but didn’t. My job was to minister to souls, not exchange banter with my opponent in the task. A colorful paper fell to the floor, catching Jimmy’s eye.

            He frowned after he picked it up. Prominently displayed was a strange looking creature from Revelation chapter thirteen. It had seven heads and ten horns. Above and below this beast stated ‘Who is the antichrist? Is hellfire a place or an event? Are we living in the end times? Can the Bible be trusted? Do you want to understand Bible prophecy? Please join us for a ten part series at Kennedy High School auditorium.’ Then it listed dates, the first beginning that very evening at 7pm.

            Vermillion looked concerned at first. But then he nodded happily when Jimmy showed his sister the paper. “No don’t,” I petitioned. “Do,” Vermillion countered.

            “What’s this?” Jimmy asked Jill.

            She shrugged. “I don’t know, I found it in my door the day before yesterday. Just something from some religious fanatics I suppose. I meant to throw it away.”

            Jimmy tossed it back onto the table. If his sister thought it was bogus, it probably was. She was a much better person. Although he never knew her to study a Bible, she did religiously put an hour a week in at church with her family. She grabbed the brochure her brother discarded, crumpled it, and tossed it into the garbage.

            “That’s it,” Vermillion beamed. “Good job, Jill.”

            I shrugged. At least a seed might have been planted. The best hope for germination was with Jenny. But it was a precarious situation, what with her pregnancy and all. Not to mention her back slidden state of mind. It was a long shot to be sure.

            That same afternoon, Jenny laid down for a nap. She hadn’t been sleeping good ever since her pregnancy diagnosis. One of the things that kept her up at night was thoughts of Jimmy. She had such remorse about her behavior that drunken night. The way she seduced him. The way he was so hesitant when she threw herself at him in her apartment. She vowed to herself never to drink again.

            She wondered if she wasn’t pretty enough for him, and that’s why he was so hesitant. She had seen some of his girlfriends. They were gorgeous, like they stepped out of a men’s magazine. But that night after Trixie dressed her in some of her clothes, she looked at least close to the girls Jimmy dated, maybe even on par. After all, plenty of other guys noticed. Liquored up men don’t seem to hide their leering.

            So why was he so reluctant when she practically threw herself at him? Actually, no practically about it, she out right threw herself at Jimmy. Then he frowned, groaned, rubbed his face and said her name like a regret. Regardless, he slowly undressed and he became one of two possibilities as the father of her child. She wondered if he slept with her out of some perverse form of pity.

            She rolled onto her side and Vermillion began to give her a nightmare, although it was daytime. I caused a car to backfire and she awoke, lifted her head for a moment, then rolled onto her other side, and muttered ‘Lord help me.’ I blocked a second attempt by Vermillion with a dream of my own.

            Jenny had been absorbed with the negative that happened with Jimmy. In her night vision, although it was day, I had her recall a few of his words when they were reacquainted and then had them echo in her head. “I liked the old Jenny better.”

            The dream gave Jenny the resolve she needed to face Jimmy. Instead of a mini dress that rode high up her thigh and low on her chest, she put on a knee length tan and white gingham dress. Tennis shoes and ankle socks replaced the black stockings and pumps. Instead of poofy hair like an 80’s hair band, she pulled it back and secured it with a hair clip. Instead of makeup plastered on like cake frosting, just a little lip gloss.

            Twenty minutes later, with her heart thumping a little faster than usual, she stood on the steps of the mobile home Jimmy shared with a buddy. Jimmy was laying on his back on his bed, hands behind his head when he heard the knocking. His roommate wasn’t home to answer, but he didn’t feel like getting up. Probably just some type of soliciting.

            His mind was tormented. He kept hearing sexy Lexi say, ‘I’ll make it worth your while.’ Then he would think of his encounter with Jenny Oakley the previous weekend. Every time it made him a little sick. How could he have taken advantage of her like that? He knew she was drunk. She sure had changed, a complete one eighty. She wasn’t who he thought she was.

            Jenny had been the most beautiful girl he had ever known. At a casual glance, she was a plain Jane. But in reality, she had a wholesome beauty. And it was the things that were the opposite of the norm that made her so appealing. Her milky white skin, so feminine and lush, yet always modestly covered, only providing a mysterious glimpse of a calf, ankle, forearm or occasionally a shoulder. Her silky hair was too sandy to call her a brunette, but too dark to be blonde. Her round grey eyes, always so serious, making her cute rather than striking.

            But it was her personality that had made her so compelling, coupled with her loveliness. She was so sweet and unassuming. She had such a quiet dignity and inner strength. He knew she had been teased about the conservative way she dressed. They called her things like Laura Ingalls, or Amish girl. Yet it seemed to roll off of her like a duck shedding water. But apparently it hadn’t.

            How did she change so drastically? That sensible girl, who looked like she walked off the set of the Walton’s or Little House On the Prairie. He thought for sure that she was the type to hold out sex for marriage. Instead, she’s now a party girl who dresses like a stripper and apparently has no problem with one night stands. What a shame, what a waste! But what was he?

            More knocking. He mumbled, “Just go away.”

            He thought of a clothing incident when he shared a lab table with her in science class the last trimester of their senior year. It came with only days left in the school year. A split in her long denim skirt had shifted, and as she sat with her leg crossed over the other, it exposed most of her leg and more than half of her thigh.

            It was much less skin revealed than a cheerleader exposed, yet to him it was more alluring. Why? He supposed because it had been a mystery hidden for almost a dozen weeks. She also looked more lovely than lustful as she concentrated on finals, her soft lips gently nibbling on her pencil.

            He had never known a more beautiful woman than eighteen year old Jenny Oakley. Even more so than eighteen year old sexy Lexi. Yet if the two were walking down opposite sides of a street, probably ten out of ten guys were checking out Lexi.

            Now the twenty-two year old Jenny Oakley was another story. It would probably be fifty, fifty. It all depended on whether a guy preferred a toned Sports Illustrated swim suit model with Lexi. Or if a guy preferred a curvy, sexy stripper type with Jenny. Oh Jenny, why? How could you change so drastically?

            More knocking. When would they go away?

            Something occurred to him. “Hey, maybe it’s Lexi!”

            He sprang from his bed. She could make it worth his while now! Then he wouldn’t have to endure a party with a bunch of teenagers. He peeked out of the window to see just who the knocker was. He reeled back a couple steps when he saw it was Jenny! And she was dressed like the old Jenny rather than the sexpot from last week.

            What was she doing here? He figured she would be more ashamed than he, at least at facing each other again. He had never felt anxiety about facing a former fling until Jenny. He was torn about how he felt. He didn’t understand what he felt. Why did he both want to go back to his bedroom and wait her out, and open the door to see what she had to say? He wondered if she was here for another romp in the sack, or to scold him for taking advantage of her inebriated state? Since she was dressed similar to their high school days, rather than a hooker, probably the latter.

            He went to a closer window to get a better look. Ever so gently he peeled open the curtain about an inch. When he peered out, a wave of anxiety soared through him as her two wide round gray-blue eyes were looking right at his lone eyeball!

            Vermillion laughed as we watched Jimmy. The cackle was as if my opponent was saying checkmate. He felt confident their dialogue would lead to one of two possibilities. If Jimmy encouraged abortion, then maybe that would lead to Jenny ending her own life as well.

            If adoption, Vermillion would brew a stew of emotional support with a main ingredient of lust. This would get them fornicating some more. Then he would somehow get sexy Lexi in Jimmy’s path and cause a terrible triangle. With Jenny feeling so vulnerable, either direction could put her over the edge of despair. It looked like a win, win for my diabolical opponent.

            ‘The devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.’ (1 Peter 5:8)

            But we angels never give up. In other words, it ain’t over till it’s over. Besides, I had some intel that my former friend wasn’t aware of.

ANGELS AT WAR – CHAPTER 4

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 4

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

WHY ARE YOU CAST DOWN OH MY SOUL? AND WHY ARE YOU DISQUIETED WITHIN ME? HOPE IN GOD. (Psalm 42:11)

            “Productive moves,” I told Vermillion.

            “I thought so,” he replied confidently.

            “But all things work together for good to those who love God,” I quoted Romans 8:28.

            “The Son of God said if you love me keep my commandments,” Vermillion challenged. “But does Jenny keep God’s commandments?”

            The demonic realm knows scripture better than humans. That’s why they have been so successful in diverting people away from the truths in which the Bible actually teaches. Often through traditions and religion itself.

            He continued, “No, your little angel, pun intended, was on the verge of self-murder. When I get through with her and the people she looks to for support with the tiny urchin in her womb, she will at a minimum execute him. Then the guilt will put her back into a frame of mind to execute herself as well.”

            “We’ll see.”

            “You even admitted I set her up just fine for destruction.”

            “On the contrary, I believe your arrangement will ultimately give her resolve, not despair.”

            He had seemed self-satisfied but now looked dubious. Satan and his demons are experts at reading body language. They also specialize in knowing just what buttons to push for everyone’s particular temptations. But they can’t read the mind. They can’t force a person to sin.

            ‘Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you’ (James 4:7). Verse 8 is key. ‘Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.’

            Righteous angels also can’t read the mind. But we do have an advantage. God, in whom we ultimately take direction from, can. The advantage the dark side has is fallen human nature and the selfish desires that go along with it..

            Vermillion worked to do, not just a double whammy on Jenny Oakley, but a triple whammy. As painful as it was for me to see her in pain, I needed to stand by and allow it. For I knew something Vermillion didn’t.

            As much as she dreaded it, Jenny felt the need to inform the potential fathers. But first she felt the need to inform her mother. Vermillion paved the way for this encounter by giving her mother trouble with Jenny’s two older half siblings.

            Three days earlier, Jenny’s twenty-five year old sister was sentenced to two years in prison after yet another arrest for theft. Two days later her twenty-six year old brother was fired from yet another job. Then only an hour before Jenny’s arrival, he had asked to borrow money to pay his rent. When it rains it pours!

            Jenny’s mother was clearly stressed. So she decided to postpone informing her mother about her dilemma. But her mother knew she had paid her a visit for a serious reason, so she coaxed it out of her youngest child. Her reaction couldn’t have caused Jenny more pain.

            It was one of those situations where a person would rather have a response of anger. With tremendous remorse, her mother began to weep. A pitiful whimper escaped from her lips as she lamented, “Oh, Jenny. You were my one hope.”

            As bad as she felt as she left her mother’s place, Jenny intended to still tell the two potential fathers. She not only wanted to get it over with, she wanted to know what their reactions would be.

            By the time she got to the front door of Devin’s condo, she felt defiant. Normally meek and timid, her mother’s reaction made her, at first sad, then angry. Angry at Devin. Two years of dreaming about a white picket fence and two or three kids shot down. And why? Was she not pretty enough? Was she not smart enough? Was she not witty enough? Was she not charming enough? Was she not driven enough? Was she too clingy and needy?

            There were eight units in Devin’s condo. He was on the bottom floor in the rear corner of the building. Her finger hovered over the intercom button for unit three. She hated the sound of hearing his mechanical ‘yeah?’ coming through the device. She disliked replying ‘it’s me.’ Then without a word of greeting from him, there was the sound of a buzz as if opening the door in a prison.

            She decided to go around to his back patio instead. What did it matter if he didn’t like it and threw a fussy fit? She would just blurt out, I’m pregnant and you’re… Oh my! She stopped and bit her finger nail. You are the father? You might be the father? How should she put it, what with not being certain of the parentage?

            Then she visualized him crossing his arms and giving her that squinty eyed glare of his. Then asking, who else have you been with if she said might. But who cares? Wasn’t he with someone else himself! After all it was he who wooed her back for a half dozen intimate encounters. It was he who strayed not once but twice. But boy, what a mess not knowing exactly who the father was!

            Six foot tall hedges surrounded the ten by ten patio. There was actually a chain link gate blocking the entry. She had always thought that was silly since a burglar could just plow through the hedges, if he was willing to risk a couple scratches that is. She had only seen Devin work the three digit combination a few times, but she had remembered it.

            Once past the gate she took tentative steps toward the sliding glass door. She raised a hand to rap and then froze. She noticed the tops of two heads that appeared to be joined sitting on the sofa. Why hadn’t she considered that he could be with the other woman? Now she was spying on the pair making out on his couch.

            She took a couple steps back as she prepared to slink away. This obviously wasn’t the right time. She tripped over a patio chair, lost her balance and fell onto a second patio chair. She inadvertently shoved the second chair and with a loud bang it slid into the sliding glass door.

            Thankfully the glass didn’t break, but the couple on the sofa shot up like a couple jack in the boxes. Jenny was mortified! Then stunned! Devin apparently didn’t leave her for another woman after all. The partially dressed person that had been on the sofa with Devin was a guy.

            Devin seemed to shove his companion toward his front door as the two rapidly buttoned up their clothing. Devin moved quickly to the sliding glass door and opened it. Although he used expletives as he asked Jenny what she was doing, he seemed more confused and discombobulated than angry.

            “Jenny, what are you doing here!” he said, more as an accusation than a question.

            “I need to talk to you about something.”

            “Why didn’t you go to the front like a normal person?” he asked with hands on hips.

            Vermillion was inspiring Devin the way he had during most of their association. He was taking control, making her feel she was unworthy and that she should feel grateful to simply be in his presence. He had been the boss in their relationship, and he needed to take charge now. Especially with what she might have seen as she snuck up to his back door and spied.

            I, on the other hand, reminded Jenny of how often she felt humiliation with his condescending ways. I gave her recollection of why she was there in the first place. The pair of thoughts gave her the boldness needed to stand up to him. He had twice dumped her and left her pregnant after coaxing her into satisfying his lust.

            She shrugged and mirrored his hands on hips. Then she spoke loud enough he feared the neighbors overhearing. “I didn’t want to hear your pathetic voice through that squeaky intercom.”

            His frown turned into arched eyebrows. Jenny had never spoken to him like this before. Her reaction to the break ups had been crying and blithering. But then he frowned again. “So what did you feel the need to talk to me about? I’m not taking you back again!”

            “Taking me back? Ha! You’re the one that came crawling back several weeks ago, telling me you made a mistake with…” Now Jenny’s frown turned into arched eyebrows. “That guy.”

            “What guy?” Devin replied, seeming rattled. He turned and looked into his condo, and then back to Jenny. “There’s nobody here.”

            “I know what I saw Devin. You were sitting on the couch with some guy.”

            “Oh him… We had been working out together, then watching a ball game, but he had to leave.”

            “You two appeared to be kissing. You were half undressed when you stood.”

            “What are you talking about!” Devin said testily, but clearly nervous. “I told you we had been working out. Come sneaking up spying on me and then making phony allegations. How dare you!”

            Jenny put her hands up. She wisely realized he was only gonna get angrier if she pushed it. “Look, Devin, let’s just forget about it. There was glare on the glass, I must have been seeing things. Okay?”

            He eyed her suspiciously, Then wanting to move away from what she may or may not have seen, he asked belligerently, “So what did you need to tell me that a phone call wouldn’t have sufficed?”

            “I’m pregnant?” she blurted.

            He looked stunned. Then his brows furrowed and his eyes squinted. Then he sarcastically replied, “Really?”

            “Really,” she responded quietly.

            He began to pace and breath hard in and out of his nose. Then he stopped. “I thought you were on the pill?”

            “I am,” she replied. “But in the aftermath of our break up, I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t sleeping, and I became lackadaisical and forgot to consistently take them.”

            “So what now, are you trying to trap me?”

            “No, not at all. I just thought you had a right to know.”

            Devin still eyed her skeptically. Although he knew she wasn’t the type to sleep around, he had to ask. “So you’re saying I’m the father, and you’re one hundred percent sure?”

            She shook her head and then hung it in shame. “No, just most likely. You and I were together a half dozen times, but I did have a one night stand a couple days after you left me the second time.”

            “You had a one night stand?” he laughed without humor. “Maybe you should tell him too. Or was it some low life who you don’t even know?”

            “I know him and I plan to tell him.”

            “Who is it?”

            “You don’t know him. He was an old classmate I ran into when I went out with some friends.”

            “Wait here a minute,” he said cooly. He returned and placed two one hundred dollar bills into her hand and closed her fingers around it.

            “What’s this?”

            “It’s for an abortion.”

            “I’m not getting an abortion,” she said, shoving the money back at him, but he ignored the gesture.

            “Yeah,” he laughed sarcastically. “So you’re too moral to get an abortion, but not too moral to get naked with a guy you don’t know.”

            “I told you I knew him.”

            “Oh yeah, how long have you been dating?”

            She dropped the bills on the patio. “Have a nice life.”

            “Jenny wait,” he ordered. She kept going. Then with frightening hostility, he spoke to her back. “If you spread any lies about me, you’ll regret it! Big time!”

            Jenny stopped her hands from trembling by gripping the steering wheel, her knuckles turning white. Maybe she should get an abortion, she thought. Did she really want to have a child that was half Devin? But there was a chance it was Jimmy’s baby, small though it might be. For it was only the one time and on the back side of her monthly cycle when she was probably done ovulating.

            Since the odds favored Devin being the father, she decided to procrastinate telling Jimmy of the possibility. Between the ugly encounters with first her mother and then Devin, she didn’t feel she had the fortitude to face a third confrontation that day. So she planned to wait at least until tomorrow. But her meetings with her mother and ex-boyfriend left such a bad taste in her mouth, she ended up waiting a week.

            Like a spiritual chess game, Vermillion and I maneuvered our pieces in the time before Jenny sought out Jimmy. He put into his path a woman that looked like she stepped out of the pages of a men’s magazine. While I caused his eyes to be cast onto something that at one time was a simple piece of blank white paper but now carried a meaningful message.

ANGELS AT WAR – CHAPTER 3

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 3

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

THEY WHO SIN AGAINST ME WRONGS THEIR OWN SOUL (Proverbs 8:36)

            Jenny Oakley lay sprawled on her bed; her position reminded her of making snow angels as a little girl. She glanced at the bottle of pills on her nightstand and then back at the ceiling. What was she to do? Twenty-two, single, poor and pregnant. She turned her head back to the nightstand, recalling the haunting words from Becky yesterday. Then she watched her hand move toward the bottle.

            “Jenny,” Becky had begun her judgement with a soft tone. Her condemning words ironically sounded soothing, sweet and dripping with honey. “Given what you confided to me the other day, I’m afraid I had to make a tough, tough decision. But as head deaconess, it’s my responsibility to uphold integrity… I’m afraid I can’t allow you to teach the children’s Bible  class going forward.”

            “Stop tempting her with the pills,” I told Vermillion.

            “She has free will,” he replied menacingly. “You put things in her way; I put things in her way.”

            “Why are you so filled with hate? Why do you want to destroy a sweet, innocent girl?”

            “Innocent? Ha! She’s a fornicator. She doesn’t even know if the daddy of her love child is Devin Hart or Jimmy Stetson.”

            “No thanks to you taking advantage of her desperation.”

            “Oh poor little heartsick Jenny. The Christian Bible tells its believers to come out of the world, not adopt its philosophies. She should have kept her skirt on until she was married, right? Not only that, she became intoxicated and had a one night stand with Jimmy Stetson.”

            “If anyone sins, they have an Advocate with Jesus,” I told him, paraphrasing 1 John 2:1.

            “Oh yeah? So apparently she had to use that Advocate over hundred times during the last two years. Every time she climbed into bed with old Devin baby.”

            “In her mind she was committing to him for life.”

            “Really?” he drawled sarcastically. “Funny, I never heard any vows. Never saw a wedding band slipped onto her finger. As matter of fact, in the beginning, as I’m sure you recall, he told her a man has needs. He suggested he would move on if those needs weren’t met. Shouldn’t he have at least suggested establishing a home together one day? She gave into ‘a man has needs’ without so much as a hint of commitment.”

            “They met in church, so she assumed he was in it for the long haul.”

            “Are you excusing sin?” he taunted.

            “Of course not! But I am trying to keep a desperate young woman from destroying herself for eternity.”

            “Too late, old friend,” he replied, emphasizing old and our former friendship before he became part of the third of angels cast out with their leader.

            “Why are you so cruel? Jenny’s done absolutely nothing to you.”

            “Oh yes she has, by default. We were kicked out of heaven for what you call sin. She’s a sinner. Jesus called Satan a murderer (John 8:44). Well old friend, this little hussy considerers herself a believer, while at the same time she’s contemplating murdering herself along with that little bun in the oven.”

            “You seem to be ignoring a huge difference.”

            “Am I? Or is sin not sin then?”

            “You and your cohorts sinned in the light of God’s glory. Without a fallen supernatural being taking advantage of weak human nature.”

            Vermillion grunted angrily and coaxed Jenny to not only reach for but grab the pills. I blocked and countered by causing her to notice the mail she had thrown onto the nightstand before she crashed onto her bed. Of the three pieces, two were junk mail. Then she frowned at the anonymous note I had arranged to arrive in her box.

            I might have had a text sent, but this was the summer of 1990, several years before cell phones. The brief communication simply said, ‘You can’t change the beginning, but you can start now and change the ending. Before you do something desperate, go talk to the two potential fathers. And I do mean both! They have a right to know.’

            Her frown deepened as she reread the note. She unconsciously opened the drawer of the nightstand and pushed the pills inside and closed it. Vermillion expressed frustration. He called me a few unflattering names and threatened to double down.

            Jenny wondered who of the two women she had confided in had sent the note. But wait, she thought, as an old saying came to mind. ‘Can three people keep a secret? Yes, if two are dead.’

            Maybe Trixie had told the other two girls she went out with during that night of indiscretion with Jimmy Stetson. What was she thinking that day, before it turned into night? But she had been curious.

            Curiosity is one of the most successful tricks my counterparts use, curiosity of the forbidden. What would it be like to smoke a cigarette or even a joint? What would it be like to experiment with some form of forbidden sex? What would it be like to try a beer or wine cooler?

            In hindsight, Jenny spending an evening with wild young women, who went by the names Trixie, Roxy, and Skippy, was poor judgement. Especially when Trixie declared happily, “We’re virtually the same size!” She then proceeded to dress Jenny like her peers. Complete with a low cut top, high rising skirt, black stockings, and shoes with three inch heels. Then they decorated her head with what seemed like a whole can of hairspray and gaudy make up.

            She felt like a clown and could hardly walk in the shoes. She regretted accepting the invitation Trixie had regularly offered her. The two women worked together as waitresses at a diner. Trixie was always sharing stories with her coworkers about carnal adventures she experienced with her girlfriends. And, well, Jenny was curious, telling herself she was just going to be an observer.

            Jenny rarely drank alcohol and had never had more than one in a sitting before that night. But she had downed two wine coolers before they even had left Trixie’s apartment. She was buzzed and kind of liked it. She also felt quite sexy for a clown.

            By the time they stopped at a third bar, Jenny was feeling no pain. She was also starting to feel no coordination, and before they exited Roxy’s car, she ditched the three inch heels for her own flats.

            Guys were hitting on her left and right! But she just giggled and replied ‘no thanks’ to offers of drinks or dance. Trixie playfully rebuked her. “Honey, when you dress hot, guys tend to want to keep you cool.”

            “What do you mean?” Jenny asked naively.

            Trixie emitted a throaty laugh. “I mean you drink for free.”

            “Check it out, Jimmy Stetson just came in,” Skippy declared as she pointed to three guys who came in together and sat at the bar.

            “He’s just a tease,” Roxy lamented. This comment made Jenny frown. She had only ever heard of girls labeled teases.

            “Tell me about it,” Skippy lamented. “I practically told him I wanted to go to bed with him and he blew me off.”

            “I guess all three of us have struck out with him in one way or another,” Trixie said.

            “Not many guys in the bar scene are out of our league,” Skippy drawled. “But Jimmy Stetson’s in a league of his own.”

            “Now don’t give him so much credit,” Trixie differed. “He’s just a hot construction worker, not some millionaire playboy.”

            “Maybe so,” Skippy said. “But I’ll make out with a Sting look alike any day.”

            “I think he looks more like a modern James Dean,” Roxy differed. “All cool and brooding.”

            “I say he looks like MacGyver,” Trixie added, then turned to Jenny. “What do you think?”

            “I agree with Trixie, when I knew him he always reminded me of MacGyver.”

            All three stopped with drinks half way to their mouths. Skippy asked, “What do you mean when you knew him?”

            Jenny shrugged. “Jimmy and I shared a lab table in science our senior year of high school.”

            “Go say ‘hi’ to him then,” Skippy challenged, seeming a bit jealous.

            Roxy pointed at Trixie, Skippy and then herself. “One, two, three strikes, we struck out.” Then she challenged. “Batter up!”

            If Jenny hadn’t been so buzzed, she would have sunk down in her chair, or maybe even have fled. On the other hand, she never would have admitted knowing Jimmy if she had been sober. But with her inhibitions down, she boldly arose and went to her former classmate and immediately teased him about a little accident he had. “Hey big fella, break any beakers lately?”

            He squinted at her with a smirk as his brain processed who the woman in front of him was. Then he grinned, “Jenny Oakley?”

            “One and the same,” she said a little drunkenly as she spread her arms.

            “I beg to differ,” he replied.

            She frowned. “What do you mean?”

            “You’re not the same Jenny I remember.”

            Understanding his implication, she cocked a hip, put a hand on it, and flipped her hair with her other hand. “You like my new look.”

            He turned to fully face her on his bar stool and folded his arms. “No offense, but I liked the old Jenny better.”

            Her face held a dumbfounded look as she gazed at him. He laughed. “Sorry, that was cold. I had few beers before we got here, it must have given me diarrhea of the mouth.”

            “No, that’s okay,” she giggled and actually touched his arm. “Would you mind telling me why? Just tonight with this little experiment, I’ve had more guys, um, checking me out, than I ever have before in my whole life. So I find it a little puzzling that you preferred the old me, so to speak.”

            “Believe it or not, I prefer a pretty girl who dresses wholesome. Keeps a guy guessing.”

            Jenny’s buzzed brain had trouble comprehending. She didn’t mean to make audible her thought. “Me pretty?”

            “Yes, you pretty,” he grinned.

            Despite the effects of adult beverage, she now blushed. Jenny had always felt filled with not quite. Her sandy hair was not quite blonde. Her gray eyes were not quite blue. Her eyes were not quite good enough to avoid glasses. Her teeth were not quite straight enough to avoid braces. Her grades were not quite an A average. Never interviewed quite well enough to get a good job.

            “So you don’t typically dress like this?” he asked.

            “No, never, I mean until now, you know tonight,” she pointed at her girlfriend’s table. The three were staring but looked away as soon as Jimmy’s gaze turned on them. “Trixie talked me into it.”

            “Oh yeah, how come?”

            Inhibitions loosened her tongue some more. “My boyfriend of almost two years dumped me for someone else a couple months ago. A few weeks ago he pleaded with me to take him back, saying he made a big mistake. I gave in and took him back. Long story short, a couple days ago, not even a month into our reunion, he tells me he and his wench got back together.

            “So, at work. Trixie and I are both waitresses at Grandma Em’s Diner. I was crying on Trixie’s shoulder about being played, or whatever it was he pulled… By the way, I wasn’t literally crying on her shoulder, it was ah, um, what do you call it?”

            “A figure of speech.”

            “Yes, a figure of speech. So Trixie convinced me that the best medicine would be a fun girl’s night out. Then before we left her place, she talked me into wearing some of her clothes.”

            “So you’ve never dressed like a stripper before?” he asked bluntly, almost insultingly.

            “No, never,” she said wide eyed. “As a matter of fact, I was wearing her shoes with three inch heels, but I put back on my own shoes that have none.”

            She kicked up a leg to reveal her low heeled pumps, and the shoe slipped off her foot and sailed off in an arch ten feet away. “Opps.”

            Jimmy retrieved the shoe. As he sat back down, he asked his buddy, “Don, will you slide down another stool so Jenny can sit down next to me?”

            “No problem,” Don grinned maliciously through a weeks’ worth of stubble and winked.

            “Sit down and give me your foot,” Jimmy ordered.

            Jenny obeyed with her eyes still wide and placed her foot on Jimmy’s lap. What happened next is why alcohol is called spirits. The more you use and abuse the substance, the more a being like Vermillion has a door open to tempt or even destroy a soul. Due to their inebriated state, coupled with lust and desire, my enemy’s work was made easy. I, on the other hand, was pretty much a helpless witness.

            Jenny was so enraptured by Jimmy holding both her foot and her shoe, she was oblivious to how high her already short skirt had hiked. I made her aware of his pause as he replaced her shoe on her foot, and she noticed where his eyes were transfixed. She wiggled on the stool as she worked her skirt back down to mid-thigh. Jimmy found this act of modesty in her immodest attire all the more alluring.

            “You must be Cinderella,” he grinned as the shoe fit.

            She giggled. “Then you must be my prince.”

            He kissed her and the table of three applauded. Their applause rippled into more clapping and cheers throughout the tavern. Jenny looked embarrassed, but Jimmy somehow looked both annoyed as well as amused. “Why can’t people mind their own business?”

            The night quickly became a blur. She vaguely remembered her and Jimmy stumbling into her apartment. She recalled their passion as if it was a dream. She with skin crawling remembers the morning quite well though. She was so nauseous she couldn’t make it to the bathroom and threw up in her garbage can. Thankfully, Jimmy had slipped out before she woke, so she at least didn’t have the embarrassment of him watching her hurl.

            Jimmy never called and Devin was back with the other woman. What should she do? Who sent the note? What did it matter? She read it again. Start where she was? She could change her ending?

            So start as single pregnant woman who was beyond broke with almost a thousand dollars debt on one of her credit cards and six hundred on another? Vermillion had her considering abortion, so I devised a plan of my own.

            Emma, the older lady that lived below Jenny on the ground floor, hated to impose on people. Let’s just say I persuaded her to call Jenny. “Hi Honey, I hate to bother you, but my brother is coming for supper tonight and I discovered I have a mouse nest in my little grill. With my recent hip replacement, I’m skittish about walking it down to the edge of the woods to get rid of it.”

            “Oh, Mrs. Vargus don’t you dare try to do that,” Jenny told her kindly. “It’s no problem at all. I’ll be right down.”

            Jenny gave a little squeal of surprise when she cleaned out the grill. She had expected the little pile of fluff to be empty. But as she dumped it at the edge of the woods, four hairless babies and the mother fell onto the ground. The mother began to hall her baby mice away one by one.

            Despite the monster a thousand times bigger a few feet away, the brave little creature came back for all four of her offspring, hiding each one safely, in her tiny mind, under some leaves. Jenny put a hand to her mouth and whimpered as tears flowed down her cheeks. “Lord, please forgive me for what I was considering. A mouse is a more devout mother than me.”

            She resolved to contact Devin Hart that very day. As a matter of fact she would call him as soon as she was done helping Mrs. Vargus. He did have a right to know he was likely going to be a father.

            She bit her lip. Likely! Why did she have to have that one night stand with Jimmy Stetson? That was so unlike her! Now she couldn’t be one hundred percent certain that the child was Devin’s, just mostly sure.

            “Hello?” A male voice droned over the phone line.

            “Hey Devin, it’s me,” Jenny said evenly. “We need to talk about something.”

BLACK SABBATH – CHAPTER 27

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

BLACK SABBATH

CHAPTER 27

SEVEN SALLIE

THEN JESUS SAID, “FATHER FORGIVE THEM FOR THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY DO.” (Luke 23:34)

            “Jared, hi,” Lindsey said cheerfully and jumped up to greet a gentleman who had just arrived.

            “That was quite a story,” I told Mick Wadena. I had been a silent observer as my wife questioned him and his wife Lindsey about her dog playing match maker with the couple. Zella would later tease me about calling myself a silent observer. In my defense, TALK show hosts tend to talk, even when they are not on the air.

            “The miracle of Jitts bringing Lindsey and me together actually isn’t the most remarkable part of our story,” Mick told me, pointing to his wife and the guy she was now hugging.

            Lindsey and Mick had just finished telling us about their second meeting after Mick’s band finished their show in Madison, Wisconsin. That’s when a lone man made his way onto the deck that over looked C. S. Lewis’s back yard on a remote acreage, only a few miles from Lake Superior.

            The guy appeared to be about fifty, give or take, as with most of us on the deck. He had a shaved head, a sun weathered face, sunglasses, and a goatee with a light sprinkling of salt. He also was missing half of his left arm, and his left leg was a prosthetic.

            “Do you see that guy Lindsey is hugging?” Mick asked.

            Zella and I glanced at Lindsey embracing the lone man I had just described. “Yeah.”

            “That’s the guy that raped her sister.”

            “What?” Zella and I both replied, stunned. I recalled that because of her sister’s ordeal, Lana had ended up taking her own life. As a result, Lindsey developed a subtle vendetta against men. She also developed a not so subtle hatred of the man that violated her sister! So what happened that a rapist not only avoided the plagues, but was in an embrace with his victim’s sister? I asked as much to Mick.

            “Yeah, their friendship surprised me too,” Mick admitted. “Kind of ironic that he showed up when we were getting to his part of Lindsey’s and my story.”

            “Did he play a role with your, um, romance?” Zella asked with a frown.

            “Actually he turned out to be a major obstacle,” Mick explained. “I perceived early on as Lindsey and I got know each other that her hostility toward him was slowly eating her alive. After a few months of virtual dating, she…”
            “What do you mean by virtual dating?” Zella interrupted.

            “I don’t know if that’s the right way to put it,” Mick replied. “What I mean is, that after Lindsey and I initially met, I was in the middle of a nationwide tour for our second album. So most of our time spent together over the first few months was over the phone.”

            “Okay, I see,” Zella said. “How far apart did you two actually live from each other?”

            I shook my head a little at my wife. I wanted to hear about Lindsey forgiving her sister’s rapist, not geography. Later for sure, but not now. But Zella only frowned at me and continued, “I mean when you weren’t on tour, where did you call home? She mentioned being from Duluth.”

            “Milwaukee,” Mick said. “Three hundred plus miles, but it could have been worse.”

            “Why is that?” Zella asked and I shook my head some more.

            “Actually what was worse than the long distance relationship in the beginning, was our sports rivalry. Mainly she was a Vikings fan while I was for the Packers. Baseball wasn’t so bad since her team, the Twins is in the American League and mine, the Brewers, is in the National League.”

            “I notice you say was,” Zella said, and I just sighed and then chuckled to myself. I needed to exercise the patience of the saints.

            “Yeah, well, we still liked our teams, but the closer we got to Christ the less sports mattered. It turned out we actually enjoyed our teams more when we didn’t take it so seriously.”

            “Amen!” Zella smiled.

            “Now we’re on the verge,” I began, and Zella shook her head. Her wide brown eyes mocking me playfully. “We are on the verge of Christ’s return and sports seem to be a thing of the past. A shadow of our time on earth.”

            “True enough,” Mick agreed.

            “Games people more often than not took too seriously,” Zella added. “When I used to see fans in the stand with their hands earnestly clasped over a close game, I used to think ‘if they only sought the Lord with that sense of urgency.’”

            Lindsey returned, making our threesome a foursome. Mick inquired, “Where’d Jared go?”

            “He just stopped by to see how we were all doing,” Lindsey replied. “He’s on his way to check on a guy that’s from his disabled veterans group.”

            “Mick was just telling us about your long distance relationship,” Zella said.

            “And he was just about to tell us about you and Jared,” I interrupted.

            Zella smirked at me. I knew she wanted to know just as badly as I did. But she knew I struggled more with patience than she did.

            “Yeah, me and Jared,” Lindsey sighed and then looked fondly at her husband. “The subject of Jared almost ended Mick and me before we really got started.”

            “But not for the usual reason another man causes a hiccup with a couple falling in love,” Mick interjected.

            “Yeah,” Lindsey chuckled. “I guess it’s not typical for a boyfriend to tell his girlfriend to seek out another guy.”

            “Here’s the thing,” Mick said. “I tried to convince her that she didn’t have to see him in person. Just call him or even simply write him a letter. I emphatically told her that just because you forgive someone, it does not mean you have to have a relationship with them, or associate with them afterward in anyway. Forgiveness is actually more for yourself.”

            “I was so torn,” Lindsey said solemnly. “I was angry with Mick for making me feel guilty over my sister’s rapist of all people. But what saved our new relationship was he didn’t push it. He gave me time to think on it. But for two or three months, it impeded our progress in becoming close. I had heard that Jared was a wounded war veteran. But I didn’t know the extent. Do you remember me mentioning my girlfriend, Tina Janis?”

            Zella and I acknowledged that we did.

            “So her sister Taylor was a nurse in Minneapolis. All of my girlfriends knew I had a vendetta against Jared. So Taylor calls me and asks me to keep something between us because she didn’t want to get in trouble for violating any privacy policies. I couldn’t fathom what kind of conspiracy she was going to reveal. Part of me wanted to tell her ‘no thanks.’

            “Tina had been my best friend at one time, but her younger sister Taylor was a pest and a busybody. But my nosy side won out, and I told her I would keep whatever it was to myself. That’s when she told me Jared had been admitted the previous night over a suicide attempt. Her tone as she told me was one that expected me to be delighted. But I felt sick to my stomach.

            “I think I remained neutral in my response, and I did thank her,” Lindsey had a tear float from her eye, and she swiped it. “I remembered something Mick had told me about our human condition…”

            Mick gave her a few seconds to make sure she wanted him to speak. Then he said, “I told her we humans are vessels that are either controlled by Satan or God at every moment. I had quoted C. S. Lewis where he said… By the way, I mean Clive Staples Lewis, the author, not Charles Scott Lewis, our friend that lives here.

            “Anyway to quote the author, ‘There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.’”

            “And that was forefront on my mind when Taylor told me about Jared,” Lindsey said, having composed herself for the moment. “That and his suicide attempt. I actually felt bad for him. For the first time. When I heard he had been badly wounded about a year before, back then I thought good he deserved it. But after meeting Mick, I began to read the Bible again.

            “After my sister’s demise, which I did blame Jared for, I often thought about the mental, spiritual state of victims of their own hand. I have been at some pretty dark places in my life. I’ve had countless bouts of depression. But I never got so low that I considered ending my life. So this gave me perspective. What must that immense darkness be like? I didn’t want to know. But that reality gave me empathy for even, dare I say it, for Jared.”

            Lindsey stared off into the distance. Her breathing became rapid and a couple tears leaked from her eyes. She turned to Mick. “Honey, you know the story almost as well as I do. Will you finish telling the Sallie’s? I’m getting a headache.”

            “You bet,” he replied, as Lindsey stood and walked quickly toward the house. After watching her go, he said, “Knowing it almost as well as she does is a stretch. But you have to understand. Her testimony about forgiveness is powerful. But more often than not, it zaps her emotionally. What with seeing Jared just now, it doesn’t surprise me that she wasn’t in a good place to share how her change of attitude came about.”

            “It’s understandable,” Zella said. “I noticed she watched him as he limped away.”

            Mick nodded. “So, she went to see him in the hospital. She wasn’t sure if she could muster the compassion she needed to forgive him. As she made her way through the hospital, she prayed and quoted scripture to herself. Still she had a supreme battle with self and the hostility she felt. Then she saw him.

            “He wasn’t the handsome all-American teenager she remembered. Although on the later side of his mid-twenties, he looked war weary and twenty years older than his actual age. He wasn’t long out of high school when 9/11 happened. He joined the Marines and served in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Three tours of duty in all, and on the last one he had a devastating encounter with a road side bomb.

            “He was drugged and a bit delirious when she saw him. When he saw Lindsey, he called her Lana and began crying and apologizing. He said he loved her and thought she loved him. She let him blubber for quite a while, then he fell asleep. She left him a note saying she was Lindsey and that she forgave him.

            “She left the hospital feeling both lighter for having gone through with it, yet sick at how broken such a young human being was. She hoped that was the end of it. But she didn’t realize during the stress of the meeting that she had written her phone number on the note she gave him.

            “He called her a few weeks later. They met for coffee and spent a long time talking. Lindsey saw how remorseful he was about Lana’s fragility and the role he played in her demise. He said he felt like a pervert due to his sin. He wanted to do something noble by joining the Marines. This aspect played as big of a role as patriotism had in his motivation to join.

            “Something else occurred to her that she had always purposely overlooked. Although no means no, no matter what! The young, immature couple had been participating in foreplay for a lengthy period of time. Then on the verge of consummation, Lana wanted to stop. As wrong as his actions were, it didn’t seem the same as if he had drugged her or was some guy that yanked her off the street and into some bushes.

            “The thing is, Jared didn’t truly feel forgiven by just reading the note Lindsey left in the hospital. Lindsey’s nurse friend told her that when Jared woke up in the hospital and discovered he was still alive, he was out of control angry. That’s why he was sedated when Lindsey visited him.

            “Lindsey found out later that when Jared called her, he had a phone in one hand and a gun in the other. Like Lana, he had been sort of considering others when he had taken an overdose of pills, only to have his stomach pumped. Also like Lana, he was gonna make sure with round two, regardless of the gory mess. He had made up his mind on a direction. If Lindsey agreed to get together, he would postpone his death so he could apologize in person. If she  wouldn’t see him in person, he was prepared to say a permanent goodnight to the world.”

            “So what changed Lindsey’s attitude that actually made her and Jared friends?” I asked. “I mean it seems one of the main things you said to convince her to forgive, was that forgiveness didn’t mean a relationship.”

            “When I noticed she was having regular contact with Jared, I asked her why. She said Jared asked about her faith, because he was surprised at the love she was showing him. He ended up giving his life to Christ, rather than ending it. She said she saw that he was a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17). He wasn’t the same person that date raped her sister. Behold, all things were new. ”

            “Amazing grace!” Zella said.

            “Amen, Sister Wife!” I added, and Mick arched an eyebrow.

            “Sister Wife, I like that,” he grinned. Then he added with a look of awe on his countenance. “She also shared another C. S. Lewis quote that moved him like nothing else. Especially coming from Lana’s sister. ‘You can’t go back and change the beginning. But you can start where you are and change the ending.’”

            “I love that,” Zella said.

            “It just goes to show you the ripple effect of good and evil,” Mick continued. “Because of how Lindsey forgave and then ministered to this one soul, he in turn has ministered to countless other fellow veterans.”

            “And all that hung in the balance with that one call,” I said. “A phone in one hand and a gun in the other. We often don’t realize how often life is only a matter of inches.”

BLACK SABBATH – CHAPTER 26

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

BLACK SABBATH

CHAPTER 26

ZELLA LaSTELLA-SALLIE

CAN YOU SEARCH OUT THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD? CAN YOU FIND OUT THE LIMITS OF THE ALMIGHTY? (Job 11:7)

            “Back up,” I petitioned Mick. “Didn’t that scare the daylights out of you to suddenly see a dog rushing toward you when you lifted your head?”

            “Sure it did,” he shrugged. “But it all happened so fast. Kind of like a close call in traffic. But after the first couple seconds, I could tell Jitts wasn’t mean.”

            Mick had just expressed reeling emotions after he had been praying in a remote area of some woods. He specifically had been praying for a Godly companion who could possibly be his future wife. As he was concluding his prayer, he was startled at movement to his right. It was a dog of German Shepard decent galloping toward him.

            “Self-preservation instinct produced a healthy shot of adrenaline through my system,” he continued. “But as I began to take a protective position, the canine slowed and I noticed the tail vigorously swaying back and forth. Also, rather than barking or growling Jitts was whining excitedly. He also seemed to be smiling.

            “So instead of exercising fight or flight, I greeted the fury creature. I accepted an invitation to pet and scratch the animal as he lay in front of me and exposed his belly. I remember his right front paw dangled to allow room for my hand to perform ministrations of doggie delight. Then all of a sudden this stunning vixen came charging up the trail hollering ‘Jitt’s!’

            “She stopped in her tracks, wide eyed and mouth gaping when she saw her dog and me. Her face looked like Bigfoot had just stepped out onto the trail in front of her. Her red-gold hair was pulled back tight against her scalp into a ponytail. I took in her black spandex which seemed to be painted on. So I averted my eyes back to the dog and frowned. My mind asked, “Is this an answer to what I had just been praying about?”

            “Time out,” Lindsey said. “Painted on? They were running shorts with top. Standard attire for women who run.”

            “And standard intrigue for guys who lust.”

             “Sounds like a guy problem.”

            “I suppose it depends on the guy as to whether it’s a problem or not. Anyway, I disciplined my eyes to stay above her neck and…

            “Gimme a break,” Lindsey interrupted again with a roll of her eyes.

            “Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar,” Mick sang.

            Lindsey and I laughed. Then she ordered, “Just tell the story. But I will make corrections if needed.”

            “Fair enough, so our dialogue went something like this. I said, “Hi.”

            “Hi,” she replied quickly, spitting out the greeting as if it tasted bad in her mouth.

            “I seem to have met your dog,” I said.

            “So I see,” she replied, crossing her arms abruptly and scowling, as if I had called Jitts away from her. But I thought she had called him Jet and said as much.

            “Oh, no, it’s Jitts. Actually Jitterbug. I call him Jitts for short,” she replied, losing her stern demeanor.

            “Jitterbug? That’s an interesting name.”

            “He’s a rescue dog,” she explained. “He shook uncontrollably when I first got him and, I don’t know, I just started calling him Jitterbug, then Jitts.”

            “I see.”

            “Were you praying?” she asked, almost like an accusation.

            “It was not like an accusation,” Lindsey added.

            “I acknowledged I was and she asked, ‘do you pray often?’”

            “Every day, multiple times a day. Do you pray?”

            “Not so much lately,” she confessed, taking a few steps toward me. Those painted on shorts were at head level and only three feet away, so I stood abruptly, my carnal nature protesting and Jitts hopped up with me and went next to his master. She unconsciously put a hand to her dog’s head. “By the way, I’m terribly sorry.”

            “For what?” I asked innocently.

            She laughed. “For my dog charging at you like a lunatic.”

            “Oh, that’s okay. I could tell right away he was friendly.”

            “I let him off his leash because he has never gone after anyone until now.”

            “Well, it’s an honor to be his first.”

            “Did Jitts ever chase after anyone again?” I interrupted.

            “No, but I was more careful going forward,” Lindsey explained and then looked at her husband as if for permission to take over telling the story. He gave a go ahead nod and she continued. “But I think Jitts running up to Mick was, this may sound silly, but I believe it was supernaturally inspired.”

            “That’s not silly,” I reassured. “Mick prayed and God answered using a dog.”

            “Happens every day,” Mick joked.

            “The thing is,” Lindsey said with a look of awe and reverence on her countenance. “If God hadn’t used Jitts to bring Mick and me together, I would never have known Mick wasn’t, what’s the word I’m looking for?”

            “A psychopath?” Mick interjected with an arched eyebrow.

            “No, silly,” she said, slapping his knee. “I would have never known you were worthy.”

            “And Jitts’ adoration of you let me know that you were worthy,” Mick added.

            “Fair enough,” Lindsey said with a satisfied smile. But then she scowled. “Even if I was wearing painted on clothes.”

            “I wasn’t implying you didn’t look good in them. As a matter of fact, after we married there was nothing I liked more than seeing you scantily clad.”

            “Scantily clad? I…”

            “So what happened next?” I interrupted, hoping to direct them away from their differing perspectives on attire.

            “Perceiving that he was a deeply spiritual man, thanks to Jitts,” Lindsey said. “I began to ask him about his faith and then admitted that I was struggling with mine. Which was an understatement. Then he shared the ‘He that began a good work in you’ verse (Philippians 1:6). I felt compelled to tell him about my sister, but I was torn. Part of me wanted to flee, frightened of my attraction, and another part of me would have married him on the spot.”

            “All because Jitts took to him, you would have married him on the spot?” I asked with a playful smile.

            “I do exaggerate a little, but Jitts was the biggest part of my feeling drawn to him to be sure,” she admitted. “But he also was very attractive. And I don’t mean just physically. It was like there was a light in his eyes, and a gentleness in his demeanor, but also a strength in his character.”

            Lindsey looked at her husband, so I did as well. He looked a little embarrassed. I probably didn’t help by asking, “So what about you, big fella? Would you have married her on the spot?”

            “No,” he blurted, and they both started laughing, so I joined their mirth. Then he explained. “I say no only because my head was spinning. I mean think about it. I pray for a potential wife and, forgive me if this is an improper term, a goddess just shows up in a remote part of a forest the very moment I had been praying for something of that ilk.”

            “Then my friend unintentionally ruined the fairy tale,” Lindsey said and smiled wanly. Then she shrugged. “She was actually trying to help pair me up with Mick, but in the moment of my fickle emotions, I took it as a sign to flee from him.”

            “It was an odd couple days for both of us,” Mick interjected. “She had talked about her floundering faith during our brief conversation. So it never occurred to me that she would show up at a Christian concert an hour away from where we had met the previous day.”

            “There were four bands in total,” Lindsey took over. “But Mick’s band was the special guest of the headliner. Because my friend had an in with the headliner, we had excellent first balcony seats. There were, I don’t know, four or five thousand at the show. So it wasn’t like the Stones or Taylor Swift, but still a lot of people. And we were so close, I could have spit on a band member when they came to the left side of their stage.”

            “And that’s how we met a second time,” Mick said. “She spit on me.”

            He said this with such a straight face, I frowned and said, “Really?”

            “No,” Lindsey replied as they both laughed.

            “Obviously you two re-met at the show, so how did that come about?” I asked.

            “The first two bands just seemed loud to me,” Lindsey said. “I was more soft rock or country. Thankfully they only played twenty or thirty minutes. When they were almost done setting up for Cornerstone, which was Mick’s band, a girlfriend leans in and says, “These next guys will be a lot better and play for about an hour.”

            “An hour! I thought. I began to analyze my options. The best thing I could come with is saying I didn’t feel well and have my aunt come get me. We were crashing at her place that night anyway. I was just about to tell my girlfriends that I was gonna leave. But the lights went down and a roar went up. The crowds reaction was way more enthusiastic than for the previous two bands. So I figured I would give them a chance.

            “When the band seemed to explode onto the stage, I was beyond surprised when the lead singer looked familiar. It was the guy Jitts charged in the woods! Tina Janis, the girlfriend that was with me in the woods, leaned forward and looked at me with pure astonishment. Both of our mouths hung open. You could have pushed me over with a feather.

            “There was another girlfriend, Heather Johnson, in between us, and she looked back and forth at us with a puzzled expression. She was also annoyed because we were interfering with her observance of the performance. Then Tina said something into her ear and Heather looked at me with a frown and mouthed, “Really?”

            “I shrugged and then kept my eyes glued on Mick for most of their set. Their music was heavier than I prefer at first. But then it turned out that they had some mellower songs that I really, really liked. One song in particular had me as stunned as when I first saw Mick come onto the stage. The song spoke to me about coming back to God and having a closer walk with Jesus.

            “I had heard the song numerous times when I tuned into Christian radio. The song both drew me in, but sometimes frustrated me, depending on my mood. Sometimes I would listen to it and weep, longing for my broken relationship with Jesus to heal. It made me long for the peace I felt as a little girl as we left church. But another side would make me feel so guilty for my spiritual neglect and rebellion. Yet I never turned it off.

            “Now, here I was listening to it live. The singer only about thirty feet away. The singer was the dream guy I had met the previous day. The singer was the only guy, only person actually, that Jitts ever had charged up to happily.

            “I was wearing a baseball cap with my ponytail laced through the back. I pulled it down low so my friends couldn’t see my watery eyes. Because we were so close I was also afraid Mick would recognize me. Ironic since I had went looking for him the previous day.

            “But what was I gonna do with somebody who was something like a rock star, albeit a Christian one? Plus, I was pretty sure he wasn’t from the Duluth area. Shoot, I wasn’t even sure if the attraction was mutual. All I knew was that I was infatuated with him. He probably thought I was a careless, irresponsible fool who just let her unruly dog run wild.”

            “The truth was,” Mick took over. “The attraction was indeed mutual. But I had moved on already and had her out of my mind by morning. I fancied myself a realist. God doesn’t always answer prayers instantly. By her showing up like that, dressed with not much to leave to the imagination, and espousing lack of faith. Well, I figured Satan might just be trying to trick me. You know like the warning from Proverbs about avoiding the immoral woman.”

            “Thanks a lot!” Lindsey responded, giving him a light slug on his upper arm.

            “So if you tried to hide by pulling your hat low,” I asked. “What happened that you ended up meeting again?”

            “Because Heather’s cousin was H. R. Puffin, the headliner, we had acquired back stage passes,” Lindsey said. “But it turned out to be a little frustrating. I didn’t see Mick or any of his band mates anywhere. Then Puffin himself flirted with me.”

            Lindsey shook her head, laughed and covered her face with a hand.

            “What’s so funny?” I asked, grinning.

            “She hurt Puffin’s ego,” Mick said matter of fact.

            “Even though he was supposed to be a Christian, he apparently was used to women admiring him, not asking him about another one of the lesser stars,” Lindsey explained.

            “You asked him where Mick was?” I asked.

            “I did. Right after he asked if I would like to go somewhere private and talk.”

            “Did he help you?”

            “I’ve got to hand it to him, he did. Although begrudgingly. He said Cornerstone were still out in the arena at their merch table, signing autographs and talking to fans.”

            “What’s a merch table?” I asked, being unfamiliar with concerts.

            “Merch is short for merchandize,” Mick answered. “It’s an area where bands sell shirts, posters, stickers, C.D.’s, and such.”

            “Puffin made a point of telling me he didn’t go to his merch table because he would be there for hours. Anyway, I went back out into the arena. I saw there were still a couple dozen people in line to meet the band. I bought one of their C.D.’s and joined the end of the line to get it signed.

            “I noticed they asked the name of the person they were signing an autograph for. So then they would write ‘To so and so’ before they signed their name…”

            Lindsey started laughing, so Mick finished. “She says to me, my dog is a big fan of yours, could you make this out to Jitts?”

            “I looked up at her in utter astonishment as she took her hat off and grinned at me… You could have knocked me over with a feather!”

(Writer’s note: My stories have sometimes been motivated by music, and I’ve always wanted to implement songs into a story. So I’m doing a little experiment if you are interested in playing along. Not doing so will in no way take away from the story itself.

            So here’s a little supplement to today’s edition. The song I had in mind that moved Lindsey during Mick’s show was a song by the band ‘Kutless’ called ‘Run.’ If you listen to Christian radio, you might recognize it. It was especially played several years ago. It can be easily found on YouTube.)

BLACK SABBATH – CHAPTER 25

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

BLACK SABBATH

CHAPTER 25

ZELLA LaSTELLA-SALLIE

THE END OF A THING IS BETTER THAN ITS BEGINNING. THE PATIENT IN SPIRIT IS BETTER THAN THE PROUD IN SPIRIT. (Ecclesiastes 7:8)

            As several of us sat on the deck, Lindsey Wadena had just shown me a picture on her phone of the very meeting between her and her husband. She had said a dog had played match maker between them. I had witnessed something similar myself with Willa Waconia and Billy Bob Booker. The parallel between Lindsey and Mick’s romantic account and the one I witnessed several years ago had my curiosity at a peek.

            A friend of Lindsey’s had taken the photo when she witnessed her asexual gal pal chatting it up with a bare chested young stud. Standing beside her, gazing fondly up at Mick was a German Shepard mix. His name was Jitterbug.

            “He was such a scared little boy when I first got him,” Lindsey explained. “He was only about six months old and would just start trembling for no apparent reason. A friend of mine rescued him from a horrible situation. He was undernourished and had been abused. My friend already had five dogs, so I took him in.

            “He was called Nacho when I first got him. But as I spoke softly to him and nurtured him, I would say ‘aren’t you just a little jitterbug.’ I didn’t really care for the name Nacho; it just didn’t seem to fit him. Then a girlfriend suggested I call him Jitterbug, and then I started calling him Jitts for short.

            “It didn’t take too long for his trembling to go away. But I began to notice a pattern with him. Every time a guy came around he would hide and start trembling again. This didn’t happen very often. I didn’t have a boyfriend and I seldom dated. So it was usually my dad or my brother.”

            As a woman of around fifty, Lindsey was certainly nice looking. But the photo she showed me in her mid-twenties revealed an absolute knock out. She also looked like she stepped out of a fitness magazine in her spandex shorts and sports bra. So I had to ask, “So, you just weren’t interested in romance?”

            “Yes and no,” she replied. Then her large almond shaped eyes looked sad. “I had my own tragedy when I was a teenager. Maybe that’s why Jitts and I bonded so well.”

            “Were you abused?” I asked softly, cautiously.

            She shook her head and I noticed her jaw tighten. “When I was thirteen and my sister Lana was sixteen, she was date raped.”

            “Oh no!” I couldn’t help blurting.

            She bowed her head and nodded. “It was horrible. What made it worse was I had such a major crush on her boyfriend.”

            There was an awkward silence for a long moment. Selfishly I felt disappointed. For I was desiring a heartwarming story similar to the one I experienced with my dog Free, not an ugly recount of an innocent girl defiled by unbridled lust.

            “Three months after the ordeal,” Lindsey continued. “Lana swallowed all of her antidepressant medications and some sleeping pills. Her stomach was pumped and she spent a few weeks in a psychiatric unit of a hospital. The very day she was released, she slit her wrists in the bath tub. This time she didn’t survive.”

            “I’m so, so sorry,” I told her. She nodded and as she wiped at a tear. It struck me that even after all these years, the pain of her sister’s torment and death lurked just beneath the surface of her soul. How many such people have we encountered, unaware of the pain they keep hidden. It was a lesson for me about being kind to everyone we meet, despite any sour dispositions they may have.

            “I’m sorry as well, for that depressing little antidote,” Lindsey said, forcing a smile. “But I guess I needed to tell the back story of Jitts and me, and how he ended up unwittingly setting me up with Mick.”

            Lindsey showed me another picture. This one was of a teenage girl and a dog that looked similar to Jitts. The teenage girl also looked similar to Lindsey. But she wasn’t the striking beauty Lindsey was in the first photo she showed me of her, Mick and Jitts. Lana looked wholesome in a long dress with her hair pulled back, grinning from ear to ear with a crooked tooth smile.

            “I love her big grin in this pic,” Lindsey said with a sentimental smile. “Lana was bi-polar. She was also painfully shy and timid, yet sometimes she could be volatile and angry. But Yoda brought her out of her shell like no one else could.”

            “Yoda?” I asked with an arched eyebrow.

            “Our brother was a huge Star Wars fan,” she laughed. “When he suggested Yoda, Lana thought it was a good fit. You can see there was another reason I fell in love with Jitts.”

            “Yeah, they look like they came from the same litter,” I commented.

            “Anyway, I was leery of guys, I guess because of what happened to Lana. Jitts didn’t like guys and was afraid of them. So I developed a personal rule. If Jitts didn’t like a guy and hid, I wouldn’t continue to go out with him. This rule proved to be somewhat unreasonable. I didn’t realize Jitts would cower from virtually every guy he came across. The only guy that won him over was my brother, and he is not the macho type at all.

            “So when I met Mick, I was twenty-two. I’d had Jitts for about four years and had zero love life. Come to think of it, maybe Jitts wanted me all to himself,” she laughed. “Until he invited Mick into my life that is.”

            Mick must have been overhearing our conversation because he interjected. “I don’t know about that. Every time we sat next to each other, he nosed in between us.”

            “Yeah, but then what happened a few months in?” Lindsey replied with a disapproving, yet light hearted gaze.

            “Whatever do you mean?” Mick responded innocently.

            She chuckled and looked at me. “I mean that a few months in, Jitts turned his primary affections onto Mick. He followed him wherever he went. He stopped nosing between us and just crawled onto Mick’s lap.”

            “The big lug,” Mick laughed. “Seventy five pounds isn’t exactly a lap dog.”

            “So how did Jitts play match maker?” I asked eagerly.

            “A friend of mine had this cousin that was a pretty famous Christian rock rapper. His stage name is H. R. Puffin.”

            “I’ve heard of him,” I interjected.

            “So she, me and two other girlfriends were going to his show in Madison, Wisconsin. Mick’s band turned out to be Puffin’s special guest on the tour. My friends and I all lived in Duluth at the time. I wasn’t into the concert at all. I didn’t know or necessarily like Puffin’s music or big crowds. But we were gonna camp at Devil’s Head the day before, and rock climb and hike. Nature was what I was really into! Plus I had an aunt that lived near Madison, and she was willing to watch Jitts while we went to the show. So I agreed to go on the trip.

            “So we were at Devil’s Head the day before the show. One of my girlfriends and I went for a run and Jitts came with us. We had just run some hills and was walking to catch our breath.  Then Jitts just up and runs off like a flash.

            “There was a shirtless guy kneeling in front of a log. His elbows were on top of the log and doubled fists were on his forehead. It seemed he was praying. It also seemed that Jitts was charging toward him. Jitts never approached anyone, male or female. But like I said, especially male. That’s why I was comfortable not having him on a leash.

            “I felt a surge of panic! This was so out of character for Jitts. I chased after him and called. But he kept going. I thought for sure he was gonna lunge with bared teeth. I called and called. The man, who turned out to be Mick, raised his head and looked with surprise at my charging dog.

            “But then Jitts slowed and I could not believe what I saw. His tail was wagging as hard as I had ever seen it. Then Jitts surprised me even further. He prostrated himself at Mick’s feet. Well, actually his knees.

            “So I come running up ready to pull my suddenly vicious dog off of the man. But Jitts was squirming and whining excitedly, his tail thumping on the ground. Mick was grinning and petting him and telling him what a good boy he was. I must have stared for the longest time, unable to comprehend what I was witnessing.”

            “It wasn’t even a minute,” Mick interjected with a chuckle. “But it turned out to be an answer to prayer, I just didn’t know it at the time.”

            “He had been praying for me,” Lindsey said happily.

            “But you didn’t even know her, right?” I asked with a frown.

            “I didn’t, and even after our encounter that day, I didn’t know who I was praying for.”

            “You’re losing me,” I replied with a questioning smile.

            Mick chuckled. “Let me back up. There were four of us in the band called Cornerstone. We all grew up together, went to Christian school together. We were all the real deal. By that I mean devout and serious about our faith. The four of us were tight and made a pact of celibacy until married. So two of us married high school sweethearts the year after we graduated.

            “The week before I met Lindsey, our guitar player, Matt, got married. We were all only in our early twenties, yet I was now the only unmarried one in the band. I wasn’t jealous, yet I really wanted to find a mate more than ever. Being in the position I was, especially as lead singer, I had scores of female admirers. But just like Lindsey had her reasons for being leery of guys, I was leery of gals that were smitten because I was in a popular band.

            “I mean, we weren’t a household name by any stretch. But on the Christian rock scene, we were becoming a pretty big deal. And as our fame spread, it seemed it was going to be harder and harder to meet that special someone, as strange as that may sound. It was ironic since I met countless attractive females at every show. But yet I had it in my head that a woman I met at a Cornerstone show was only interested in Mick the singer, not the person.”

            “But then Mick and I met a second time at his show the next night,” Lindsey laughed. “So he ended up marrying a woman he met at one of his shows after all.”

            “Not fair, we met in the woods, and Jitts introduced us.”

            “True enough, but we did go our separate ways in a matter of minutes, figuring we’d never see each other again.”

            “So out in the woods where you met, how long was your dialogue and what did you say to each other?” I asked.

            “First I said I was sorry about Jitts charging up to him,” Lindsey laughed.

            “Then she asked me if I had been praying and I acknowledged that I had.”

            “Then we just stared at each other for a long time.”

            “It was probably only twenty or thirty seconds,” Mick laughed.

            “It’s hard to tell because it sure felt like several minutes.”

            “But we were both dumbfounded. Me because I had just been praying that God would help me find a soulmate. And she because Jitts rarely took to guys.”

            “Try never,” Lindsey corrected.

            “What about your brother?”

            “He had to win him over after a few encounters. Until you, he never took to a guy right off the bat. Anyway, we started talking about spiritual things. I felt compelled to tell him about my struggles with faith, my rebellion toward God.

            “I remember he shared the verse ‘he that has begun a good work in you will complete it’ (Philippians 1:6). I had such a strange tug of war going on inside of me. I had never been so drawn to a guy in my life! Yet I had so conditioned myself toward asexuality, that this other part of my brain was screaming, get away from him!”

            “And you did,” Mick laughed.

            Lindsey looked at Mick and then back at me. “My girlfriend, God bless her, was trying to assist Jitts in setting me up with Mick. After he and I had been talking for five or ten minutes, she sidled up next to me and said she was going back to our camper and that I should take my time. But I used her interruption as both a sign and an excuse to get away from the hot guy.”

            “She meant temperature by hot,” Mick said. “It was about ninety degrees and humid.”

            “I wasn’t talking temperature at all,” she responded with a coy smile. “He looked good with no shirt. But on the other hand, I was a little put off that he didn’t put his shirt on as we talked.”

            “But I didn’t have one with me,” Mick defended. “It was back at my campsite.”

            “I may have gotten away from him as fast as I could,” Lindsey continued. “But I could not get him out of my mind. Who was he? I didn’t even get his name. Where did he live? What was it about him that drew Jitts to him? How could that even be?

            “As I took a shower back at the camper, I almost fell down kicking myself in the behind. What was I thinking blowing off the closest thing to a perfect man I ever had encountered! I dried off and went looking for him, got super sweaty in the process, which negated the shower I had taken. But it was to no avail, I didn’t see him. I was so disappointed.”

            “I too was disappointed,” Mick added. “I had literally just prayed that God would put the woman of HIS choice into my life. Then this happy dog nudges me out of my reverence. I says to the dog, ‘well hi fella, but you’re not what I had in mind when I was praying.’ Then I look up and see Lindsey running toward us, calling Jitts. Then I said to him, ‘but she just might be!’

            “But then after several minutes talking with her, she bolted like she was just called to put out a fire. I kept an eye out for her the rest of the day, but to no avail. I was so disappointed to be teased like that. I tried not to have a complaining attitude, but I prayed again, simply asking, ‘Lord why put that intriguing woman in front of me, only to have her walk away?’

            “After praying I grabbed my Bible. I like to randomly open it and see what my eyes hit on first that I had previously underlined. That night my eyes landed on Psalm 27:14. ‘Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord!’

BLACK SABBATH – CHAPTER 24

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

BLACK SABBATH

CHAPTER 24

SEVEN SALLIE

GOD IS OUR REFUGE AND STRENGTH, A VERY PRESENT HELP IN TROUBLE. THEREFORE WE WILL NOT FEAR THOUGH THE EARTH BE REMOVED. (Psalm 46:1, 2)

            The sunset was bizarrely beautiful. I’d never seen anything like it. It was both breath taking, yet ominous. Who would have thought a sunset could pose such a contradiction in our minds. It was like a living object lesson of Psalm 85:10. ‘Mercy and truth have met together. Righteousness and peace have met together.’

            Brilliant reds, greens, yellows, pinks, blues, and violets swirled together. Have you ever noticed how fast a colorful sunset can change into darkness? Well this sunset changed and morphed colors five times faster than usual. Yet darkness came five times slower than usual. And the color schemes just kept changing and moving.

             The fourth plague fell the previous day. Unrepentant humanity was scorched with great heat (Revelation 16:8, 9). Yet those of us who had the seal of God were protected. It was as if we were encased in an unseen bubble. The cells of God’s people scattered throughout the world experienced the same protection. Our friends and family back in Eastern Iowa were experiencing a similar shield that we were. I was so grateful to hear my daughter’s voice as she related this information to me.

            We had all had a restless night as the judgements of God continued to fall. Not that we feared for ourselves, for we loved Jesus (John 14:15) and had kept the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus (Revelation 14:12). We were concerned for the unprotected. We mourned for friends and loved ones that sided with the commandments of men rather than the commandments of God.

            We took courage that the plagues indicated that the second coming of Jesus Christ was very, very soon.  The most stunning sunset our eyes had ever seen made us think of our Lord coming in the clouds of heaven. Not in some secret rapture.  

            John the Revelator tells us in the very first chapter, verse seven, that every eye will see Him. Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 that the Lord Himself will descend with a shout, with the voice of an arch angel, and with the trumpet of God. In Acts chapter one, when Jesus arose to heaven, verse eleven tells us that He would come in like manner.

            1 Thessalonians 4:18 tells us we should comfort one another regarding the second coming of Christ. Revelation 21:4 assures us that God would wipe away every tear and that there would be no more death, sorrow, or crying. There would be no more pain, for the former things will have passed away.

            Inga, C.S., who was formerly known as Jackson, Zella and I were sitting on C. S.‘s deck. We were comforting each other about the second coming of Christ as we watched the unique sunset. We were all excited, yet troubled by the falling of the plagues. So we were exercising the Bible instruction to exhort one another daily (Hebrews 3:13).

            It must have worked. C.S. got a boyish grin on his face as he took hold of Inga’s hand. “Come see, a quarter mile through the woods is a large pond. It wasn’t affected by the third plague. Sunsets are amazing there. This one will be absolutely phenomenal.”

            But Inga resisted and frowned. “This is the most interesting sunset I’ve ever seen; but I don’t like what it represents.”

            C. S. frowned back. “What do you mean?”

            “The reason the sunset is so unique is because the fourth plague has fallen. That means  fallen humanity has been scorched with great heat.”

            “Don’t think about that,” he petitioned. “There’s nothing we can do about it now. God is a righteous judge. Think of it as Christ’s imminent return being incredibly soon.”

            “C. S. is right, Inga,” I added. “The loud cry of the three angels messages was sufficiently broadcast. Everyone had their chance to accept or reject the God of Creation.”

            Inga pondered this for a minute. A girlish grin grew onto her face as she did so, and then they were off, walking hand in hand toward the woods. Zella smiled sentimentally as she watched them while I watched her. Her beautiful ebony skin glowed in the fast changing but slowly fading sunlight. “I think love has been rekindled.”

            “Were they in love the first time?” I asked.

            “There must have been something.”

            “Yeah, but Inga despised him for almost a decade. What we’re witnessing is new, fresh.”

            “No, I say there was something. Circumstances all those years ago just caused Inga to take a step back on her feelings.”

            “More like a leap.”

            “Life’s a strange trip,” she said with a shrug.

            I put arm around her and kissed her mouth. Aunt Holly and Benny were at the neighbors, so we were alone. I kissed her again and she giggled. “No wonder you talked Inga into going with C. S.”

            “I don’t know that I talked her into it,” I grinned. “But I was hoping for some alone time with the most beautiful woman on the planet.”

            “Aw, you’re sweet,” she said aiming a big eyed smile my way. I arose and moved to sit on her lap. She stopped me by placing both hands on my back side. “I don’t think so!”

            “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

            “Sit back down,” she ordered. Then she arose and moved to sit on my lap. Unlike her, I allowed it. To my immense pleasure, she kissed me and I mean deeply. I wrapped my arms around her and planned on much more of the same. But it wasn’t to be.

            Inga and C. S. had entered the woods that surrounded the acreage via a trail to the southwest. From the northeast side of the woods we heard the crunch of leaves, the snap of a twig and the murmur of voices. Half a dozen people began to emerge from the woods and Zella sprang from my lap as though it were on fire… Drat!

            The little band was led by Benny and his two friends, a boy and a girl. Holly was with the children’s parents. The couple appeared to be close to Zella and myself in age. They made their way to the deck and Holly introduced us to Mick and Lindsey Wadena.

            Mick was medium height, burly and had thinning blonde hair. Lindsey had short strawberry blond hair. She reminded me of Mary Poppins, but it was probably the old fashioned dress she was wearing.

             “Wow, you’re Seven Sallie,” Mick declared.

            I opened my mouth to reply, but Zella beat me to it. With an exaggeratedly deep voice she said, “Yes indeed, it is he, the venerable Seven Sallie.”

            They all laughed and I looked at my wife. She giggled. “You always look like Daffy Duck when you’re exasperated.”

            They all laughed again, and I couldn’t help chuckling along with them. Then something happened that I didn’t know how to take. Mick was commenting on the strange sunset, but I was  overhearing Lindsey discreetly whisper to Holly, “I thought you said he looks like George Clooney.”

            “I just meant sort of,” Holly whispered back.

            Was this a compliment or a dis? Oh well, I wasn’t even meant to hear it.

            “So you know Arlo Aldo?” I asked Mick.

            “I do indeed,” he replied. “Eli Alderson also.”

            Eli was Arlo’s bandmate. They were both in a Satanic band for many years, and then after their conversion they started a Christian band. Mick rehashed what C. S. had already told me about Arlo vacationing up here and teaching them about the Biblical Sabbath. Then he went on to explain about him and C. S. sharing their information with others in their neck of the woods.

            “As a matter of fact,” Mick was saying. “I think it would be a great comfort if you talked to some friends of ours, Jack and Jill Hill. They…”

            “Jack and Jill Hill?” I asked. “Hill is really their last name? As in Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pale of water?”

            “Yeah, it really is,” he laughed. “Sorry, I guess I’m just used to it after all these years. They have an interesting love story. They became close friends as kids, preteens actually. Jack went by Johnny back then. But then when he and Jill started hanging out, his friends and siblings started calling him Jack to go with her Jill. His dad was John Senior, but went by Jack, so I guess it was a bit of a combination.

            “Anyway, Jill moved away, and they didn’t see each other again for several years. Then Jill showed up at one of his shows a thousand miles from where they first got to know each other. I actually witnessed their reunion. Our bands were touring together at the time. It was a pretty special, memorable moment.”

            “Your own coming together with Lindsey was pretty special too,” Aunt Holly said.

            “Yeah, I suppose it was,” Mick replied, looking fondly at his wife.

            Lindsey seemed like a pretty serious, no nonsense type of person. But she grinned and told us. “Would you believe a dog played cupid?”

            It took me a couple seconds to absorb a dog playing match maker in a romance. However, it wasn’t something I was foreign to. Zella had a rescue dog, a chocolate Labrador named Free. She had been horribly abused. She was blind in one eye and walked with a limp, among other things.

            Free disliked and was afraid of male human beings. The bigger and more macho, the more her disdain. Then one day a big, tall, muscular man with a deep voice came into Zella’s herb and health food shop. Free was in the store that day because Zella’s living quarters upstairs was being painted.

            Although she had warned Billy Bob Booker to keep his distance from Free, the gentle bear of a man couldn’t resist the wounded animal. To Zella’s utter shock, Free couldn’t resist him either. After she witnessed her dog offer up her belly to be scratched by the big man, she had to tell her best friend Willa what happened. In turn, Willa couldn’t resist wanting to get to know Billy Bob herself.

            I looked at my wife. Her stunned expression turned to one of curiosity. “You two were match made by a dog?”

            “Yeah,” they both said at the same time, and  then chuckled.

            “Please tell us about it,” Zella petitioned eagerly. She sat back in her chair, crossed her arms, and anticipated their story.

BLACK SABBATH – CHAPTER 21

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

BLACK SABBATH

CHAPTER 21

SEVEN SALLIE

OH, THE DEPTH OF THE RICHES BOTH OF THE WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE OF GOD! HOW UNSEARCHABLE ARE HIS JUDGEMENTS AND HIS WAYS PAST FINDING OUT! (Romans 11:33)

            “Seven watch where you’re going!” my wife bellowed just as I veered our Subaru Outback back onto the dirt road after putting the passenger side wheels a couple feet onto the grassy shoulders.

            Inga had just stunned us by informing Zella and me that she had become pregnant as a fifteen year old girl. The impregnator happened to be the guy we were looking for in northern Minnesota. In my surprise I had glanced over my right shoulder at Inga, who was sitting in the back seat.

            This inadvertently caused my hand on the steering wheel to move along with my head. Or as my cousin Brock once called it after I got us into some trouble as teenagers, that lump  attached to my neck. His assessment may have proven correct, because my words caused my wife’s lovely dark brown eyes to produce daggers and her lovely lips to purse as if biting a lemon.

            “Did you abort?” I had asked.

            “Seven, that was crass,” Zella scolded. Then her countenance turned compassionate as she aimed it at Inga. “You don’t have to answer that.”

            “No, it’s okay,” Inga replied quietly and looked out of her window for a few seconds before admitting. “I kept him but then lost him.”

            “You mean you miscarried?” Zella gently asked.

            “No,” her voice croaked. “Jackson sort of became my boyfriend. We supposedly tried to be careful when it came to, you know, intimacy. But, well, I still ended up with a bun in the oven. He took me to some relative of his, I think it was a relative anyway. I never did understand what she was to him, an aunt, a cousin, I don’t know.”

            Inga shook her head and gazed thoughtfully out of the window again.

            “You don’t have to recount your situation, Sweety,” my wife told her.

            Yes she does, I selfishly thought. I want to know what happened.

            “No, I want you guys to know what happened. I want you to know what Jackson was like, even though I don’t understand him myself. Let me say this though. If Jackson Bronx has avoided the plagues, that is the biggest surprise to me of anyone. By far! I believe he got me pregnant on purpose. He… He…”

            Inga put her face in her hands and began sobbing. She spoke into her hands and her words, though muffled, were clear enough. “I don’t want to see him. I don’t understand why we were sent here. What do I say to this man I despise, even if he did somehow repent. He must have. He had to have. How else…”

            Inga paused. “Repent from what?” I asked.

            My wife’s leg twitched and I perceived that she wanted to kick me. “Seven, give her space. Did you forget to take your Genius Juice this morning?”

            “No, I took it.”

            “Could have fooled me.”

            “Sorry, Inga,” I said.

            “It’s okay,” Inga replied meekly. My heart ached for her. I was used to seeing her bold and feisty. It hurt seeing her so broken. But then her feistiness came back with a punch as she angrily declared, “Jackson groomed our baby for a satanic sacrifice.”

            “What!” Zella and I said at the same time. Then I only added to my wife’s ire by adding, “And you let him?”

            “No, I did not let him!” she barked heatedly. Then her demeanor shifted to solemn and she spoke with a monotone voice. “Benjamin wasn’t even a month old. Jackson and that witchy woman came and took him out of my arms as I was nursing him. They had two goons with them. Jackson, just as cold as could be, said ‘it is time for us to make our offering to the master.’

            “I was dumbfounded and demanded to know what he was talking about. Just as pleased as punch, that witchy woman, everyone called her Jezzy, explained about the satanic ritual. I went historical, but the two goons grabbed me. One of them put something over my face. It was a rag with chloroform or something.

            “The next thing I knew, I woke up in some woods behind this big mansion type house where I had my baby. Why they didn’t kill me I don’t know. But I got outta there with only the clothes on my back and hitchhiked back to town. That was a nightmare in itself. I don’t want to go into that right now though.

            “But when I finally get to the cop shop, the police acted like I was just a crazy lunatic. I guess I can’t blame them. And I guess that’s why the goons didn’t kill me. They knew the police wouldn’t believe me. But the police did let me use their phone to call my sister. And that was the beginning of us becoming homeless vagabonds.”

            “Wow, no wonder you’re not looking forward to facing Jackson,” I said.

            “Ya think,” Inga snapped. “Sorry. It’s just that I don’t have a clue how I am supposed to behave. I mean, am I really supposed to forgive the man that killed my baby. He was even the father of the child. I can’t fathom how that depth of evil avoided the plagues thus far.”

            “I don’t know what to tell you, Honey,” Zella said. “The only thing I can say is Jesus asked for forgiveness for those who tortured and killed Him.” (Luke 23:34)

            “Yeah,” Inga said meekly as she folded her hands in her lap, chewed her lip and gazed out of her window.

            A couple minutes later, GPS announced we were there. We already knew that as all six of our eyes were trained on a log cabin type house. It looked like something from a century or two ago. It had a small eight by ten foot porch with two rocking chairs.

            “Seven, why don’t you go knock on the door?” Zella petitioned.

            Why me! My mind shouted, yet I forced my actions to nobility. “Okay.”

            I tried three times, but no one came and I heard nothing inside. The cabin was on a bit of a hill, and the back side was twice as big as the front. There was a large deck supported by ten foot tall four by fours. About fifteen stairs jutted to the side of the structure.

            I heard low voices coming from the deck. With heart pounding I placed my foot on the first step, then the second step, then from my voice box came a greeting, “Hello?”

            The talking stopped and a twenty something year old man appeared at the top of the stairs. Thankfully he returned my greeting, albeit cautiously. “Hello.”

            He had sandy blonde hair and blue eyes looked at me through wire rimmed glasses. My first thought was that this couldn’t be Jackson. Inga described him with black hair and dark eyes. There were four deck chairs. Three were empty, but one was occupied by an older woman who appeared to be in her seventies.

            The sandy haired man held a Bible in his hand. With a friendly, but careful tone he asked, “Can I help you?”

            “I’m looking for a fella by the name of Jackson Bronx,” I told him.

            He looked stunned and took a step back. “May I ask why and who you are?”

            I chuckled nervously. “Well, it’s complicated, and might sound farfetched.”

            “Try me,” he said almost as a challenge and with narrowed eyes.

            “My name is Seven Sallie, I…”

            “Thee Seven Sallie?” the older lady broke in with an air of excitement as she arose and stood by the sandy haired man. “The legendary broadcaster?”

            With a little bit of a bow and a hand on my chest, I replied, “Yes ma’am, it is I.”

            My mind’s ear heard my lovely wife say, ‘Give me break.’ It was definitive enough that I even turned to see if she was behind me. She wasn’t. I also wondered if I should explain to this nice lady that my little head bow and hand to the chest was spontaneous, and that my mock humility sprang from praise actually making me uncomfortable.

            This wasn’t always the case with me. When I was a secular broadcaster with a syndicated show on hundreds of radio stations, I was full of myself. But after my Christian conversion, I began mocking my old self. I occasionally joked that I was a legend in my own time. Then my wife would finish my statement by declaring that I was a legend in my own mind. This usually garnered a laugh from the company we kept.

            The converted me enjoyed the tranquility of not taking myself so seriously. The born again me (John 3:3-7), the new creation I became (2 Corinthians 5:17), enjoyed true peace giving God the glory rather than myself.

            “Okay,” the sandy haired man said matter of fact, clearly not as impressed with me as his older companion.  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Sallie. But why are you here then?”

            “I’m with a young woman named Inga Likas. She…”

            “Inga Likas!” he interrupted with wide eyes. He definitely was more interested in Inga rather than the venerable Seven Sallie.

            “Yes, also known as Inga…”

            “Cognito,” he interrupted again.

            “Right, so apparently you know her.”

            “Of course I do.”

            “Okay, great,” I replied, frowning as I wrapped my mind around this second guy. “So do you know where Jackson Bronx is?”

            “You’re looking at him.”

            I looked to my right and to my left. Inga described Jackson as having black hair and dark  eyes. This guy in front of me had sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Inga described you as having black hair and brown eyes.”

            “When I knew her, I dyed my hair and wore colored contacts,” he said quickly, then grabbed my forearm and asked excitedly, “Is she here?”

            I looked at his hand on my arm and he pulled it away. “Sorry.”

            “No problem,” I replied. “Yeah, she’s around front.”

            He went down the deck stairs two at a time and I followed. Inga and Zella were slowly roaming around the front yard. Their heads swiveling as they took in the woods that surrounded about an acre of lawn. Inga froze as Jackson approached her.

            “Inga!” he said with open arms as if to hug her.

            She took a couple quick steps back and ordered, “Stay away from me.”

            He put up his hands in a surrender gesture.

            The front door opened and an eight or nine year-old boy ran to Jackson. “Papa, Aunt Holly said Inga was here.”

            My eyes went from the boy to Inga. I never saw a more stunned face in my life. Her jaw hung open, as did my wife’s. Then my gaze returned to the boy, and I took in his wide, expressive arctic blue eyes, Inga’s eyes, as they trained on her. Then my jaw dropped when I heard him ask Inga, “Are you my mom?”

BLACK SABBATH – CHAPTER 20

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

BLACK SABBATH

CHAPTER 20

INGA LIKAS (AKA INGA COGNITO)

SUBMIT TO GOD. RESIST THE DEVIL AND HE WILL FLEE FROM YOU. DRAW NEAR TO GOD AND HE WILL DRAW NEAR TO YOU. CLEANSE YOUR HANDS YOU SINNERS, AND PURIFY YOUR HEARTS YOU DOUBLE MINDED (James 4:7, 8)

            It was like being in a real live science fiction movie! The second and third plagues had fallen, and the seas and waters became blood. (Revelation 16:3, 4) Lake Superior was dark red and foamy on its banks. The smell of it along with the dead fish was gagging me. The thought of paying a visit to Jackson Bronx was making me nauseous with anxiety. I’m surprised I didn’t throw up.

            But I kept remembering Bible verses about confidence in God. Like there is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear. (1 John 4:18) Be still and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10) God will keep you in perfect peace when it stays on Him. (Isaiah 26:3) For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7)

            I was with Seven and Zella LaStella-Sallie.  We were riding in their dark green Subaru Outback. I was in the back seat with Seven driving and Zella riding shotgun. My two close friends were also a comfort provided by God.

            Our trip up to the north shore of Minnesota was another element like out of a science fiction movie. For one thing, it was as if we were teleported. It seemed like we were barely on the road, and we were driving through Duluth. It should have taken us about five hours to get there, but it seemed like only minutes. The city was desolate. Like the COVID lock down times ten. The few people we did encounter eyed us skeptically.

            But just as the angel assured us, we would be protected from any angry people or mobs that blamed Sabbath keepers for the plagues. The angel also had programmed Jackson Bronx’s address into the GPS. It turned out to be a cabin several miles off of highway 61. Very remote.

            I should have felt creeped out as we got closer. Jackson Bronx was a strange, sinister boy who was almost two years older than me. He was seventeen the last time I saw him. After I tell you what happened the last time I saw him, you’ll understand why I felt anxious as his cabin came into view. But the Word of God gave me courage to go forward.

            Not quite a decade previous, he had crept into my room at midnight. I awoke to a hand over my mouth and a knife blade’s tip an inch from my eye. A full moon’s light shone in through the window and  his dark eyes glazed crazily into mine. Yet his bizarre actions supposedly came as a warning rather than a threat.

            “Uncle Bronx thinks you’re pretty bright blue eyes are magical,” he had whispered. “He intends to make you his wife…. Do you want me to gouge them out? Ouch! Why’d you bite my hand?”

            I wanted to say, ‘what do think you, idiot?’ But that wouldn’t be wise to ask that of an evil person while they held a knife to your face. So I said, “I have allergies. I can’t breathe through my nose.”

            My heart felt like it was going to pound out of my chest as I prepared to be slashed. But he sat back on his haunches and spoke patiently as he lifted his hand toward the window and the moon’s light to check it over. “I can’t believe you bit me.”

            “I can’t believe you snuck into my room and threatened me!” I replied but then realized I shouldn’t have been surprised. There was a reason I kept my distance from him as much as possible.

            “I didn’t sneak into your room to threaten you. I came into your room to warn you. Maybe you should lock your door.”

            “There are no locks on the doors,” I told him. Then I almost called this place what it was, a cult. But I didn’t know just how close Jackson was to the cult leader, his Uncle Bryson. So I said, “At this compound.”

            “Put a chair under the doorknob,” he said, pointing at a chair under a desk.

            “It has wheels.”

            “Well, get creative then. Hang bells on the door or something.”

            “That still won’t keep creeps like you out,” I blurted, and instantly tensed. I guess diarrhea of the mouth began early for me. I wonder when it started for Seven?

            But he didn’t seem to mind. He shrugged and said, “But it would warn you when a creep like me comes in.”

            “Do you think you’re a creep?” I asked mildly. Then I tensed again. Why did my mouth tend to speak before the rational part of my brain gave it permission to?

            “No, but you apparently do.”

            “Can you blame me? You’re always wearing black with dark satanic imagery.”

            His eyes suddenly looked crazed in the moonlight, and he pointed his index fingers up from his forehead like devil horns. Then he gave a ghoulish grin. No, more like a silly grin. He waggled his tongue and went, “Aaaaah.”

            I don’t know why, but this made me want to laugh, but I held it in. So then it came out as a burst when I couldn’t hold it any more. It was along the lines of not supposed to laugh making something seem funnier.

            “I like you, Inga,” he said softly and ran a finger gently against my cheek.

            I was stunned. I’d never seen Jackson be anything but dark and brooding. It took me off guard, first by him acting silly and now acting sweet. The truth is, I always thought he was cute. But the evil persona he took on turned me off. So instead of saying I liked him too, I asked, “Why are you into devil stuff.”

            “I’m not,” he shrugged.

            “Yeah? Could have fooled me. Actually you’re not fooling me. You don’t just accidently wear inverted crosses and pentagrams, listen to death metal music, sneak into girls rooms at midnight, and put knives to their face.”

            “In my defense, you’re the only girl I’ve ever snuck in on and done that.”

            “Well, how special for me,” I mocked, tilting my head. Then I frowned. He had in fact just awakened me with a knife practically in my eye, yet I wasn’t afraid anymore. But never trust a devil, they will be charming one second and diabolical the next.

            “Like I said, I came to warn you, not harm you.”

            “So why the knife to the face?
            “I didn’t want you to freak out.”

            “Didn’t want me to freak out! You’ve got to be kidding!”

            He shook his head and waved his hands. “I wanted to make sure you kept silent. If I would have simply shaken you awake, you might have screamed.”

            “No might have about it,” I admitted.

            We gazed at each other in the moonlight for several long seconds. Then he said, “Well, you’ve been warned. I better go.”

            Strangely, I didn’t want him to go. He had been sitting on the side of my bed and arose. I had been sitting up in my bed at that point and grabbed his hand. “Let’s talk some more.”

            “Ouch,” he responded, pulling his hand away from mine. But then he sat back down on the side of my bed. “I still can’t believe you bit me.”

            “Sorry,” I said and then frowned. Why was I apologizing? He’s the one that snuck into my room, put a knife to my face and hand over my mouth. My reaction was just instinctive, self-protective.

            “I ought to bite you,” he said with a coy smile.

            He suddenly pulled me to himself and nibbled on my neck. It tickled, so I giggled, but I pushed away from him. Then he grabbed me by the shoulders, yanked me back toward him, and kissed me. The weird thing was, I kissed him back even as I halfheartedly tried to push away.

            It’s strange how the mind works. This duel nature in us humans. There’s part of the mind that draws us to wrong things, also known as sin. Then there’s this other part of the mind that tells us to do what is right, also known as the conscience. It is here, I believe, where we either cooperate or ignore the working of the Holy Spirit. Even back then, when I wasn’t a follower of Jesus, I felt this struggle within me.

            I think the Apostle Paul explains this struggle very well in Romans chapter seven. But that evening with Jackson kissing me in my bed at midnight, with me wearing nothing but a little nightgown, a garment that was really only a big t-shirt? For that I will boil Romans chapter seven down to verses 23-25.

            ‘I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. Oh wretched person that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God. But with the flesh, the law of sin.’

            But I knew very little about Jesus or the Bible back then. So the law of the flesh was ruling over the law of my mind as Jackson kissed me. Something inside me said, no this isn’t right, get away. Where did that instinct come from? Yet another part of me said, this feels good, put your arm around his neck. So I did, and carnal passion smothered out good sense and reason.

            But there were a couple moments of conscience and reason fighting for air. After several minutes of kissing like they do in France, Jackson lifted my night gown. I yanked it back down. “No!”

            “I like your feistiness,” he said with a laugh, trying again with me rejecting again.

            Then this typically brooding, scowling young man, not only smiled, but laughed. This disarmed me even further. But then he began to arm me back up by saying. “Uncle Bryson wants you as a virgin bride as soon as you turn sixteen. We can eliminate half of the equation of virgin bride right now.”

            Fear erased the passion I was feeling, and I rolled away from him. “No! You better leave right now!”

            “Okay, suit yourself, Inga,” he said mildly. He actually got up and walked to the door as if to leave. But he stopped, turned, and said, “I must say, it hurts that you would rather have a guy almost old enough to be your grandfather rather than me. But, like I said, suit yourself.”

            “Like I have choice? If he finds I’m not a virgin, he will likely kill me.”

            “Not if I tell him you’re my girlfriend.”

            “Do that and he’ll kill you too.”

            Jackson snorted. “Oh, lovely Inga, you know so little. Uncle Bryson acts like he’s superman, but my brothers and me are his kryptonite.”

            He didn’t explain why he and his brothers were like kryptonite, that I found out later. But I was an infatuated teenage girl and foremost on my mind was, ‘he called me lovely!’ Me, a gangly girl making her way out of puberty. Did he also say girlfriend? That had a ring of permanence.

            But Jackson was dark, sinister and not to be trusted. However, that night he was sweet and charming. Can leopard a change his spots? No, but maybe I could change him. How many millions of women got into a mess thinking that?                                                                                      I hopped out of my bed and went to him. “You really want me to be your girlfriend?”

            “I do,” he said gently, caressing my cheek with his finger again. Like the foolish girl I was, I whimpered and we started kissing again.

            Back to the current situation. I heard Zella say, “You’re awfully quiet, Inga. Penny for your thoughts.”

            “Huh?” I replied, a little rattled. My little trip down memory lane was getting more bumpy by the mile, or I guess I should say minute.

            “You seemed to be deep in thought,” she added.

            “Yeah, I guess so,” I said and then paused, considering my very dear friends in the front seat. ‘Confess your trespasses to one to another’ came to mind. (James 5:16) “You know how I told you I ran away from that cult in California when I was sixteen.”

            “Sure I do.”

            “What I left out was that I was pregnant… By Jackson Bronx.”

BLACK SABBATH – CHAPTER 18

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

BLACK SABBATH

CHAPTER 18

INGA LIKAS (AKA INGA COGNITO)

IT SHALL COME TO PASS IN THE LAST DAYS, SAYS GOD, THAT I WILL POUR OUT MY SPIRIT UPON ALL FLESH; YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS SHALL PROPHECY, YOUR YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS, YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS (Acts 2:17)

            I couldn’t believe I didn’t see this one coming. Sevenia Sallie, Seven’s daughter, asked  “Do you know why my Dad’s twin brother Six is afraid of him?”

            “He is?” I frowned, recalling the two sibling’s warm embrace after Six’s arrival put the head count at the Storm’s farmhouse up to seventy.

            She tucked a strand from her shoulder length auburn hair behind her ear. Her almond -shaped green eyes looked earnest as she said, “Yeah, it’s because Seven ate nine.”

            I still didn’t get that she was joking for a few seconds. My frowned deepened. Was she talking about cousins? Because I knew that Sebastion ‘Seven’ Sallie was the youngest of seven children, and that Six and Seven were their actual middle names.

            Sevenia started giggling. I secretly fancied myself as a sharp cookie. How could I have been so dull? I once heard Seven express something a bit similar. ‘The funny thing about humility is the second you think you have, you lost it.’ I had told him this must be a regular occurrence for you.

            I think the funniest jokes are the ones that baffle me at first. So I burst out laughing after I said. “Oh, ate, not eight.”

            As I wiped a happy tear from my eye and relished the good endorphins just released in my brain, Sevenia was smiling sweetly at me. There was nothing malicious in her joke. Sevenia was right up there with the kindest, most Godly people I had ever met. There was not a mean bone in her body.

            “Thanks for that,” I said. “Nothing like a good laugh.”

            “Thank you,” Sevenia replied as she patted me on the knee. “For all you have taught me.”

            I tilted my head inquisitively. All that I taught her? She and I were roughly the same age. But I looked to her as a mentor. Her knowledge of scripture was unequaled. And I mean with not only with someone like her father, but she was right up there with Pastor Kirk Samson. He was the patriarch of Cotton Creek Cove Fellowship. He was more widely known to his parishioners as Captain Kirk, due to his decade as an Army Chaplin.

            “Actually it’s the other way around,” I smiled, giving her hand that had come to rest on my knee an affectionate squeeze.

            She shook her head. “Nobody has calmed, encouraged and exhorted like you have since the first plague fell. You’re one of the main reasons the children are behaving, well, like contented children.”

            “It’s God, not me.”

            “Right, but He’s working through you. And your humble attitude is what makes it possible.”

            “You know what your dad says about humility?”

            “I do,” she giggled, then asked. “So do you think you are humble?”

            “That’s a loaded question if ever there was one,” I laughed.

            “Haven’t you noticed that Francine practically follows you around like your shadow?”

            I smiled at the thought of Franny. She was a very shy fifteen year old who opened up to me about being bullied. Adolescence had not been kind to her. She was gangly and had pretty severe acne. So I showed her pictures of me when I was fifteen. Puberty was hostile to me as well. She and I had something else in common, unique eyes. Whereas mine were very light blue to the point of almost glowing, her eyes were violet. A color rarely seen in windows to the soul.

            “I honestly don’t mind,” I told Sevenia. “Her meekness quells my potential for being obnoxious. Especially around your dad.”

            She laughed, then rolled her eyes. “He loves exchanging good natured barbs with you. I know he looks at you like a daughter.”

            Sentiment swelled in my heart. “I guess that makes you and me sisters.”

            “We already were,” she smiled, indicating our sisterhood in Christ. Our hands were still joined, and she gave mine an affectionate squeeze. I reciprocated, and then our eyes turned to the door as a knock emanated from the old oak wood.

            Like I said, we were now seventy strong at the Storm residence. Their renovated farmhouse was very large, sporting eight bedrooms. It also had makeshift sleeping quarters in the basement, attic and living room. All these people seeking refuge here made it seem rather small, yet somehow cozy.

            I shared a room with Sevenia, Nancy Aldo, and the aforementioned Francine, who we called Franny. Sevenia’s husband Jerry was rooming with his brother Drew, who was married to Nancy. They also had to put up with Sevenia’s dad, Seven Sallie. Of course I jest by saying ‘put up with’… Well, maybe. Seven’s twin brother Six made it a foursome like our own room.

            So we assumed the knock at the door was one of our roommates. If the door was shut, we knocked in case one of the married roommates was having some private time with their husband, if you know what I mean. But low and behold, we were surprised to see the knock had come from Pastor Samson, AKA Captain Kirk.

            “Pastor, come in,” Sevenia invited.

            “Thank you, my Dear,” Captain Kirk replied as he shuffled in. The man of God was now in his nineties, and although typically spry for his age, he did have moments of appearing frail. He admitted such by joking about the oldest person recorded in the Bible. “Today I feel like Methuselah.”

            We laughed and then Sevenia asked, “To what do we owe the pleasure, Pastor?”

            With Pastor Samson’s long white beard and his reputation for impeccable character, he always reminded me of the Prophet Moses. He ambled toward a desk chair, pointed at it, and with raised eyebrows asked, “May I?”

            “Of course, of course,” Sevenia enthused.

            Captain Kirk groaned a little as he sat. The wood floor squeaked as he did so and with a chuckled he asked, “Was that my bones creaking?”

            Sevenia and I laughed again, then he asked, “How are you ladies holding up?”

            Sevenia and I glanced at each other, then looked at the Pastor and replied at the same time with the same response. “Good.”

            “Good.”

            “How about you?” I asked.

            “Fair to middling,” he replied.

            With the first of the seven last plagues falling, world chaos had ensued. So both Sevenia and I assumed the Pastor was just making rounds to check on the welfare of his flock. But he surprised us.

            “I had a vivid dream about you two as I was taking an afternoon nap today.”

            “Do tell,” I blurted. Then I wondered if it came across as flippant. I opened my mouth to utter an apology, but the Pastor spoke first.

            “I absolutely love your childlike faith, my Dear,” he told me with a chuckle. Then he became serious. “But I do not mean you are childish. Jesus admonished us to become like little children with their simple faith and humility.” (Matthew 18:1-5)

            He looked away and scratched his head. “Sure has been a long time since I was a little child though. Anyway, I had a dream about you two, but I’m not sure how to explain it.”

            “A dream or a nightmare?” I blurted again. You would think I was the daughter of Seven Sallie. But Sevenia did call us sisters.

            Captain Kirk chuckled. “Well, a dream if you follow God’s lead, or a nightmare if you don’t. But I have a good feeling about you two. Plus, it happened this afternoon, so it wouldn’t have been a nightmare in the truest sense.”

            “So what happened Pastor?” Sevenia asked.

            “Well, it was more like an instructive situation rather than anything specific happening.”

            “What do you mean?” Sevenia asked.

            “Can you two keep a secret?”

            “Wasn’t it Ben Frankin who said three people can keep a secret if two are dead,” my mouth spurted yet again. I instantly regretted it, especially given the Pastor’s age and frailty.

            But he chuckled. “It’s not that crucial of a secret. Several people already know about it. It’s just the fewer that know the better. I don’t want people thinking I’m off my rocker.”

            I stopped myself from a foot in my mouth statement, if I hadn’t already placed it there and simply asked, “Know what?”

            “I think I know,” Sevenia said. “Did you have an angelic encounter?”

            “Yes, my Dear, I did.”

            “And you’ve experienced that before?” I asked.

            “It’s complicated,” Captain Kirk replied with a frown as he began stroking his long white beard. “On a few occasions over the last twenty years, I’ve been given a message or instructions from an angel of the Lord. Whether these are actual encounters, dreams, or visions, I don’t know. What happened in my dream this afternoon was very, very real. But also very short. But the message was clear.”

            Despite his age, Pastor Samson gazed at us with the intensity of an NFL linebacker eyeing a quarterback. At the same time, Sevenia and I both said, “What is it?”

            “I don’t know.”

            Sevenia and I gazed at him dumbfounded. Then she said, “But you said the message was clear.”

            He shook his head. “No, no, we got off the same page. Let me clarify. I don’t know what your message is. My message was clear. It was to tell you two that you will be receiving a message yourselves. The purpose of me as a go between was twofold. It was so you weren’t surprised by the encounter and so you have faith in its legitimacy.”

            I felt a spike of positive adrenaline. “Are you saying Sevenia and I are going to have an angelic encounter?”

            “Either that or you will be given a vision. You both have been considered highly favored.”

            “When?” my spiritual sister and I asked at the same time.

            “Go to the two hundred year old oak tree behind the big barn at sunset. Keep this to yourselves. And may God richly bless you.”