Tag: fiction

ANGELS AT WAR – PART 2 – CHAPTER 2

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

PART 2

CRICKET KARR AND THE ROCK STAR

CHAPTER 2

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

WOE TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH AND THE SEA!  FOR THE DEVIL HAS COME DOWN TO YOU, HAVING GREAT WRATH, BECAUSE HE KNOWS THAT HE HAS A SHORT TIME. (Revelation 12:12)

            Throughout earth’s history, I didn’t take on the form of a person very often. But as the time of the end drew near, I appeared as a human being more frequently. Of all the assignments where I met my subject face to face, Cricket Karr is right up there with the most special. Not only because her devotion to the Savior was exceptional, but because she was the main focus of my last task before the end of time and the second advent of Jesus Christ.

            As with the brief account of Enoch in the book of Genesis chapter five, Cricket walked with God. However God did not take her as He did Enoch because He had a special work for her to do. Her culminating work had to do with Sully Sage. Without Cricket’s influence, Sully most likely wouldn’t have become the loudest voice during the loud cry of the three angels proclamations of Revelation chapter fourteen.

            My adversary, Vermillion, along with his team had all but destroyed Sully Sage. The biggest blow had come with the death of Poppy, Sully’s wife. Already under the control of chemical addiction, Sully had fallen deeper into self-destruction. Almost to the point of death. Then he met Cricket.

            Vermillion also sought to destroy Cricket. She often put herself in danger ministering to those in need. But her full confidence in and submission to God was rewarded. As she worked for God, we worked for her. I had to step in personally after a down and out prostitute who went by the name Bambi had visited Cricket’s church. With Cricket’s help, the young woman had begun to get her life turned around. But her demon possessed boyfriend tried to force her back to her own vomit. But guided by the Holy Spirit, she refused his demands.

            Fueled by demonic passion turned to rage, her boyfriend placed his hands around Bambi’s neck and squeezed. Although her earthly life was snuffed out, her soul was safe with Jesus (Matthew 10:28). The scoundrel couldn’t touch that soul which was submitted to God.

            But an evil tranquility came over the killer. He was sedated by an unholy arousal. His Satanic leaders had him calmly wait for his next prey. The potential victim of murder, and likely torture, was none other than Cricket. As she entered the dingily apartment, intent on Bible study and a conversation with Bambi, she softly sang, “What a friend we have in Jesus.”

            It was then that I was given permission to manifest in human form. As Cricket began to climb the steps in  the eight apartment building, I rolled down the steps toward her. Cricket shrieked in alarm. Whoever was home in their apartments were either too absorbed in their personal entertainment, or too inebriated to care about the noise. Arguments, shouts, and door slams were not uncommon in the building or neighborhood.

            “Your head is bleeding,” Cricket declared as she crouched by my side. She pulled a light pink hanky from her purse.

            “Oh, ma’am, don’t mess up your handkerchief,” I told her. “I’m alright.”

            “Are you kidding! Blood is running down your cheek and dripping off your chin! I need to get you to the emergency room!”

            She took my arm and led me to her car. Cricket looked a little frantic as she negotiated the roads to the hospital. I tried to reassure her. “Ma’am, I believe I’m okay. The bleeding has stopped. Just like it never happened.”

            “Well, I’ll be,” she said with surprise. “By the way, my name is Jimena. But people call me Cricket.”

            “You can call me Jack.”

            “Glad to know you, Jack. Ya know, you still should get checked out for a concussion or something.”

            “Trust me I’m fine. I’ve been through enough battles to know.”

            “Are you a veteran?”

            “In a manner of speaking.”

            “Thank you for your service.”

            I nodded. She pulled her car over and said, “I better call my friend and let her know why I’m late.”

            “Actually, we need to call the police. I believe your friend has been harmed.”

            “How do you know who my friend is?” Cricket frowned. “You and I just met.”

            “I’ve seen you go to Bambi’s place before.”

            “Oh,” her frown deepened. “Do you live in her building?”

            “No, but people I care about do.”

            I did indeed care about Bambi. Why my team wasn’t allowed to intervene I do not know. But I believe she will inherit eternal life and I trust God implicitly. God’s timing is perfect timing regardless of how it looks to fallen, flawed people. Like Job, a person’s attitude should be, ‘though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.’ (Job 13:15)

            I got Cricket to focus on calling the police. I convinced her to call a friend as well. I calmed her as much as possible when it was discovered that Bambi was dead and her boyfriend arrested. Thankfully it didn’t take long for Destiny Knight-Storm to arrive at the crime scene, with her large, muscular husband in toe. I slipped away as Cricket hugged the handsome couple from her church.

            Vermillion’s team was outraged, and I needed to get back to the spirit realm. In simple terms, I can see and protect better there. Although I have complete trust in my team, I like to have the full scope of what’s going on.

            I had two more encounters in human form with Cricket over the next couple of years. Once when she went to an old warehouse in a drug infested neighborhood looking for a runaway girl. And another time when she went to a seedy bar to reason with a former church member.

            It was shortly after our last in person encounter when I helped lay the ground work for Sully Sage to come to Iowa. When he  arrived he didn’t ask, ‘Is this heaven?’ Only to be told, ‘No, this is Iowa.’ But if you believe Jesus’s words that the kingdom of God is within (Luke 17:21). Then Sully did indeed find a piece of heaven in Iowa.

            Sully had spiritually and emotionally hit rock bottom. Like a modern day Solomon, he could write a contemporary version of Ecclesiastes chapter two. And as he sat at a table with a bottle of whiskey to his left and a pistol to his right, his thoughts summed up his life with verse eleven. ‘Indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun.’

            Sully took a slug of booze, and picked up the revolver. For a third time he pointed the barrel at his temple. He gritted his teeth, and closed his eyes, squeezing a couple of tears out. Vermillion whispered lies into his mind. “Come on, just do it. Third time is a charm. No more sleepless nights. No more substances that give you both pleasure then pain. If you pull the trigger ‘you will not surely die’ (Genesis 3:4), you will be reunited with Poppy.”

            Will I? Sully wondered.

            I tried to speak to his mind as well. But he wasn’t acquainted enough with scripture. So trying to bring forth Bible truths like the last half of 1 Thessalonians chapter four was fruitless. So I ran interference instead. I impressed his cousin to call him.

            Sully’s ring tone was set as an old fashioned train whistle. As he squeezed the trigger to a millimeter away from death, his phone spoke to him. “Hoo, hoo.”

            Vermillion pleaded with him. “Ignore that. Come on, just a little more pressure!”

            But Sully froze. When the phone went ‘hoo, hoo’ a second time, it brought his mind to simple, pleasant things in life. That’s why he chose the whistle as a ring tone in the first place. He gently placed the pistol on his thigh and picked up his phone as it went ‘hoo, hoo’ for a third time. It was his cousin Jeremy. He hit answer and said, “Hey.”

            “Hey, what’s up?” Jeremy asked.

            “Not much,” Sully replied and then glanced at his right hand holding the pistol against his upper leg. He rolled his eyes at the absurdity of his answer.

            “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you,” Jeremy said eagerly. “My wedding is in two weeks. Are you gonna be able to make it? Or do I need to find another groomsman to take your place?”

            “Oh dude, I forgot about your wedding,” Sully said and then made to slap a hand to his forehead, but it held the pistol. The metal thunked against his skull. “Owe!”

            “What happened?” Jeremy asked.

            “Oh, I, um, stubbed my forehead.”

            “How do you stub your forehead?”

            “I mean, I bumped my head.”

            “How?”

            “Look, when do I need to be there?” Sully asked, hoping his cousin didn’t enquire further how he hit his head.

            “Did more dates get added to your tour? According to what you told me, it was supposed to end a couple of days ago.”

            “No, no, it is over.”

            “Okay, good.”

            “Look, how about I fly out tomorrow?”

            Jeremy paused. “You don’t need to come two weeks early, just two days.”

            “What, you don’t want me around?”

            “No, no, that’s not it. What are you gonna do in Iowa for two weeks?”

            “Well, you live there. What do you do?”

            “I have simpler tastes than you. Plus my job is here.” Then he laughed. “Unless you want to slip me a cool million.”

            “Do you need money? I’d be glad to help you out… Retire you.”

            “No, no, I’m joking.”

            “I’m not. I don’t have much family.”

            “Sully, no! I was kidding. I make a very decent living. I’m just not a jet setting rock star.”

            Sully snorted. Then he said, “I’m coming out tomorrow. I could use a nice quiet place to recoup from months on the road.”

            Unheard to human ears, Vermillion roared angrily, as did his leader. Getting rid of Sully Sage was a big deal to them. They wanted to devour him like a roaring lion. (1 Peter 5:8) Sully encountering Cricket Karr was dangerous to their cause. With this new development, they needed to play their cards right. Violetta Karr just might be needed in counteraction to her saintly sister.

            “Well, if you’re sure, I’m glad to have you. I’ve got plenty of room,” Jeremey invited.

            “No, I’m used to hotels.”

            “I guess you’re also used to people wanting pictures and autographs.”

            “You’re sure staying with you won’t be an imposition?”

            Jeremey laughed. “Not at all.”

            The next day Callie, Jeremey’s fiancée, called her own cousin, Violetta. “Vi, are you off work?”

            “Yeah, why?”

            “Are you busy?”

            “No.”

            “I was supposed to pick up Jeremey’s cousin at the airport, but something came up and I have to work late.”

            “Yeah, that’s no problem. What time does Lindsey’s plane get in?”

            “Lindsey’s not due until tomorrow,” Callie replied. Then she winced and bit her lip. She knew Violetta and Sully would be like mixing oil and water. Or more like Mentos and Diet Coke. “I need you to pick up Sully Sage.”

ANGELS AT WAR – PART 2 – CHAPTER 1

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

PART 2

CRICKET KARR AND THE ROCK STAR

CHAPTER 1

CRICKET

HERE IS THE PATIENCE OF THE SAINTS; HERE ARE THOSE WHO KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD AND THE FAITH OF JESUS. (Revelation 14:12)

             “It’s Sully!” My sister shouted.

            A dozen of us gathered on the shore of the lake and watched anxiously as Sully paddled a kayak furiously. Three fast powerful boats were chasing him. My hands were steepled in front of my lips as I murmured in prayer.

            All of a sudden the water parted that the boats were skimming on top of  and the speeding vessels momentarily became like air planes. Seconds later the water closed back up. Then the large body of liquid became a boisterous tempest, as if it were a giant pot of boiling water. The wind and the waves roared. But only for a minute.

            “Oh Lord, save them, they parish,” Pastor Samson could be heard above the storm. “Maybe some will be convinced now.”

            The tempest suddenly calmed and a dozen bright orange forms bobbed in the tranquil water. A minute later another boat pulled up and rescued the unintentional swimmers. Several geysers began to spew about twenty feet in the air between us on the shore and the people giving chase. Sully’s one person skiff skimmed off the water and skidded to a stop on the sandy shore. We rushed to greet him.

            Three days earlier Sully had been arrested. His crime? Defying the national Sunday law. He had used his notoriety as a very famous musician to join God’s people in the loud cry of the third angel’s message. The loud cry being the warning message of the three angels from Revelation 14:6-13.

            The Sunday laws had begun as a simple ordinance carried out by numerous states. They were reminiscent of the Sunday blue laws of old. The government mandated that businesses close and civilians limit activity on what most Christians considered their sabbath. Most religious leaders, especially Christian nationalists, were on board with these government legislations, feeling it would bring the country back to God and a sense of morality.

            Then many non-Christians surprisingly came on board, viewing the push for a day of rest as an environmental reset for the planet. It also ensured that people forced to work by their employers on Sunday were fairly compensated. It became a requirement for companies to pay their workers double time.

            All of these reasons sounded good on the surface. What worthy employee doesn’t deserve fair compensation? What decent person doesn’t want to take care of the environment? Most important, people should come back to God. However, you can’t force genuine morality. Jesus said if you LOVE me, keep My commandments. (John 14:15). Therefore He doesn’t force His way in with governmental religious mandates. He stands at the door and knocks. (Revelation 3:20) It’s up to us to open that door and invite Him in.

            So the Sunday mandates escalated quickly from local ordinances into state laws, and then federal law. The reasons issued by the newly formed church-state were several. The out of control immorality, wars and rumors of wars, natural disasters to name a few.

            These were the main aims of mandatory worship. They imposed economic sanctions on those who disregarded them, thereby fulfilling the prophecy in Revelation 13:17 regarding buying and selling. This only strengthened the mindset of taking the country back for God. But I digress, back to Sully’s arrest and escape.

            Being timid and shy I stood back and watched a dozen members of my church family greet Sully enthusiastically. He received hugs, handshakes, and pats on the back as he was questioned how he escaped from a high security prison.

            Sully was in a state of disbelief himself with hands motioning and head shaking as he explained. “It was an angel of the Lord. I didn’t believe it at first. I thought he opened the door with a code or a key. I even wondered if he was taking me off to be executed, so I drew back. But he said, ‘Fear not, I am Jack Querida. I’m a friend of Cricket’s.’”

            Sully’s gaze turned to me. He was so handsome, so talented, so brave. My heart often fluttered when he gazed into my eyes. After Sully swiveled his head in my direction, twenty some eyeballs aimed at me as well. I shifted uneasily, but smiled and shrugged. Sully walked toward me and was followed by my dear brothers and sisters in Christ. My biological sister was by his side, mouth agape, her lovely eyes wide as they looked into mine.

            I knew what she was thinking. She and I were very close. So I knew she was wondering, who is this Jack Querida, friend of Cricket’s? How did I tell her I didn’t know myself? It was just then, with Sully’s harrowing escapade, that finally confirmed in my own mind what I suspected. That the man I had encountered numerous times over the years was actually a ministering spirit. (Hebrews 1:14) In the beginning of our, what? Friendship? Acquaintance? I had ministered to him, unaware of his angelic status. (See Hebrews 13:2)

            Sully continued to gaze at me with an expression of wonder. “How do you know him, Cricket? Who is he? He helped me get out of that prison as if we were teleported. Then he said he left a kayak for me at such and such and to hurry.”

            Cricket isn’t my legal name. My parents were expecting a boy, and I was to be named after my father, Jim. When I turned out to be a girl, they still called me Jim, but combined it with my mother’s name, Elena. So I became Jimena. Before I was old enough to even remember, my grandmother started calling me Jimena Cricket after the cartoon, Jiminy Cricket. People followed her lead, and to this day most people don’t even know my legal name.

            “I don’t know him that well,” I shrugged.

            “You must,” Sully said. Then seemed a little jealous as he added, “I guess I failed to mention he not only called you his friend, but precious friend.”

            “I don’t know what to tell you,” I shrugged again, even though I felt a little thrill. Yet I didn’t know what precious meant. Although Jack intrigued me, I wouldn’t call my feelings for him romantic. Now Sully on the other hand… But I suppressed those desires for the man standing before me. He was more suited for my sister. Even though she was a man hater, Sully had broken through her shield.

            In a strange way, Violetta and I were like Racheal and Leah from the Bible. But only as far as looks go. My sister was beautiful. More than once I heard her referred to as drop dead gorgeous. She had long wavy red-gold hair, large blue-green eyes, and flawless skin, with a lithe athletic body that still held desirable female curves.

            As for me, one of my blue grey eyes was called lazy. My reddish brown hair was straight and limp. And my frail body was clumsy and twitchy. Chronic allergies also kept my nose frequently red, highlighted by my pale skin. But I was otherwise healthy, so praise God!

            “How don’t you know what to tell us?” Violetta inquired, her own demeanor seeming a little jealous. “You’re apparently his precious friend.”

            I shrugged again, but now pulled nervously on my fingers. “I don’t know where Jack is from, I don’t know how old he is. Only that he seems older than me. Until Sully called him Jack Querida, I didn’t even know his last name.”

            “God works in mysterious ways,” Pastor Kirk Samson, also known as Captain Kirk, said.

            “Yes, he does,” Sully agreed, nodding emphatically.

            “Why I noticed a few Bible stories come to life in miniature,” Captain Kirk added. “The parting of the lake reminded me of the parting of the Red Sea. The sudden tempest for a minute or two reminded me of Jesus calming the storm on the lake. Plus an angel prison break like in the book of Acts.”

            “Praise God,” Sully said as he put his right hand on my shoulder and his left hand on Violetta’s. “What a privilege to be the Lord’s instrument. When I was in jail, I was sure I’d never see you all again.”

            I observed Violetta gaze fondly at Sully and bite her lip. It reminded me of the first time I witnessed Violetta bite her lip over Sully. Which also happened to be the first time I saw my sister bite her lip over any guy.

            A year or so before we watched Sully wash up on the shore of the lake in a kayak, Violetta and I had watched a biography of him on YouTube. It was the day after our cousin introduced us to Sully’s cousin. He was her current beau, and had joined us for Thanksgiving dinner at our grandmother’s house.

            Callie had never brought a boyfriend to a family dinner before, so I was intrigued. I figured they must be pretty serious. Violetta, on the other hand, was skeptical. At one point Callie had taken my sister and me aside, whispering excitedly, “Jeremey’s cousin is Sully Sage.”

            I had leaned in eagerly, excided by my cousin’s excitement. But the name meant nothing to me, so I asked, “Who’s Sully Sage?”

            Callie looked stunned at my ignorance, but Violetta appeared slightly annoyed as she said, “Come on, Cricket, even I know who Sully Sage is.”

            “Well, who is he?” I asked, curious over this supposedly very important person.

            “He’s a drug addled reprobate that sings about loose women, drinking, and drugs,” Violetta declared.

            “Come on, Vi,” Callie replied. “Why do you have to be so negative? Yes, his early career was, I guess, pretty raunchy. But he became a super star singing about lost love and feelings of hopelessness.”

            “Oh boo hoo,” Violetta replied. “Poor pampered rock star. Takes countless women to bed and then cries over his main squeeze dumping him. Then profits off it with sappy songs.”

            Callie looked disappointed. “Vi, you shouldn’t be so judgmental. Sully’s wife was killed in a car crash three years ago. Despite his wild stage persona, Jeremey claims Sully was faithful and loyal to his wife. They were high school sweethearts.”

            “Well, like I said,” Violetta responded with a shrug. “I know who he is, just not much about him.”

            “Well then maybe you ought not judge people you don’t know,” Callie rebuked. “You certainly didn’t like people judging Jimmy.”

            I felt my toes curl. Violetta’s and my brother was a sensitive subject, especially with my sister. He was the reason Violetta despised macho guys, even though she was attracted to manly men. Jimmy was a bit effeminate, and thought to be gay by his peers. He was bullied by the type of guys Violetta loathed. His death was ruled a suicide, but I considered it to be an accident. Violetta believed it was murder.

            Callie’s eyes widened as Violetta’s narrowed. Trying to correct the mistake of bringing up Jimmy to Violetta, she tried, “You should take a page out of Cricket’s book. We all ought to.”

            “I don’t follow a book of my own,” I meekly replied. “I live by the Bible.”

            “Yes, you sure do,” Callie responded with a nervous laugh.

            As different as we were, my sister and I loved each other deeply, and our cousin knew it. By mentioning me, and thereby bringing to mind my devotion to God, Callie quelled the savage beast in my rebellious sister. Violetta forced a smile as she turned her gaze on me and nodded.

            The next day Violetta and I watched the documentary on Sully Sage in her apartment. The first quarter of the program dealt with his early life and a difficult, dysfunctional upbringing. It also covered his becoming an item with Poppy at sixteen, the woman who would later become his wife.

            The next part covered the young lovers running away from home at the age of seventeen when they were both in between their junior and senior year of high school. Then Sully as a struggling musician in LA the next three years. The making of his band, and their first block buster hit, which was a tongue and cheek song about a break up and how much the woman hated her ex.

            The program then covered Sully’s band continually on the road the next three years. It chronicled the personal and legal troubles that accompanied the seemingly never ending travel. There was only a brief six week break to record their second album. The long stint on the road ended with a heart breaking tragedy.

            Poppy, who was a constant companion of Sully’s on the road, was very pregnant and spent the remaining couple weeks of the tour resting at a friend’s LA home. At eight thirty one evening, Poppy left to meet another friend at an In and Out Burger. One block from the restaurant, a speeding drunk driver ran a red light in his hopped up pickup truck. He hit Poppy’s car broadside, killing mother and child instantly.

            The last part of the program dealt with the aftermath of Sully’s terrible loss. It detailed the songs that came from his pain. The biography described his relationship with Poppy. Bandmates and friends talked about the differing natures of the young couple before the tragedy. Poppy, a vibrant light to Sully’s dark brooding personality seemed to somehow balance the pair.

            Now, after the calamity, some music journalists predicted Sully would end up a member of the twenty-seven club. But, at only twenty-four years of age, most didn’t think he’d make it that far. It was already known that he struggled with addiction, depression, and volatility. Throw in the loss of his greatest love in the world, and you had a recipe for human destruction.

            I watched three expression come over Violetta’s face as we watched the biography. The first was neutral as it covered Sully’s childhood. Then she sneered in disgust when they showed clips of him early in his career as a cocky, feral, tattoo covered, shaggy haired rock star.

            Then her face softened when they showed excerpts of his tender relationship with Poppy. They showed him explaining some of the lyrics describing Poppy and the pain he felt. One of the names of endearment he had for his wife was Sunshine. That was what was behind the wording of a song that described how quick the sun could drop away.

            The lyrics of the song described him as he laid in bed all alone, unable to get over his grief. The next few lines described the suicidal despair he felt. Yet the last line held out hope for a better tomorrow. That is when I watched Violetta’s eyes well up, followed by me observing her biting her lip over a man for the first time.

ANGELS AT WAR – CHAPTER 23

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 23

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

BE KIND TO ONE ANOTHER, TENDERHEARTED, FORGIVING ONE ANOTHER, EVEN AS GOD IN CHRIST FORGAVE YOU. (Ephesians 4:32)

            Vermillion approached me as I watched Jenny and Jimmy exchange a brief hug. “What are you up to?”

            “What do you mean?” I asked as I refrained from giggling. The merriment I felt wasn’t in any way trying to gloat over my adversary. I was pleased because the arrangement I assisted on  worked out better than I hoped.

            “I know you impressed Jimmy to go to that night club. Isn’t that against your principles?”

            “It wasn’t for the sake of self-indulgence. Jimmy hasn’t had an adult beverage in more than a quarter century. He simply went with some business associates to support their friend in his new band. He stayed for the first set and now he’s leaving.”

            “I don’t get it. You knew Jenny was going to be there with her latest fling.”

            “Jimmy wasn’t all that jealous. It’s been four years since Jenny moved out.”

            “I notice you qualified it with ‘all that.’

            “I know you had the green eyed monster give him a slap. But I followed up with feelings of fondness for her.”

            “Why?” Vermillion snorted sarcastically. “She’s become nothing but a whore, only she doesn’t get paid. Why she’s gotten down to her birthday suit with as many partners as Jimmy did as a swinging single playboy. Only she’s done it while legally married.”

            “That’s why I had her cross paths with Jimmy. Deep inside she wants the stability and peace she once had with him.”

            My opponent looked surprised, then irritated. “Do you really think this encounter is gonna initiate a reunion? You gotta be kidding. They only spoke for a couple minutes.”

            “It wasn’t the duration of the brief conversation, but the spirit.”

            “Bah,” Vermillion replied and then laughed spitefully. “Her date had his hand on the small of her back the entire time. Other than when the man she’s gonna go to bed with tonight shook her HUSBAND’s hand.”

            “She initiated the hug.”

            “Only because Jimmy brokered peace between Jenny and their son the other week. But you noticed that didn’t stop her from meeting a guy online.”

            “We’ll see,” I replied as we both watched Jimmy leave. Jenny watched the familiar gait of her husband until he disappeared through the door. She bit her lip as she noticed he had lost weight and was looking rather fit. She had a surge of remorse over ruining things between her and Jimmy.

            Jenny had been surprised when a familiar voice said, “Hey there, Grandma.”

            She looked to her right and into the beaming face of her husband. The twinkle in his eyes she remembered even from their high school days caused a grin to grow onto her own face. “Hey yourself, Grandpa.”

            Two weeks earlier their son Jason had called her to tell her that he and his wife were expecting their first child. It was the first time they had spoken since her infidelity had come to light. The birth of two children by their daughter had somewhat repaired the breach between them. However, Kelsey not once had asked her to babysit.

            “Thank you for Jason,” she said sweetly, and that’s when they shared a brief hug. “He told me you put him up to calling me.”

            “It’s nothing,” Jimmy shrugged.

            “No, it’s something, something pretty special,” she  replied. Then she glanced at her date. “Oh, Jim, this is Tim. Tim, this is my ex-husband, Jim.”

            “Nice to meet you, Jim,” Tim lied.

            Jimmy, not wanting to lie, repeated his wife’s paramour’s name as pleasantly as he could muster. “Tim.”

            The next day Jenny picked up her phone a half a dozen times as she thought of Jimmy. Then it came to her mind that Jimmy approached her last night, so she should make the first move now. She texted. ‘It was nice to see you last night. It’s been a while.’

            ‘Good to see you, too!’

            His exclamation point inspired her to shoot another text. ‘You look well.’

            ‘So do you.’

            She waited a few minutes, not wanting their dialogue to end. ‘Thanks for not refuting me calling you my ex-husband.’

            After she hit send, she scolded herself. What a stupid thing to say!

            ‘What’s to refute you are my ex?’ he replied.

            ‘Technically we’re still married.’

            ‘I haven’t shared a bed with you in almost a half-decade. I think that constitutes us as ex’s.’

            She typed, ‘Would you like to change that?’

            Her thumb hovered over send. Then she shook her head, deleted it and typed instead, ‘How come you never filed for divorce?’

            Instead of answering her question, he posed his own. ‘Jenny do you want to go have lunch? Call me old fashioned but I prefer a face to face conversation.’

            ‘Sure I’d like that!’

            After they agreed on a time and place, Jenny hurriedly shoved her sexy skirts and dresses aside in her closet, digging out an old denim skirt that fell just below her knees. She put on a conservative long sleeve black blouse with lace trim, black tights with black boots that reminisced the 1800’s. She applied subtle makeup and secured her shoulder length hair with blonde highlights with a hair clip.

            A half hour later Jimmy’s breath caught when he saw Jenny get out of her car in the Olive Garden parking lot. She looked like the woman who accompanied him to church hundreds of times during the first two decades of their marriage. It was a far cry from the hot to trot attire she wore on her date the previous night of leggings that were painted on and enough make up to decorate a clown.

            Rather than going in right away, they stood by Jenny’s car and talked. Jimmy asked with a sly smile. “I hope your boyfriend doesn’t mind you having dinner with your ex.”

            She snorted. “He’s hardly my boyfriend.”

            “How long have you been seeing each other?”

            “Just since last night, but never again.”

            Jimmy couldn’t help feeling pleased that her date didn’t go well. “Where did you meet?”

            Jenny felt her face flush. “On a dating sight.”

            “So what went wrong?”

            “Let’s just say we had a chemistry problem,” she replied quickly and then sought to change the subject. “So Jimmy, you didn’t answer my text when I asked why you haven’t divorced me.”

            He shrugged. “Why haven’t you filed for divorce?”

            She shrugged. “To be honest, I figured the longer we stayed married, the more money I’d get when you did file. You’re rather astute at business… Now your turn. Why haven’t you divorced me?”

            “I always hoped you would repent and return to me.”

            Jenny was stunned as she stared wide eyed at him “You would have taken me back after all I have done?”

            “Yes.”

            “Why?”

            “I love you.”

            “You love the woman that betrayed you and made a spectacle of herself on the internet?”

            “I love the woman, not the behavior.”

            “But how?”

            “You’re the mother of my children, the grandmother of my grandchildren. We had a good life, a happy marriage before you went astray.”

            “I don’t even know how it happened,” she said and then laughed without humor. “I asked myself a hundred times, how did I get in this cycle? Now I’m, I don’t know, stuck. I’ve tried reading my Bible, but I only end up feeling lost and ashamed and end up putting it back on the shelf.”

            “He that began a good work will in you will complete it until that day of Jesus Christ,” Jimmy told her, quoting Philippians 1:6.

            “Then why do I feel so empty?”

            “I suppose you haven’t fully repented and surrendered yourself to Christ.”

            “I’ve tried,” she said and then frowned. “Well, sort of.”

            Jimmy smiled kindly and gently said, “Sort of isn’t a full commitment. Jesus said take up your cross and follow Me.”

            “Yeah,” she said with a sad smile and looked at her husband with longing. “I wish I could go back and stop myself before I got started down this road of rebellion.”

            Jimmy took hold of his wife’s hand. “You might not be able to go back and change the beginning. But you can start where you are and change the ending.”

            Jenny put her hands in her face and wept. Jimmy began to do circles on her back. As the tears began to subside, she went into his arms and quietly asked, “Can I change the ending with you?”

            “Absolutely.”

            “So you forgive me?”

            “One hundred percent.”

            “So if you forgive me, does God?”

            “One hundred percent. God tells you so in 1 John 2:1. If anyone sins we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

            By the grace of God, Jenny indeed changed her ending. She repented, was rebaptized, and she and Jimmy renewed their wedding vows. She also retained the good graces of her children. Thus making for one of her and Jimmy’s favorite activities going forward as grandparenting together.

(Writer’s note: Dear Reader, I am posting early because I will be unable to write this weekend as well as the following week. The Lord willing, my next post will be Sunday evening August 22 with something fresh. I’m still deciding on three different stories, most likely with Querida once again. Thank you for your interest! May God Bless!)

ANGELS AT WAR – CHAPTER 22

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 22

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

YOU SHALL NOT MURDER (Exodus 20:13)

            “Pretty gruesome, huh, Querida?” Vermillion said and then chortled. “I didn’t know if Jill had it in her, but she performed remarkably well. Even if she wasn’t very thorough. Can’t blame her though, that was quite the blood curdling scream emitted from Jenny. Plus she had the wherewithal to not only use Jimmy Stetson’s axe, but track some of the blood with a pair of his shoes.”

            I had righteous indignation flare up. I aimed it at my former friend, and he fled from my presence. He and I had been opponents in the same cases numerous times over six thousand years. But you could count on one hand the number of times I had chased him off.

            This world is an odd situation. It is fallen, which means Satan and his demonic realm are largely in control. But because humanity’s first parents failed the test of loyalty and obedience, their descendants were born with dispositions to follow Satan. Because of their disobedience, they inadvertently invited the arch foe to, as Jesus proclaimed, become the ruler of this world. (John 14:30 NKJV)

            As a result, humans murdered God’s own Son when He chose to become one of them. They put to death God’s prophets before Him. The reformers were martyred after Him. Throughout the course of human history, only a minority actually sought to truly follow God. The majority to this day follow church tradition rather than searching the scriptures for themselves.

            The Savior of the world, precious Jesus, even declared, “In vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” (Matthew 15:9)

            Here’s a few examples. Only eight people were saved on Noah’s ark. Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego were the only ones to not bow down to Kind Nebuchadnezzar’s idol. Only a few anticipated Jesus’s birth. All forsook Him and fled at His death. The Bible itself says many will live by way of the broad road, with only a few traveling the narrow road. (See Matthew 7:13, 14)

            Poor Jimmy Stetson was the one to discover the crime scene. To add to the horror of his discovery, he was initially arrested for the murder of Justin Phillips. To add salt to his wounds, when his wife recovered sufficiently from her shock and blow to the head, she told the police she awoke to discover Jimmy violently chopping at Justin with his axe.

            But there are no perfect crimes, only imperfect investigators. Jill Phillips made a couple mistakes. Her primary mistake was believing a woman would not be suspected of such a brutal crime. This despite having muttered the poem based on Lizzie Borden, ‘Jill Phillips took an axe and gave her husband forty whacks.’

            She also believed she had adequately framed Jimmy for the crime. Having been neighbors for several years, she had acquired the knowledge that he kept the key to his shed under a brick behind the small building. Then when she stole the axe a the day before her crime, she discovered the handle of a snow shovel wearing Jimmy’s fluorescent yellow ski mask. She also spotted greasy coveralls he wore when working on his cars. What luck!

            Then to put a period on the frame up, she put on a pair of Jimmy’s oversized shoes that she found in the foyer the night she crept in. She correctly assumed that there would be a lot of blood, and she left numerous footprints. But what she hadn’t anticipated was Jenny’s screams, or the decibels emitted.

            In Jenny’s haste to escape the predator, her foot became entangled in the sheet, and she fell backwards out of bed. Although Jill had only counted six whacks to her sleeping husband’s head and torso, she figured she needed to take care of his mistress.

            But as she began to move around the bed toward Jenny with raised axe, she noticed the neighbors across the street turn on their porch light. She needed to get out of there post haste! She dropped the axe and fled from the house.

            In her haste to flee the crime scene, and with adrenaline combined with passion eliminating common sense, she did a sloppy job of discarding Jimmy’s shoes, coveralls and ski mask. She threw the bloody shoes in the creek behind their houses. She returned the ski mask and coveralls to the shed. She foolishly expected her actions to incriminate Jimmy.

            But long time detective Sargent Francis Folkenflicker immediately saw things didn’t add up, even though his Lieutenant ordered Jimmy Stetson arrested. First, he did not exhibit the behavior of someone who had just committed a crime of passion. He was clearly in horror filled shock, coupled with distress.

            Also, why would he so carelessly discard his shoes into a creek not even large enough to float a paper boat? And why hang his blood spattered coveralls on a nail in his shed?

            The next viable suspect was Justin’s wife. But when located at her sister’s home, after she successfully snuck back in, she seemed to have a solid alibi. Plus, sleep deprivation and anxiety helped her give an Oscar winning performance of a distraught wife.

            But before Detective Folkenflicker left Jill’s sister’s home, his phone jangled in his pocket. It was the lab. “Hey Sarge, we found a couple long blonde hairs in the ski mask.”

            Folkenflicker informed Jill of this. A switch was flipped in her psychopathic mind, especially when Folkenflicker suggested a DNA test. Jill’s demeanor changed from distress to cold paranoia as she declared she wanted a lawyer. Folkenflicker’s jaw clenched, and his eyes narrowed as he nodded.

            But there was nothing a lawyer could do to stop a DNA test. The truth came out, and Jill was arrested for murder in the first degree for the slaying of her husband. She was also charged with attempted murder in the case of Jenny. The first charge would stick, while the second wasn’t sufficiently proven.

            What followed Jill Phillips’ arrest was the aftermath of two destroyed marriages and the ripple effect on their families. The Phillips children located to another state and were raised by Justin Phillips’ parents. Although the Stetson’s son and daughter were adults, the news of their mother’s affair and the brutal murder of her lover caused severe damage to their maternal relationship.

            But Jimmy sought reconciliation. The ordeal only caused him to draw closer to God. He felt compassion for his wife and the horror she witnessed. He also tried to repair the breach between Jenny and their children. To top it off, he forgave her infidelity. Love for God caused him to focus on her potential, not her failure.

            But the ordeal led Jenny the opposite way from God as her husband. She felt anger for the trauma she endured. Sure, she was unfaithful to her husband. But did having a little sinful fun on the side merit such a violent, diabolical result? She unwisely tended to blame God rather than the adversary of souls.

            She did agree to marriage counseling. But the atheistic psychiatrist she saw for her personal problems had more influence. Four months after the horrific murder of Justin Phillips, Jenny announced to Jimmy that she was moving out.

            She moved in with a scoundrel. She had met a good looking charmer, who talked her into capitalizing off her fifteen minutes of fame. Although the crime was horrific, her life and the affair didn’t have enough juice to merit a book, let alone a movie.

            But with much persuasion, he talked her into starting an erotic website. She figured why not. She was estranged from her kids, and separated from her husband. The charmer assured her, there would be no sex, just revealing lingerie and glimpses of nudity.

            It was initially very successful due to her notoriety. Her vanity surged to its highest peak. But when the views began to decline, the charmer suggested they get more risqué. She said no. He insisted they needed to. She put her foot down. After all, she had her principles. Please note, she had HER principles, not God’s.

            But she was in love, or so she thought, so she compromised. After all, a little more risqué wouldn’t hurt. Then a little more became a little more. Their website became more popular than ever. But their relationship was always up and down with excitement, but volatile.

            Then a phone call from Jimmy upset the apple cart of her current life. Although their occasional communication had been consistently civil on Jimmy’s part, the last time they had talked she had received a stern rebuke from him. So her jaw clenched and her body tensed as she answered with a bark, “What!”

            “Wow, I see you’re glad to hear from me,” he said mildly.

            “Not if you called to play self-righteous again.”

            “I wasn’t being self-righteous that last time we talked. I was observing that your behavior was an embarrassment to your children.”

            “They disowned me, remember? So what does it matter?”

            “They didn’t disown you; you drove them away.”

            “Goodbye!”

            “Jenny, wait. That isn’t why I called you.”

            She paused before hanging up, pursed her lips and once again said, “What?”

            “Kelsey wanted me to relay some news,” he said, referring to their daughter.

            Her pulse quickened, but it was also disheartening that her own flesh and blood didn’t want to tell her something herself. “Okay.”

            He gently said, “You’re gonna be a grandma.”

            For some reason this news threw her for a loop. Her daughter and her husband had been married for four years and were very much career and travel minded. As she absorbed this, the news began to break through the walls regarding her family that she had put up. She felt a lump form in her throat. “Why didn’t she want to tell me herself?”

            He paused. “I’m not being self-righteous or judgmental, you asked… She feels awkward about your drastic lifestyle change.”

            The last time she and her daughter talked, Kelsey had asked bitterly, “Why did you weird out so bad?”

            “Are you there?” Jimmy asked.

            “Yeah,” she croaked.

            “Jenny, I’m sorry.”

            She is the one that betrayed him, yet he said he was sorry? For what? That he was stuck in the middle of the mess she made with her family? Once again she croaked, “Yeah.”

            “It’s not too late?” he said softly.

            “For what?” she asked hopefully.

            “To get back in good graces with the kids.”

            “I see,” she said bitterly. “Why don’t you give me a list of do’s and don’ts then. Then I can shove it…”
            “Jenny, stop it!” Jimmy interrupted. “You burned the bridges by your behavior. All I’m doing is telling you that the bridges can be rebuilt. What happened to you? I thought we had a good life together. I was willing to forgive you for, you know.”

            “Oh were you?” she said and then snorted. “And what, hold it over my head the rest of my life?”

            “When we were trying to work things out, what did I do to lead you to believe that I would hold it over your head?”

            She felt tears burn her eyes, and self-reproach force an admission. “Nothing. I was bored, and I was vain. You know I was a nerd and a late bloomer. Now I’m this hot fifty year old, and guys numbering in the thousands have actually paid to see all of me.”

            “You’re a spectacle,” Jimmy mildly.

            “Am I? Well you can…” she swore at him.

            With great patience, he asked, “Please answer me. What happened to the sweet God fearing girl I married?”

            “She’s dead, Mr. Stetson. And the real me is alive and living life to the fullest.”

            For the first time since the murder of Justin Phillips, Vermillion approached me. “How the mighty have fallen, Querida. Once a head deaconess that everyone looked up to. Now someone with a niche in the dirty world of adult entertainment. It’s also interesting she does the opposite of being dead to self and alive to Christ. She calls the God fearing Jenny she once was dead, and the harlot she now is alive.”

            “You are noticing her defiance,” I told my former friend. “But I believe you are now gonna see what’s truly been working inside her.”  

            “Are you truly happy, Jenny?” Jimmy asked.

            She almost lied, but then said, “Goodbye, Jim. Thanks for telling me about Kelsey.”

            She hung up and broke down sobbing. The charmer had been wanting her to get even more vile in their videos. Instead of agreeing, they got into their biggest fight yet. Instead of passionate make up intimacy, they broke up and she moved out.

            After Jenny and Jimmy’s conversation, I put a dream inside his head that night. Jenny wanted back in his life. He struggled with whether to take her back or not. But dreams are often strange. In familiar, yet foreign settings, he was reminded of what a philanderer he was before he was married. Although they went way off the deep end, I made him feel she deserved a second chance.

            When he finally woke, feeling discombobulated, he turned on a light and reached for his Bible. I manipulated the page he opened to and the verse his eyes landed on. It was Hosea 1:2. After reading the verse, he got a red pen and underlined a portion. “Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry.”

            “You can’t be serious,” Vermillion said with a smirk.

            “We’ll see,” I shrugged. “Time will tell.”

ANGELS AT WAR – CHAPTER 21

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 21

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

VANITY OF VANITIES, SAYS THE PREACHER; VANITY OF VANITIES, ALL IS VANITY (Ecclesiastes 1:2)

            “What did I tell you, Querida?” Vermillion said with satisfaction. “Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.”

            I began to move away from my adversary, but my former friend followed me and used a human expression. “What’s the matter, cat got your tongue? Hang on a minute, I want to show you something.”

            Although I knew he wanted to gloat, or point out something negative, I stopped. His team was brewing something very bad, and I thought he might give me a clue. But that wouldn’t necessarily be the case. Vermillion was very shrewd and had planned diabolically well.

            The two adulteress neighbors had been sneaking around for eight months, stealing time wherever and whenever they could, including Jenny’s basement, Justin’s minivan in a secluded park, and even a few times in a pay by the hour motel.

            They became addicted to the adrenaline as much as their lust for each other. The deceptive thrill of the forbidden fueled their blinded minds. Their carnal passion made them like dogs chasing their tails. They couldn’t get enough and they couldn’t stop. Lust doesn’t completely fulfill like real love does.

            “Notice how the two illicit lovers are so relaxed and lingering,” Vermillion said and then giggled maliciously. “They think they have arranged the perfect tryst, but a violent storm approaches.”

            For the first time since the adulterers consummated their illegitimate relationship, their significant others were supposed to be out of town at the same time. Jenny’s husband Jimmy was camping with a church youth group. And Jill supposedly went to her parents’ home in Des Moines for the weekend.

            “I’d say old Jenny has fulfilled the seductress from Proverbs chapter seven quite accurately in a modern sense,” Vermillion declared rather pleased. “Her husband is gone for a couple days, taking a sleeping bag with him. She put her best sheets on the bed. She kissed her lover aggressively when he stepped into her home. Then they took their fill of love until the morning. But that’s where it ends.”

            Tragedy was about to strike, and I needed to confer with my team.

            “Off to consult with Althea and Liam?” Vermillion inquired, referring to Jenny’s and Justin’s guardian angels.

            I ignored him. Even when people are not in a right relationship with their Maker, they are still afforded protection most of the time. This does not mean that if they do die, they are awarded eternal life. Salvation is a free gift, but it can be rejected.

            This rejection is rarely a person consciously proclaiming, ‘no I do not want salvation.’ It is almost always a person doing their own will rather than God’s will. Jesus said if you love Him, you will keep His commandments. (John 14:15) Maybe the biggest danger is procrastination. The Bible declares NOW is the day of salvation. (2 Corinthians 6:2)

            Human existence is strange in so many ways. One of them is fear. So often a person will worry for nothing. They develop anxiety over a possible situation, and then it doesn’t comes to pass. Then there are those without a care in the world when a sudden, unexpected calamity overtakes them.

            Jenny and Justin relaxed in bed after committing adultery for the umpteenth time in the last several months. Familialarity with their sin had reduced their anxiety, guilt, and shame to an occasional itch. Whereas in the beginning it had been a flaming boil. Then a little time had allowed carnal passion to put a warm compress on the discomfort of a guilty, worried conscience.

            The more they indulged, the less they were convicted by their sins. The more they indulged, the more the excitement of the next encounter replaced the feelings of betrayal they once had. Vermillion’s team also gave them an extra sexual thrill at chasing the forbidden.

            Like a drug, it had become addictive and deceptive. But in the end, unlike love, it was unfulfilling. Oh, they told each other they were in love. They felt their shared secret gave them a special bond. But even if their relationship developed into leaving their spouses for each other, how could a cheat ever truly trust a cheater?

            They had become hardened under the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:13) With their spouses gone for a couple days, they were both enraptured by an exciting first involving their illicit relationship. After months of sneaking around, and their typical tryst being a fast thrill, they now had two full days to drink wine and consume lust. For the first time they were going to sleep together in the truest sense of the word.

            But what they hadn’t accounted for was one of their spouses becoming suspicious. Distrustful to the point they had hired a private detective. One encounter being exceptionally incriminating. With a telephoto lense he captured the two lovers arriving separately at a cheap motel, but they both entered the same room.

            I need to be careful with my next wording, but there is a famous human saying about a woman scorned. The two lovers were about to experience this in the full sense of the phrase. After hours of intoxicating wine and passion, they fell into a deep sleep.

            In the early hours of the morning, they didn’t hear Jill Phillips sneak into the Stetson house. As she slowly made her way to the lover’s nest, a demon whispered a poem into her head. It was a rhyme composed more than a hundred years earlier regarding Lizzie Borden and the axe murders of her father and stepmother. Only Jill and the demon changed the words to fit this current crime.

            “Jill Phillips took an axe,” her lips muttered. “And gave her husband forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave his lover forty one.”

            I watched with bated breath. We are not always allowed to interfere with fallen world activity. Vermillion sidled up next to me again. “Funny how human lives play out, isn’t it?”

            I looked at him and then back at the drama unfolding.

            “How come you’re not running interference?”

            I remained silent.

            “I get it,” he said, and then laughed diabolically. “They made their bed and now they need to sleep in it… Permanently!”

            “We’ll see,” I said hopefully.

            “Who would have thought it would be Jenny and not Jimmy that betrayed their vows two and a half decades after promising them,” Vermillion said with a mockingly, sentimental tone as he began a little biography. “I mean, Jimmy was the one that was a player, while Jenny was a plain Jane, nerdy bookworm. Their marriage sure puzzled his old drinking buddies. After all the ravaging beauties he bedded, he up and marries someone who looked like she stepped off the set of ‘Little House On the Prairie.’

            “They said behind his back, ‘he sure married down.’ But things shifted over the years. He quit smoking and became a nibbler. Gluttony can be subtle, can’t it? And it often goes overlooked. After all, everybody eats. So in only a few years, his six pack abs transformed into a little keg. His hair began to thin.

            “Jenny, on the other hand, really got into aerobics after having two kids. She started running. She ate well. By the time the Stetson’s reached their twentieth anniversary, Jimmy was bald and overweight. Jenny was toned, fit, and habitually got blonde highlights streaked through her light brown hair. She wore outfits that showed off her shapely legs. People began to think, ‘ole Jimmy sure married up.’

            “Then you have the Phillips. High school sweethearts. Prom king and queen. Home coming king and queen. Head cheerleader to his quarterback. While a teenager and in her early twenties, Jill’s tendency for weight gain was held in check. A voluptuous body with an exceptionally pretty face made her the envy of many girls and the desire of most guys.

            “After birthing two children, it took Jill great discipline with what she put in her mouth, and much effort at exercise to return to a semblance of what she had been. But after a third child, an unexpected pregnancy at thirty something, she threw up her hands in defeat. She put minimal effort into exercise, and no longer held much discipline with food.

            “She hated the failed attempts of girlfriends to disguise disapproval when she indulged comfort food in front of them. She resented non-disguised disapproval from her mother. And she despised her husband’s not so subtle hints. She hated the older woman next door and how she seemed to purposely flaunt her hard body in those spandex shorts. Yet she hid her roiling jealousy over her husband running with Jenny, because he had petitioned her many times to join him herself.

            “So he didn’t notice that she noticed his friendship with the woman next door grow cozier and cozier. What happened to them? To her? She had quite literally been a queen to his king. Now over the last year especially, he avoided intimacy with her. This lack made her feel all the more like a dumpy old hag. And it was all because of a woman that was technically old enough to be his mother.”

            “Are you about finished?” I asked.

            “Quite!” he said and then bellowed with maniacal laughter. “And so are the love birds.”

            I couldn’t help what happened next. Earth is a sin filled, fallen planet. I get filled with righteous indignation when God is blamed for Satan’s doings. Heaven and unfallen worlds are perfect. This place with wars, famines, and so much cruelty is ultimately the result of the war in heaven, caused by Lucifer’s rebellion. Yet people at large call natural disasters, ‘acts of God.’ To use a human term, Hogwash!

            So when a person becomes a Christian, they become a rebel, in a sense. They rebel against their selfish tendencies and the ways of this world. Humans are warned that they are pilgrims here, and that all that live Godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. (2 Timothy 3:12)

            But Jesus encourages, “be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) There is also the comfort with these words of the Savior. “Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.”

            But the two lovers were not living Godly in Christ Jesus. Not only their human lives were at stake, but their souls were in jeopardy as well. So I cringed when the vengeful woman, with a sharp axe raised above her head, brought it down swift and hard on the shadowy, sleeping target.

ANGELS AT WAR – CHAPTER 20

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 20

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY (Exodus 20:14)

            “Are you disappointed she didn’t confess?” Vermillion asked. His tone was surprisingly neutral from what he usually spoke to me when he wanted to gloat or boast.

            “If you don’t have expectations with sinful humanity, you’re not disappointed,” I replied.

            “Is that why you’re side rejoices over one sinner that repents?” he asked with a mocking tone as he referred to Luke 15:7 and 10.

            “Why do you seem disappointed?”

            “I’m not. You know my side prefers sin and secrecy over truth and honesty.”

            “You must not be confident that there will be a second indiscretion.”

            “Oh, it’s not that at all. Now that she didn’t confess, she, I should say they, are gonna disregard the warnings of Proverbs chapter five about adultery. I just felt the confession would have been interesting to watch.”

            Now I knew why he was neutral. To use a human expression, he wanted to have his cake and eat it too. He wanted to see the possibility of marriages destroyed with the adultery coming to light. At minimum marriages damaged. But he also wanted to see his prediction of rinse and repeat come to fruition.

            It had not even been an hour since the woman defiled herself with a man who wasn’t her husband. To add severity to the sin, the man she went to bed with was married as well. He was also the father of three young children. To make the iniquity yet more precarious, he was her next door neighbor.

            She had scrubbed herself aggressively in the shower after the encounter. Not only did she wish to scrub the sin away, she wanted to make sure any possible scent of her paramour’s cologne was gone. Then, facing her husband less than a half an hour after she dried off, he had leaned toward her and asked, “What’s that smell?”

            Her guilty conscience warned her that he suspected. In an effort to get her sin off of her chest, she blurted, “I have something I need to tell you.”

            He walked past her to the gas stove. “You didn’t turn the burner all the way off. So what did you need to tell me?”

            “How careless of me,” she said, looking at the stove with a frown as her brain scrambled for something to ‘tell’ him. “Um, there’s a light bulb burned out in the bathroom.”

            “Okay,” he said laughing. “You made it sound like something more urgent than a burned out light bulb.”

            “I just didn’t want to forget. You can reach it, but I’d have to get the little step ladder from the shed.”

            The next day, the woman got a text message from her young lover about going for a run. She made an excuse to not go. The following day the same text and made the same excuse to not go. The third day he called. As she looked at caller ID, she sighed and decided she couldn’t evade him forever. She might as well face the music. Yet she didn’t push answer in time. It went to voice mail, and he left a brief message. “Please call me within the next few hours. We need to talk, and Jill and the kids won’t be home until at least seven thirty.”

            She paced the living room nervously biting her thumb. Why was she hesitating? Did she actually want another tryst, even though she felt compelled to tell him their fling was a mistake? She wanted them to get back to normal. But what was normal? Flirting and lusting had become normal, and then that led to the point where they crossed a line!

            No, she determined to not only tell him it was a mistake, but that they needed to stop seeing each other altogether. Their relationship needed to be strictly a wave across the fence followed by a ‘hello neighbor, nice day.’ Then maybe their indiscretion would fade over time. She sighed heavily and picked up her phone. She might as well get it over with.

            “Hey,” she greeted softly, rather than her usual perky attitude.

            “Hey,” he replied with his own low tone. “Were you trying to avoid me?”

            “Why would I try to do that?” she asked, half joking and half serious as she tried to dial up a more lively vibe.

            “Because something pretty big happened between us the other day.”

            “Yeah, Justin, about that. We… ya know… made a mistake.”

            “I thought we made love.”

            “But we are both married.”

            “I know.”

            There was a long awkward pause. “Justin, I can’t have an affair. I love my husband… I think we need to stop running together, hanging out together.”

            “I completely understand. I felt terrible as well. But I do not want to lose our friendship.”

            She didn’t either. She hated the thought of their relationship being reduced to ‘sure could use some rain’ over the fence.

            “So, how about it? Let’s go for a run and try to get back to normal.”

            “Okay,” she replied with both a grin and a frown. “But I only have about a half hour, then I need to get supper started.

            “That’s fine.”

            As Vermillion and I watched, my opponent became giddy despite the woman putting on loose sweat pants instead of her usual painted on spandex shorts. She also pulled a large t-shirt over her head, covering the tight sports bra.

            Despite a resolve to just be friends, she felt a sense of skepticism. How could they go back to normal? Before their sin, they had a mutual attraction and a playful flirtation. Now that they gave in to the desires that resulted, would that just go away? Was it possible? They had opened a door. The question was, could it be shut before the illicit winds of lust opened it wider.

            But it seemed to work! Their playful banter was still present, but the sexual innuendos that had evolved over the previous months were absent. The chemistry was still there but held in check. Maybe just friends could work. They were well behaved and polite, and this seemed to give Vermillion great delight. He told me. “It’s the little things, Q, that build up to bigger things.”

            As their run ended, Justin followed her into her garage. He held out his hand to shake. With a boyish grin he said, “Thank you for accompanying me, Mrs. Stetson.”

            “Thank you for escorting me, Mr. Phillips,” she replied with her own grin. But then for some reason, she spontaneously winked at him.

            Their hands were still joined and Justin’s grin faded as he contemplated that wink. Then for some reason he spontaneously pulled her hand toward his face. With eyes locked on hers, he kissed it. Her pulse began to quicken, but so did her conscience. She jerked her hand from his but smiled coyly. “Are we gonna be able to remain just friends?”

            With a suggestive low tone, he growled. “You tell me.”

            “We have to,” she declared and gave him a playful shove. “Now, I think we both need a shower.”

            “So, are you suggesting we take a shower together?”

            “Justin!” she said with hands sternly on her hips, but a little smile curled on her lips. “I mean you in your house and me in mine. We can’t go down that road!”

            “We already did.”

            “Well, we need to realize that it’s a dead end.”

            “So let’s park and stay there awhile.”

            “Look, Justin, I don’t think running together and hanging out is gonna work. There seems to be just too much chemistry between us, and now that we, you know, got to know each other in a way reserved for our spouses. I mean, don’t you feel guilty? I know I do.”

            She hoped bringing up their partners would deter him, but it only added fuel to his fire. “I do, but there’s another side of the coin. Both of the spouses you mention are terribly out of shape. And ironically, trying to initiate sex with mine is like trying to pull her teeth. And you admitted that yours has recently developed certain problems. Which is also ironic since his wife has to be the hottest fifty something on the planet.”

            His compliment made her suddenly wish she was in her usual attire rather than frumpy sweats. He was clearly willing to pursue an affair, and she found this prospect both alluring and disturbing. Determined to focus on disturbing, she said, “Justin, it just isn’t right. We both took vows.”

            “True enough, but you were willing to break them the other day. How come then but not now?”

            She shrugged. “I gave into desire.”

            He grinned and took hold of her hand. “So give in again.”

            “I can’t.”

            “But why? I thought the other day was absolutely amazing! Forgive me, but you seemed to thoroughly enjoy yourself as well. So why am I now repulsive?”

            “Trust me, you are anything but repulsive.”

            “If that’s the case, I still don’t get it.”

            “Don’t you feel guilty, Justin? I mean, not just for our own spouses either. I don’t know if I could look Jill in the eyes right now.”

            “You’re over thinking this.”

            “You didn’t answer me. Don’t you feel guilty?”

            He shrugged. “Of course I do. But you’re worth it. The guilt will fade with time. We are both just freaked out by the newness of our secret love.”

            He loved her! Did she love him? Why were there so many mixed feelings? She realized they were still holding hands and she pulled hers away. She tried a different approach. Although she skipped church more often than she went these days, she said, “I’m a deaconess in our church; I was head deaconess for more than a decade. Do you realize how humiliating it would be if we got caught? Look, I’m already late getting supper going and I need to shower first.”

            “Run tomorrow?”

            She bit her lip and looked at her watch. “We’ll see.”

            Vermillion couldn’t keep silent. “Do you see why we usually win with fallen humanity, Querida? She is clearly more concerned with getting caught rather than the sin itself. But I guess that should be obvious since they’ve already done the dirty deed. Watch what happens next.”

            I knew what his team had in the works and it wasn’t good. The thing that made it all the more despicable was they were using the good heart of the adulteress’s husband. He was one of those people that many others rely on when in need. The type of guy that would give the shirt off his back when someone was in need.

            The adulteress’s mind was completely absorbed with her paramour and their dialogue. So she gave a little start as she dried off from her shower when her phone sounded off. Then she recoiled for a second as she reached for it and saw her husband’s name on caller ID. It was as if he knew her thoughts. It was as if he knew about her fling. But he couldn’t, could he? The guilty mind sure can be paranoid.

            “Hi, Honey,” she said cheerfully, yet her hand trembled slightly.

            “Hey, Babe,” her husband cooed lovingly, calming her instantly. “Have you started supper yet?”

            “I was about to. I was just drying off from a shower after a run.”

            She bit her lip. Every once in a while he asked if she ran with Justin. Never out of jealousy, always simply conversational. But he didn’t ask about their neighbor; he went right into the reason for his call. “Jared Anderson forgot to turn his lights off on his car when he got to work this morning, so I’m going over to his office to jump start him. By the time I drive over there and get him going, I won’t be home until around eight, give or take.”

            “Oh, okay. I’ll wait an hour to start supper.”

            “Thanks, Babe, love you.”

            “Love you, too,” she told him.

            Her heart pounded with excitement. She scrolled her contacts for Justin’s number. She was about to hit send, when my team pricked her conscience. She groaned and tossed her phone onto the bed. But she had freewill, and sometimes when carnal desire gets rolling, it’s hard to stop. Us trying to influence the conscience then becomes like trying to stop a Mack truck with a butterfly net.

            My team’s job becomes easier to a large degree when people stay grounded in the Word of God, coupled with prayer. It’s been said, and I agree, that prayer is the better half of study. When this is practiced, humans experience a very high success rate with victory over sin.

            Spiritual things have been compared to food and water. Jesus said if anyone thirsts let them come to Him and drink. (John 7:37) He also called Himself the Bread of Life. (John 6:35) How often does one need to eat and drink their physical food? As with physical nourishment, so with the spiritual sustenance. One needs it multiple times a day.

            On the other hand, beware. The enemy does double down on those that are serious about God. The Bible warns that those who live Godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. (2 Timothy 3:12) The demons don’t need to work hard on the people that already don’t care about following God.

            Unfortunately the adulteress, someone still considered a church leader, had back slidden from devoted prayer and study. Her daily devotion had become reduced to a halfhearted thirty second prayer before bed. But her mind did anguish and wrestle with her dilemma over her potential lover for almost five minutes. But time was waning, she needed to make a decision.

            Having forfeited her strong connection with God, Vermillion’s team was able to harness her carnal desires. One of the first things they did after taking a hold of the reins was convince her that another dalliance was meant to be. Justin was right about them deserving each other. But was there still time?

            Almost frantically she picked up her phone. Justin’s name was still up and she hit send.

            “Hey, Jenny, what’s up?” his voice said into her ear.

            “Jimmy won’t be home until around eight… Do you want to come over?”

ANGELS AT WAR – CHAPTER 19

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 19

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

“I SAY TO YOU THAT WHOEVER LOOKS AT A WOMAN TO LUST FOR HER HAS ALREADY COMMITED ADULTERY WITH HER IN HIS HEART.” (Matthew 5:28)

            “You’re too late, my former friend,” Vermillion gloated.

            “Am I?”

            “You are indeed,” he taunted. “The covenant is broken, the indiscreet affair consummated, adultery completed. Never to be undone.”

            “No, they can’t undo it. But it can be forgiven.”

            “Oh wait, I spoke amiss. I suspect that the affair is just beginning not completed. Oh, I know they both tell themselves, ‘just this once.’ But human hormones are a powerful drug, especially when locked into illicit thoughts. You should have been here to stop it, Querida.”

            “You know better than that. We can impress, we can protect, but we can’t get in the way of freewill.”

            He chortled. “Ah freewill, tiz a wonderful thing when coupled with a sinful nature.”

            “It’s a beautiful thing when submitted to God in love.”

            He snorted. “You say trust and obey, I say lust and give way. To the carnal instinct that is. Look how much fun they just had! That was the biggest thrill in years for both of them!”

            “Well, the biggest thrill in years is gone now. They are experiencing guilt and shame on a level like never before.”

            “That’s your side’s fault. We provide the party; you guys are the poopers.”

            “We provide peace and contentment when following God. The law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul. Through the conscience, humans have an instinct leading to a higher purpose.”

            “It’s funny how that works, Querida. When that instinct is ignored, and a person gives themselves over to the forbidden, their doom is sealed.”

            “Not so, they…”

            “What do you mean not so?” Vermillion interrupted. “What about the mark of the beast or the seal of God? When a person gives themselves over to us, we have a seal as well.”

            “As long as they have breath, they have time to repent.”

            “Bah!” Vermillion barked, then laughed maliciously. “You just wait. They’ll rinse and repeat. Speaking of rinsing, look at the extra friendly neighbors now. They are both in their own showers trying to scrub their sin away before their spouses arrive home. Is that how one repents? With soap and water?”

            “It’s a start. They both are aware they have sinned.”

            “They’ll be back at it when the hormones rebuild. Then they will be aware that they tapped into something magical. Illicit brings excitement. Right now they are more worried that they might get caught than sorry that they sinned.”

            “Look at her tears. That’s not worry of being caught, that’s sorrow over betraying a sacred trust.”

            “It’ll pass. Then the recollection of his touch and the sensual sensations she felt will overrule her conscience. The first encounter is in the books after months, yeah years, of resisting. The next encounter will come much, much easier.”

            “We’ll see. There’s a reason for guilt. If she confesses, God will forgive.”

            “What about her husband? Shouldn’t she confess to him as well? Will he be harmonious with his next-door neighbor given such a revelation? Smile and wave as they both mow their lawns? No, Querida, my bet is she will figure what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. And that reluctance will ultimately make the second encounter much easier. Then a third and a fourth and a fifth, etc, etc. Despite their aggressive cleaning now, it was quite the start a half hour ago.”

            “You know as well as I do that it started with that first look of lust.”

            “Ah, like I said, lust and obey the carnal instinct. Sometimes it just takes time and patience. But a lot of resisted longing makes the coupling all the more intense when it finally happens. Were you here the first time the new neighbors, now lovers, met four years ago? I don’t believe you were, so let me fill you in.”

            “I was made aware,” I cut in.

            The older, established neighbors brought a welcoming gift to the new neighbors sixteen years their junior. The fresh names on the mailbox declared them to be Justin and Jill Phillips. The new neighbors invited their brand new friends in for a beverage. They accepted but said only for a few minutes because they had a golf engagement with some friends.

            As the older female neighbor sat next to her husband on a love seat, that’s when the first looks and thoughts in the secret recesses of the eventual lover’s minds began. Her short golf skirt revealed a lot of shapely leg, and as the younger man approached with a glass of lemonade, his mind told him, ‘She’s got to be forty plus, but she’s in better shape than your wife.’

            The older woman admired the lean, toned runner’s build of the younger man. His stomach was flat behind his gray tucked in polo shirt. She glanced at what looked like a small pillow behind her husband’s green polo shirt.

            The younger couple’s five and three year old sons were tearing around the living room. This motivated the older couple to down their lemonades more quickly than necessary. Then they looked at their watches and excused themselves.

            Although the two neighbors exchanged several waves in the following weeks, it would be a couple months before they actually spoke again. It was on a hot summer day when the older female returned from a run. The younger male had been operating an edger on the sidewalk as she approached. He stopped his work and stepped aside so she could pass. He smiled warmly and said hello.

            Instead of running past, she stopped. Huffing slightly and sweating profusely, she said, “How are things in the new digs?”

            “Great,” Justin replied.

            When she glanced down at her watch, apparently checking her running time, he glanced down as well. He took in her black spandex shorts with matching sports bra that seemed to be painted on. His mind told him, ‘Man, she’s smoking hot, and not just from the run. Yet she’s probably not much younger than my mom.’

            His eyes averted back to her face before her eyes averted back to his. He asked, “Do you run quite a bit?”

            “I do,” she admitted. “It’s become quite an addiction.”

            “I like to run, but between work and the family, it’s hard to find time.”

            “Well, if you ever want to join me, I run almost every day at around this time. Sometimes it makes it easier to get motivated if you have a running partner.”

            “Yeah, I should do just that,” Justin replied nodding. “You sure you wouldn’t mind company?”

            “Not at all, I’d love to have you join me,” A little sultry added to her smile. Her subconscious nagged her mind a little bit after her reply. There was a chemistry between them that she couldn’t put her finger on that Vermillion’s team was pushing. Our side motivated distance.

            “My husband used to run with me, but he has knee problems now.”

            Vermillion inspired Justin’s first bold flirtation, that was encouraged by her sexy smile. “Are you sure your husband won’t mind me getting sweating with his gorgeous wife?”

            She smiled warmly, liking the compliment. Then our side caused caution to enter her mind. Her smile faded and she said, “Considering I’m old enough to be your mother, he won’t mind at all.”

            “There’s no way you’re as old as my mother.”

            She couldn’t help grinning again. She liked the younger man. He had a friendly charm that was appealing, and he was so good looking. Tall dark and handsome was what came to mind to describe him. But she felt ancient in his presence and was sure his mother had him late in life. “Well, let’s see, how old was she when you were born?”

            “Seventeen.”

            Her smile faded again. His mother was only a year older than she was. Yet he had said there was no way she was as old as his mother. That was good, right? But then dawning recognition set in. The younger man had reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t put her finger on it until now. That dark wavy hair and the shape of his blue eyes. She remembered a girl a grade ahead of her who had gotten pregnant the summer between her junior and senior year. “Is your mother’s name Becky Russo?”

            A look of astonishment came over his face. “Well it was. It’s Becky Adler now, but how did you know? Were you high school classmates?”

            “Well, she was a grade ahead of me. I didn’t really know her, I just knew of her.”

            He smiled coyly. “You knew of her because she was a pregnant high schooler.”

            She shrugged and nodded. “Pregnant with you no less, my new neighbor.”

            Then a week later, the younger couple discovered they were expecting again themselves.

            “Like I said, patience, the long game,” Vermillion had told me on numerous occasions throughout our association as opponents.

            I hate to admit it, but he was right. Finding out that Justin’s mother was almost her same age quelled her flirtations with Justin for the time being. His wife being with child again postponed his own feelings of amour.

            Then things shifted over time. Justin’s wife was at one time a cheerleader to his quarterback, and homecoming queen to his king. After two kids she struggled to get into a semblance of shape. After the third child, who they would refer to as an ‘opps,’ she didn’t even try. Yet his frequent jogging partner next door became more sleek and lithe by running religiously.

            Then things shifted again. Not long after the older woman turned fifty, she won first place in her age category in a 5K. The next day Justin called the older neighbor to see if she wanted to go for a run. He went next door, taking his phone with him. “I never got a picture of you wearing your medal.”

            “Oh, it’s no big deal,” she replied modestly. She had only been running in 5K’s for two years with the first one at the younger neighbor’s instigation. “I never won first place in the forties category. Since my birthday was only two months ago, I was probably the youngest in the fifties bracket.”

            “Nonetheless you won first place and I want a picture.”

            She struggled to clasp the medal around her neck, so Justin offered to help her. Then a miscommunication opened the door for their not so secret desires for each other to come to fruition. Although they had always behaved physically, never even exchanging a hug, they often teased each other. This teasing evolved into flirting.

            The older woman handed the medal over to Justin. She had a stiff neck, and when she pulled her ponytail aside to make way for him to clasp the medal, she tilted her head to the left to stretch the tight muscles. The younger neighbor mistook this as an invitation to place his lips on the soft skin just below her jaw.

            She froze with my side telling her mind to tell her mouth to stop this right now and obey the Spirit. But Vermillion’s side kept her locked in indecision. They kept her tantalized with intense carnal sensations. The long standing attraction to each other that they both allowed their minds to indulge in fantasy was now rearing its ugly head in reality. My side sent a hard jab at her conscience. She pushed away from her younger neighbor and said, “We better stop.”

            But her shaky giggle, along with her hands still on his chest communicated something other than her words. Then she allowed herself to waver. “Don’t you think?”

            Justin countered her suggestion. “I saw your husband leave with golf clubs twenty minutes ago. My boys won’t be back from Cub Scouts, and my wife and daughter from play group until seven. Just like you, it crossed my mind that this was our chance.”

            “What do you mean ‘just like me?’”

            He smiled coyly. “You know, offering your neck like that. I got the hint and went with it. Don’t change your mind now.”

            “But I…,” she said as my side tried reasoning with her.

            But Vermillion overwhelmed her with carnal desire. All of her impure thoughts about her younger neighbor came to a boil. But an hour later her shower lasted twice as long with twice the amount of soap than if she would have actually went for a run in the July heat. Her hands trembled off and on as she prepared supper afterward with her mind reeling with anxious, guilty thoughts.

            She kissed her husband when he came home and they hugged. He frowned when they separated. “Why are you shaking?”

            “Oh, am I?” she stammered, then lied. “I don’t know, I guess I over did it this afternoon running so soon after the 5K.”

            “Did Justin go with you?”

            “No,” she blurted. “I mean yeah.”

            “No, yeah,” he laughed. “What kind of answer is that? Either he went or he didn’t.”

            “Well, he wasn’t gonna, but then he changed his mind.”

            She could feel her heart pounding, and it reminded her of the Edgar Allan Poe story, ‘The Tell Tale Heart.’ It was a tale of man who killed an old man and hid him under floorboards. Then his guilty conscience kept hearing the old man’s heart beating louder and louder, even though he was dead. But she didn’t kill anybody. Maybe just her marriage.

            Her husband leaned in toward her, sniffed and frowned. “What’s that smell?”

            Her heart beat still faster! Lies, betrayal, adultery! Just confess right now! Her husband was a reasonable man. They had been married for more than a quarter of a century, and until today she had never so much as kissed another man. She made a mistake; her husband would forgive her. Wouldn’t he? They had built a life together, a good life. She just needed to get serious about God again.

            Okay, she might as well own up to it since he clearly suspected. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

ANGELS AT WAR – CHAPTER 18

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 18

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

HE WHO BELIEVES AND IS BAPTIZED WILL BE SAVED (Mark 16:16)

            “All things work together for good to those who love God,” I said, not as a taunt, but as a praise to God.

            “Oh, shut up,” Vermillion responded. “At least Ginger’s actions tainted their so called conversions.”

            “But all four got baptized.”

            “You know as well as I do that it’s the long game, not the short game,” he replied.

            He spoke the truth. The demonic realm often espouses truth. Poison is more likely to be taken if it is diluted with something else. That’s why false religion has done so much damage. That’s how all the world marveled and followed the beast. (Revelation 13:3)

            (Just a reminder, to learn WHO the beast is and WHAT the mark of the beast is, AmazingFacts.Org. has excellent free Bible study guides you can do online.)

            It also helps the demonic realm that human nature is more prone to follow them than God. Living in a fallen world actually means one needs to rebel, albeit in a positive way. Everyone on earth constructed of flesh, bone and blood is in danger of the following Bible text. ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who cane know it?’ (Jeremiah 17:9)

            Although Lucy was not desperately wicked, she was desperately wounded after being raped by four men. In the scaring process of this wound, her mind was in denial about a frightening fact. She hadn’t experienced her menstrual cycle since she was violated. Even as she noticed her mid-section begin to gradually expand, her prevalent thought was that she had been eating a lot of ice cream lately. She needed to cut out comfort food since it wasn’t healthy and the brief consolation it afforded wasn’t sustainable.

            As she and Jimmy began to seek truth together, another truth was beginning to nag at her mind. She began to entertain the thought that her lack of having a period could mean she was pregnant. She began to concoct a scheme, for she and Jimmy hadn’t made a decision for Christ yet. They were still smoking funny things and flirting with the chemistry that crackled between them.

            She began to manipulate Jimmy’s oversexed instinct. It worked. She made sure that when they gave into passion, that the lighting was minimal. She didn’t want Jimmy to question why her stomach was slightly out of proportion with the rest of her body.  

            In a subconscious attempt to block her pain, Lucy even convinced herself that the baby was Jimmy’s. The adage of ‘tell a lie long enough or convincingly enough and you believe it yourself’ happened to her. It also happened to my adversaries, like Vermillion and his supreme leader, on a supernatural level.

            When Jimmy literally got caught with his pants down with Ginger, it jarred something with Lucy’s psyche. When it was proven that Ginger set him up, for they discovered the cut phone line and the carelessly discarded spare key, Lucy confessed. “Just so you know, this baby isn’t yours! I’m sorry.”

            “I forgive you,” he said, feeling relieved. He wasn’t sure if that feeling was right or wrong. He was just glad he wasn’t gonna be the parent of two children, by two women, one month apart in age.

            Jimmy knew Lucy meant that one of her sex offenders was in fact the biological father. As painful as it was to admit, the truth was coaxed out of her by the Spirit of God. She stared at him with mouth agape, her eyes wide and filling with tears. Jimmy hugged her and at first she clung to him. He gently said, “It isn’t the child’s fault who the father is.”

            “I know,” she replied before going to her knees sobbing. It was then that the pair decided to postpone their baptism. Between Lucy’s admission, and Jimmy’s ordeal with Ginger, they wanted a little more time to adjust. Jenny and Jake also postponed their intended baptism in solidarity.

            As the next Sabbath approached, Lucy decided that she wanted to get baptized. Between the council of Pastor and Mrs. Samson, and the support of her friends and family, she didn’t want to wait any longer. Vermillion and his host had hoped to discourage or at least taint the baptisms, but they were only delayed one week, and the participants were all the more zealous about their commitment to Christ.

            The plan to destroy only brought beauty from ashes. Lucy gave a testimony to the church on the morning of their baptisms. She felt led to make public her ordeal, even if it only helped one young woman.

            While she made clear that the men who violated were in no way, at all, even slightly justified with their crime against her, she acknowledged her own culpability. The first mistake was indulging in several adult beverages. With lowered inhibitions, she then engaged in exhibitionism by flashing the four college guys. Her third and final mistake was she carelessly found herself alone with them.

            She admitted difficulty getting her mind around her child being a blood relative of one of her rapists. But thanks to Jimmy, she embraced the concept that it wasn’t child’s fault. It occurred to her that the biological father and her child were two separate people.

            Lucy and Jimmy shook hands before they were baptized in Cotton Creek. Then they hugged after they emerged from the watery grave where they honored Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, thereby committing themselves to Him.

            Afterward, Jake wowed the congregation with his acoustic guitar rendition of shall ‘Shall We Gather at the River.’ Then he himself was astounded when Lucy joined him to sing ‘Amazing Grace.’ His astonishment wasn’t that she spontaneously joined him, but at the loveliness of her voice. The two began a collaboration with a song ministry.

            With music being a great joy in both of their lives, they began to spend a lot of time together. They even began writing songs together. It was during one of these collaborations on a song that Lucy began to experience severe cramping. The pain became so intense she fainted. Jake rushed her to the emergency room where she miscarried her baby.

            Jake had been a big source of comfort in the aftermath of her loss. This comfort eventually led to their first kiss. This first kiss led to a conversation with Jimmy. He gave his brother his blessing. He admitted that with Jenny expecting his child, Larry out of the picture, and their faith in God in common, romance between them was beginning to simmer once again.

            September 1, 1991. It was a year to the day the four were baptized. Lucy and Jake, along with Jenny and Jimmy, were married in a double wedding. Pastor Samson, AKA Captain Kirk, officiated.

            Jake became an evangelist, and he and Lucy travelled the world with a song ministry. They figured they would do that until they found themselves with child. Then they would settle down to a pastorship wherever the Lord called. But children were not forthcoming, so they continued bringing hundreds, ultimately thousands, to Lord over the years.

            Jenny and Jimmy welcomed a daughter in April, 1991. They welcomed a son two years later. Jenny was a stay at home mom with their kids until they were school age. Jimmy was blessed by employment with a plumbing distribution company that was employee owned. He came in at just the right window and retired before he was sixty, cashing in on substantial shares of stock.

            For more than two decades, the faithful foursome lived fairly steady lives of loyalty and devotion. However, one of them wandered away from the fold in a disappointing manner. C.S. Lewis once posed the question. ‘If you examined one hundred people who lost their faith, I wonder how many of them had been reasoned out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?’

            After the four baptisms, I moved on to another assignment, leaving reliable colleagues in charge of guardianship. A quarter of a century later, one of them sought me out and informed me that Vermillion and his minions had successfully lured one of the faithful four into deep sin.

            Before I move on to a new tale involving different people and circumstances, I will wrap up the story of Lucy, Jenny, Jimmy, and Jake in the next couple of chapters. I will try to explain how one fell so far from grace after years of devotion.

            But even we angels do not understand the mystery of iniquity. But, like believing humans, we are strengthened by the unfathomable grace and love of God!

ANGELS AT WAR – CHAPTER 17

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 17

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

DO NOT LOOK AT THE THINGS WHICH ARE SEEN, BUT AT THE THINGS WHICH ARE NOT SEEN… (2 Corinthians 4:18)

            “Where do you think this is all gonna go, Querida?” Vermillion asked, not trying to hide his malicious delight.

            “Hard to tell.”

            “It does look pretty bad for poor ole Jimmy, doesn’t it?” He asked with mock sympathy.

            “It doesn’t look good, but I’m hopeful that the truth will prevail.”

            “There you go with hope again. The problem is Jimmy’s history as a philanderer. Jenny and Lucy were both willing to overlook that history, believing he could change. But boy, oh boy, when Lucy and his brother walked in on Jimmy and Ginger! Talk about entertainment!”

            Vermillion cackled. The demonic realm had scored a sizable victory. You see, when Ginger, who was Jake’s girlfriend, rejected the call to repentance on the last night of the Bible prophecy seminar, she became open to demon possession. In human terms, for her situation with a rebellious heart, it was the last straw.

            Please understand. When Vermillion’s colleague Cinnabar entered Ginger, it wasn’t solely because she rejected a petition to accept Christ at the seminar. It was just the culminating act that had begun when she was fifteen and joined a party playing with a Ouija Board.

            This was a game that was no game. She thought she was playing with the mysteries of the spirit world. Instead they would play her. That seemingly innocent game led her to an interest in the occult. That interest in the occult led to closing her mind to Bible truth and opening it up to demonic control.

            When Jimmy got Jake interested in Bible prophecy, a part of Ginger’s soul wanted deliverance from the powers that gripped her. She felt like something wasn’t right with her soul. To look at her you would never know that the demonic realm was slowly, decisively taking her over. She worked in administration for the school district, liked to party on the weekends, and enjoyed going out on dates. But secretly, she met with a small group practicing black magic.

            Once her soul was given fully over to rebellion, Jimmy unfortunately was to fall into the crosshairs of the demon that controlled her. Cinnabar used her infatuation with Jimmy, coupled with her hostility to discourage these four brand new converts to following the Lord.

            Although Jimmy had a status as a womanizer, he had some personal rules as a lady’s man. Not only did he avoid dalliances with other guy’s gals, he shunned fooling around with any of his buddy’s ex’s as well. So imagine how it appeared when on the eve of getting baptized, two weeks after the Bible prophecy seminar ended, he was caught in a compromising position with Ginger.

            After Jenny revealed to Jimmy that he was the father of her unborn child, his brother Jake had played mediator. Jake was one of those people that was considered a jack of all trades, but master of none, except two. He was a talented guitarist and singer, and he also had a gift for playing peacemaker. He especially had the ability to listen and understand. This aptitude would be  challenged due to his brother’s incident with Ginger.

            At the end of the Bible meetings, Jake and Pastor Samson had managed to unify the tricky triangle his brother found himself in with Jenny and Lucy. Through prayer and reasoning, they achieved establishing Jimmy’s two girlfriends as girls who were just friends. Then the foursome of Jimmy, Jenny, Lucy, and Jake met with the Pastor a half a dozen times for more in depth Bible studies to prepare for baptism.

            Although Jake was a nice looking young man, he wasn’t the male specimen like his younger brother. He often thought that if he had his brother’s movie star looks, or his brother had his talent, it could be a star in the making. Quiet and introspective compared to his charming, social butterfly of a brother, Jake had always struggled to find ‘the one’ when it came to females.

            As he got to know Ginger, he felt like he had found his soulmate. The problem was, he was smitten with her physical beauty and over looked the little signs that defined a self-centered character. He was blinded by her shapely figure, long red hair, and striking blue green eyes.

            In the early evening of Friday, August 24, Cinnabar led Ginger to Jimmy’s trailer. The demonic realm knew that Jimmy went fishing with his roommate. They also knew his roommate was gonna camp at the lake and that Jimmy was going to be home alone. Ginger not only had a desire, but an obsession in her demon possession to seduce Jimmy.

            But when she got there, she discovered that no one was home. Inspired by evil, she went to her car, retrieved a knife, and cut his phone line. With supernatural help, she found a spare key under the deck in a small magnetic case, clinging to a bracket. She was then instructed to leave for a few hours.

            When she returned, she parked her black Datsun 280Z next to Jimmy’s pickup truck. She found him sound asleep in his bed. She crept back out to her car. She retrieved an empty four pack of wine coolers and placed them on the deck table along with half a pack of Virginia Slim cigarettes. She tiptoed back to Jimmy’s room and quietly disrobed every stitch of clothing. She sat in a desk chair and waited.

            On the other side of the mobile home park, Lucy made a phone call. “Hey, Jake, sorry to call so late but something weird is going on with Jimmy. You know how he was a no show at Bible study tonight. Well, now he’s not answering his phone and his answering machine isn’t picking up my calls.”

            “Oh well, I wouldn’t worry. When I got home from Bible study, I discovered he left me a message on my answering machine. He said he got off work early and was going fishing with his roommate. He said he might not make the study. Kind of odd since we’re all getting baptized tomorrow.”

            “Yes it is, and here’s another weird thing. I thought I would see if he was there and still up, so I just drove by his place a few minutes ago. His truck and his motorcycle were both there. But there was a black sports car in the driveway, instead of his roommate’s truck and it looked all dark inside his trailer.”

            Jake felt a chill go up his spine. “Was it a Datsun 280Z?”
            “I don’t know,” she replied, and then described a couple features of the vehicle.

            “That sounds like Ginger’s car,” he responded as he felt his adrenaline spike. “What would she be doing at Jake’s at only minutes before midnight? Something seems fishy.”

            “Do you think she’d hurt Jimmy? Something seemed off with her to me. I sensed something evil.”

            “I don’t think so. But how about I come over, and we check it out?”

            Vermillion could tell I didn’t like the situation either. He was also concerned that their demonic strategy might be derailed. He asked, “Are you not going to try anything to stop Ginger?”

            I wasn’t about to tell him we had instructions not to interfere. I fully trusted God. If human beings could see the end from the beginning, they would see everything God does is right and necessary. That doesn’t mean it is not difficult to watch those we care for go through trials and hardships. However I said, “You forgot to mention Cinnabar.”

            “Ginger is doing it willingly; Cinnabar is just assisting.”

              “Why does she need to assist if Ginger is doing it willingly?”

            “Obviously, being human, Ginger can’t see the bigger picture. Like cutting the phone line, planting the empty alcohol bottles, where the spare key was hidden, and when to set Jimmy up for the fall in his bedroom.”

            “You might as well have just admitted your side uses control and force. Jesus is a Gentleman; He stands at the door and knocks for entrance to the soul.” (Revelation 3:20)

            “So we’re playing it smart and your side isn’t.”

            “You can’t see the unfairness? Once again you can’t have love without freewill.”

            “Once again it comes down to justice,” he replied bitterly, and then departed hastily to watch over his minions.

            At half past midnight, Lucy and Jake parked his Mustang in front of Jimmy’s trailer. After they negotiated the steps of Jimmy’s deck, Jake shined a small flashlight’s beam onto the table with the light illuminated the empty bottles and pack of cigarettes. Both were favorite brands of Ginger.

            They noticed the main door was wide open. After giving a pull on the screen door, they discovered it to be unlocked. Jake flipped on the kitchen light. “Jimmy?”

            Ginger got up from the chair and laid on Jimmy’s bed. Jimmy stirred, and when his brother’s voice was closer as he called a second time, Jimmy blinked sleep from his eyes and turned on a bedside lamp. He gave a start when he saw the naked woman in his bed. “What? Who? Ginger!”

            She sprung on top of him. He bellowed, “Get off me!”

            “Ready to give them a show?” she asked with an eerie purr that gave him goose bumps.

            He scrambled away from her. He had been sleeping in only his shorts. As he rolled off the bed, Ginger clutched them from behind and they slid down his legs as he fell to the floor. Right as he was pulling them back up, Jake and Lucy looked into his room.

            Jimmy’s startled face took in their startled faces. Then he looked at the naked woman in his bed, and then back to his brother and Lucy. He opened his mouth to speak, but Ginger’s voice filled the room instead. “Oops, I guess we got caught.”

            “It’s not what you think,” Jimmy tried.

            “Oh yeah, what do we think?” Jake asked with surprising calmness. “That Ginger just roamed in off the street and climbed into bed with you?”

            “That had to be what happened,” Jimmy tried again. “I swear, I was asleep a minute ago… Alone!”

            “Jimmy, we saw the wine cooler bottles and her cigarettes on your deck,” Jake said crisply.

            Lucy had been breathing hard, then emitted a little squeal and ran from the place. Jake ran after her. She began to walk briskly toward her home, her arms folded in front of her, frowning as if in deep thought. Jake caught up to her. “Lucy, wait.”

            Lucy kept walking but looked at Jake with a bewildered expression. He said, “Listen, Lucy, let’s not jump to conclusions.”

            “Jump to conclusions? I know what I saw.”

            “I know, I know. But the thing is, I’ve never known Jimmy to sleep with his buddy’s ex’s, let alone his brother’s ex, and only a little more than a week after Ginger and I broke up.”

            “Come on, Jake. I saw a naked woman in his bed, and him scrambling to get his shorts on. Plus you saw the empty bottles.”

            “Yeah, I know it looks bad, but there just has to be an explanation.”

            “I’d say it’s one of two things. He either decided he doesn’t want to give up his old life, or he’s under some delusion that you can have something like a bachelor party before one gets baptized.”

            “I’m going with a third option, and that’s that there has to be some explanation.”

            “Even though I can’t believe what I saw; my eyes saw what they saw.”

            “Let’s say you are right. The simple truth of the matter is that both you and Jenny agreed that your relationship with Jimmy should just be friends for the time being. And Ginger is no longer my girlfriend.”

            “Oh, I’m so confused!” Lucy said as she clutched her forehead with her left hand.

            “So you still had, um, feelings for him?”

            “I don’t know,” she whined. “But the reason I was trying to call him tonight was about that night of indiscretion he and I had.”

            “So you wanted to make sure everything was good between you two before you were baptized?”

            “I guess that’s part of it,” she shrugged. “Because things just got more complicated for Jimmy, Jenny and me. And on the day before we all supposed to get baptized together no less.”

            She sighed heavily and looked up into the starry sky. Jake gave her a minute. But she remained silent, so he asked, “Does Jenny know that you and Jimmy, you know, went all the way?”

            “I don’t know if she knows, but she’s going to know.”

            “What’s that supposed to mean?”

            “I went to the doctor today… I’m pregnant.”

ANGELS AT WAR – CHAPTER 16

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

ANGELS AT WAR

CHAPTER 16

ARCHANGEL QUERIDA

AWAKE, YOU WHO SLEEP, ARISE FROM THE DEAD, AND CHRIST WILL GIVE YOU LIGHT (Ephesians 5:14)

            “Whoa, Nelly!” Vermillion bellowed. “Did you see Larry’s face when his hand got caught in the proverbial cookie jar? At least he was able to take a bite before it got slapped. Only too bad the cookie was sweet little Jenny. Too bad she didn’t find out about his deception before she decided to share a bed with him.

            “And what do we have over here, Querida? Your two young Bible students seem to have fornicated. Look at LucyFr cling to Jimmy as they say goodnight for the evening. How sweet of him to stroke her hair and wipe her tears. Tell me, are those tears of joy, regret or bad memories?

            “How ironic, Querida. Ole Jimmy feels the need for something more in life, and he was seeming to find it. But he just can’t seem to keep those pants buttoned up when a lovely young lady bats her eyes at him. It’s looking like it’s over for Mr. Stetson. He’s in more girl trouble now than when he was a playboy! I guess a leopard can’t change its spots.”

            “It ain’t over till it’s over,” I replied mildly, then paraphrased Philippians 1:6. “He that began a good work will complete it.”

            “We’ll see about that,” Vermillion cackled. “Jenny finding out that Jimmy is for sure the father of her child, coupled with LucyFr and Jimmy’s romantic consummation, has solidified a very juicy triangle indeed. Just in time to distract from the last night of the seminar.”

            I felt the desire to tell him to stop calling Lucy ‘LucyFr.’ But if I did, he would only do it all the more. Twenty hours later Vermillion and his minions were busy at the seminar. But my colleagues and myself were there as well, ready to assist the Holy Spirit in a battle for souls.

            Jenny was distraught, discouraged and confused after receiving the news that Jimmy was the father of the child in her womb. She was also angry at Larry’s deception by omission. Especially since the hidden truth had led to his bed.

            In her anger she had handed Larry the keys to his gifted automobile. Technically it was still his as he had not yet signed the title over to her. She then used his phone to call a taxi cab. Uber didn’t exist in 1990.

            Her mind swirled and whirled as she walked to the last night of the Bible prophecy seminar. After paying five dollars for the taxi ride home, she decided to hoof it to the meeting. Although it was more than a couple miles away, she had hoped to get there early enough to enlighten Jimmy about his impending fatherhood. Much to Vermillion’s dismay, she was a bit late.

            This was good. Our side needed the little group of Jimmy, Lucy, Jimmy’s brother Jake, his girlfriend Ginger, as well as Jenny herself, to not be distracted by the baby drama before the meeting started. Pastor Samson, affectionately known as Captain Kirk by his friends and church family, had a powerful message about God’s immense love for humanity.

            He concluded the message with the sacrifice of Jesus for the sins of the world. He declared that God becoming a human being to save fallen humanity was not only the greatest story ever told; it is the greatest story that ever could be told. He then drove home the point of Jesus’s sacrifice.

            Christ had prophesied that he would rise on the third day. But in the midst of the ordeal, as the weight of dying for the sins of the world seemed about to crush him, His human side of His nature overwhelmed Him. For a period of time, He couldn’t see through the portals of the tomb. When He cried, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” He thought His separation from God the Father was going to be eternal.

            Yet the Son of God went through with His mission anyway! Jesus Christ intended to forfeit His own eternal life so that those who accepted His sacrifice and believed in Him would be able to enjoy eternal life in heaven! There is no better example of selflessness! No greater exhibition of love!

            Pastor Samson concluded with a well-known essay by James Allan Francis. (1864-1928)

            ‘He was born in an obscure village. The child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village where He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never went to college. He never visited a big city. He never travelled more than two hundred miles from where He was born. He did none of the things normally associated with greatness. He had no credentials but Himself. He was only thirty three (when He was murdered). His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. One betrayed Him. He was turned over to His enemies and went through a mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While dying, His executioners gambled for His clothing, the only property He had on earth. When He was dead He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Nineteen (twenty) centuries have come and gone and today Jesus is the central figure of the human race and the leader of mankind’s progress. All the armies that have ever marched. All the navies that have ever sailed. All the parliaments that have ever sat. All the kings that have ever reigned put together. Have not affected the life of mankind on earth as powerfully as that one solitary life.’

            Pastor Samson made an alter call to close out the two weeks of Bible teachings. Jimmy, Lucy, Jake, and even Jenny joined the two dozen attendees as they made their way down to the front of the high school auditorium’s stage. Unfortunately, more than double that number made their way to the exit or remained seated. Ginger was one of those exiting.

            Although part of her was moved by Captain Kirk’s description of Jesus’s suffering and courage, her evil heart of unbelief had held sway. Like Vermillion, she didn’t like the direction Jake was going. In her mind, Jake was becoming a religious fanatic.

            Why just last night she tried to initiate a little hanky panky. Jake always eagerly went along with her seductions. But last night he baulked. Then he suggested marriage! He said something about even most non-Christians recognized living together as ‘living in sin.’

            But marriage? They had only been together six months. It had only been three weeks since she moved in with him. She was still adjusting to cohabitation with him. Now he getting religious on top of being a neat freak. Should she break up with him? They already had squabbles about dirty dishes and her undergarments hanging in the bathroom.

            The pastor prayed for those accepting Christ or rededicating themselves to the Savior. Then he suggested that those wishing to be baptized talk to him afterward. Jenny watched as approximately half of the altar call attendees raised their hands when he wanted to see a show of those desiring a full commitment. She chewed her lip as she noticed Jimmy raise his hand along with his two companions. Everything was happening so fast!

            Vermillion sidled up to me as I watched Jenny quickly leave the auditorium and sit on a bench outside to await Jimmy. “Chaos and confusion is working as well on Jenny as lust and desire with Jimmy. Still believe in He who began a good work?”

            “As long as there’s breath there’s hope,” I replied.

            “Show me someone with hope and I in turn will show them to be a naïve fool.”

            “Not if they turn to God’s love. Then they can conquer all.”

            “Oh no, are you gonna start quoting the love chapter now?” He replied with a derogatory tone as he referred to 1 Corinthians chapter 13. “Too bad humans turn to lies over love, huh?”

            “That’s why love for God’s law is perfect converting the soul.” (Psalm 19:7)

            He cackled. “Let’s see how many of these four that went down yonder for the altar call stick with that concept or whether they go the way of lovely Ginger. Jenny even seems to be taking the first step away only minutes after being moved to partake in the altar call.”

            “Like you said, seems to be,” I said, causing him to make a dismissive gesture.

            “You hope in vain,” he said and then grinned maliciously. “Thanks to last night’s indiscretion between Jimmy and LucyFr, more chaos and confusion is going to come out of Jenny’s baby revelation than warmth and bonding.”

            “For now.”

            “You need to be more pessimistic,” Vermillion said bitterly. “You and your righteous army are doing battle in a lost cause.”

            “I beg to differ. Jesus won the decisive battle at Calvary. Instead of humanity being lost, all can find salvation in Christ.”

            “All,” Vermillion snorted. “Then why are many called but only few chosen? (Matthew 22:14) Why the broad gate verses the narrow gate? (Matthew 7:13, 14) The broad leading to destruction, where many enter. The narrow being difficult, where few find it?”

            Once again, the demonic realm knows scripture better than the most devout Christian. I countered. “With God all things are possible. (Matthew 19:26) All who call of the name of Jesus will be saved.” (Romans 10:13)

            Vermillion always wanted the last word. Making a reference from the book of Revelation and something it mentions numerous times, he said, “Looking over the world I’m not seeing many spiritual overcomers.”

            As Jimmy exited the auditorium, Jenny arose quickly from the bench and in a rush said, “Jimmy, I need to talk to you.”

            He was a little taken by surprise. Just as Vermillion had hoped. He was tempting Jimmy’s spiritual bliss to begin to evaporate. “About?”

            “It’s rather personal,” she replied. “Can we speak in private?”

            “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” he said, glancing uneasily at Lucy. Lucy looked at her shoes.

            Jenny’s stress morphed into irritation. “Fine. Well, just so you know, I’m now one hundred percent sure that you’re the father of my baby. Have a good night.”

            With that Jenny turned on her heels and briskly walked away, leaving Jimmy and Lucy with jaws hanging open. Jimmy’s brother Jake had missed the news. He had noticed Ginger wasn’t at his car, so he kept walking. He found a note declaring that she didn’t want to wait and had called a friend to pick her up.

            “Jenny, wait,” Jimmy called after her. But she kept going. When he noticed a few people turn and look, he didn’t petition her any further.

            Jimmy and Lucy had driven his pickup because rain was in the forecast. As they walked to his truck, a light drizzle began to fall. They both noticed Jenny walk through the parking lot without getting into a vehicle. As she began to walk down a long sidewalk in the direction of her apartment, Jimmy’s thought became audible. “Where’s the car Larry gave her? She’s more than two miles from her apartment.”

            “Do you suppose it has something to do with what she just told you?” Lucy asked.

            Jimmy looked at her with a bewildered expression. Despite feeling jealous of Jenny, Lucy’s recent spiritual growth gave her empathy. As the drizzle quickly became rain, she said, “You need to offer her a ride.”

            They exited the parking lot and slowed when they got to Jenny. He ordered, “Hey Jenny, get in, I’ll give you a ride home.”

            “No thanks,” Jenny replied without looking at him.

            “Come on, it’s raining.”

            “Despite what you think, I’m not gonna melt like a wicked witch.”

            “Would you just get in?”

            “Just go.”

            He could tell she was gonna be stubborn and someone was coming up behind him. What happened to the sweet, mousy girl from high school? He took Lucy home, only about five minutes away. “You need to go after her,” Lucy suggested.

            “What about us?” Jimmy asked.

            “What about us? Do you mean there’s danger of you and her getting back together if you give her a ride and discuss the baby?”

            “No, I mean, well, it is complicated.”

            “Well, something for you to consider. Despite what we did last night, after what happened tonight, with accepting Jesus at that altar call. Then discussing baptism and more in depth Bible study with the pastor. I’m not gonna fornicate anymore.”

            Jimmy nodded but cringed. He knew that abstinence until marriage was necessary if he wanted to be right with God. But he was also self-aware enough to know that sex was an idol of his. Despite this, he asked, “I don’t want to either. Well, maybe I should put it as I’m not going to.”

            “Good. Now go get her and offer her a ride. I’m sure she’ll accept with me not there. Then you can make peace.”

            Jimmy was relieved when she kissed him back after he leaned in to kiss her goodnight. He hurried back to the roads to Jenny’s apartment. He was dismayed that he made it all the way to her building without seeing her. Then he was bewildered when he recognized his brother’s 68’ Mustang Fastback parked in a stall at Jenny’s building.

            He didn’t know Ginger too well. Did she live in Jenny’s complex too? No, that couldn’t be. She moved in with Jake a couple weeks ago. He knocked on Jenny’s door. He froze in surprise when Jake opened Jenny’s door grinning at him. “Hey, Bro.”

            “What are you doing here?” Jimmy asked.

            “I gave Jenny a ride home, she was walking in the rain.”

(Writers note: I recently saw a three part series on grace by Pastor Ty Gibson on YouTube. The last sermon in particular is what I envisioned my fictional preacher preaching on the last night of the Prophecy seminar. If you are interested, it was entitled ‘Amazing Grace.’ If you choose to watch, please don’t be concerned about the length of time shown. Although the preliminaries are quite lengthy, by fast forwarding Ty begins speaking at the 1 hour and 7 minute mark. If you are interested in the first two as well, the first is called ‘Theater of Grace,’ and he starts speaking at the 59 minute mark. The second is called ‘Saved by Grace.’ It starts a little before the 42 minute mark. I was very blessed by these talks! I hope you are as well if you decide to check it out! P.S. It is not necessary to watch the first two to grasp the message in the third.)