She spoke softly, just barely forming the words on her lips. She felt self-conscious and she was willing to admit it. “Uh…hello.” Maybe He heard her, maybe He didn’t. She said it again. “Hello.” That should be enough. “I imagine you know who I am, but I’ll introduce myself anyway. It just seems the thing to do. My name is Sally Beth Roe, and I guess one refers to You as … God. Or maybe Jesus. I’ve heard that done. Or … Lord. I understand You go by several titles, and so I hope you’ll indulge me if I grope a bit. It’s been a long time since I’ve tried to pray.
“Uh . . . anyway, I would like to meet with You today, and discuss my life and what possible role you might wish to play in it. And thank you in advance for your time and attention.”
She stared at her notes. She’d gotten this far. Assuming she had secured God’s attention, she proceeded with the next item. “To quickly review what brought this meeting about, I guess you remember our last visit, approximately thirty years ago, at the . . . uh . . . Mount Zion Baptist Church in Yreka, California. I want You to know that I did enjoy our times together back then. I know I haven’t said anything about it in quite a while and I apologize. Those were precious times, and now they’re favorite memories. I’m glad for them.
“So I suppose You are wondering what happened, and why I broke off our relationship. Well I don’t remember what happened exactly. I know that the courts gave me back to my mother, and she wasn’t about to take me to Sunday school like Aunt Barbara did, and then I went to live in a foster home, and then . . .Well, whatever the case, our times together just didn’t continue, and that’s all . . . Well, I guess it is water under the bridge . . .”
Sally paused. Was there some kind of awakening happening inside her? God could hear her. She could sense it; she just knew it somehow. That was strange. It was something new.
“Well . . .” Now she lost her train of thought. “I think I do sense that You are listening to me, so I want to thank you for that. She got her thoughts back again. “Oh, anyway, I guess I was an angry young woman, and maybe I blamed You for my sorrows, but . . . at any rate, I decided that I could take care of myself, and that’s basically the way it went for most of my life. I’m sure You know the story: I tried atheism, and then humanism with a strong dose of evolution thrown in, and that left me empty and made my life meaningless; so then I tried cosmic humanism and mysticism, and that was good for many years of aimless delusions and torment and, to be honest, the mess I’m in right now; including the fact that I am a convicted felon. You know all about that.”
Okay, Sally, now where do you go from here? You may as well get to the point.
“Well, anyway, I guess what I am trying to say is that Bernice back in Ashton, was right, at least as far as Sally Roe is concerned. I have a moral problem. I’ve read some of the Bible. Uh . . . it’s a good book . . . it’s a fine piece of work – and I’ve come to see that You are a God of morals, of ethics, I’m glad for that, because then we can know where our boundaries are; we can know where we stand . . .
“I’m beating around the bush, I know.”
Sally stopped to think. How should she say it? Just what was it she wanted from God?
“I guess . . .” Oh-oh. Emotion. Maybe this is why I can’t get around to it. “I guess I need to ask You about Your love. I do know it’s there; Mrs. Gunderson always talked about it and so did my Aunt Barbara, and now I’ve had a brief glimpse of it again in my talks with Bernice and that pastor, Hank the Plumber. I need to know that You’ll . . .”
She stopped. Tears were forming in the corners of her eyes. She wiped them away and took some deep breaths. This was supposed to be business, not some emotional, subjective experience she may later doubt.
“Excuse me. This is difficult. There are a lot of years involved, a lot of emotion.” Another deep breath. “Anyway, I was trying to say that . . . I would like very much for You to accept me.” She stopped and let the tightness in her throat ease. “Because . . . I’ve been told that You love me, and that You’ve arranged for all my wrongs, my moral trespasses, to be paid for and forgiven. I’ve come to understand that Jesus died to pay my penalty, to satisfy your holy justice. Um . . . I appreciate that. Thank You for that kind of love.
“But I . . . I want to enter into that kind of relationship with You. Somehow, I have wronged You, and I have ignored You, and I have tried to be a god myself, as strange as that may sound to You. I have served other spirits, and I have killed my own offspring, and I have worked so hard to lead so many astray . . .”
The tears were coming again. Oh, well. Considering the subject matter, a few tears would not be inappropriate.
“But if You will have me . . . if You will only accept me, I would be more than willing to hand over to You all that I am, and all that I have, whatever it may be worth.” Words from thirty years ago came to her mind, and they captured her feelings perfectly. “Jesus . . .”
She couldn’t stop the emotions this time. Her face flushed, her eyes filled, and she was afraid to go on.
But she did go on, even as her voice broke, as tears ran down her cheeks, as her body began to quake. “Jesus . . . I want You to come into my heart. I want You to forgive me. Please forgive me.”
She was crying and she couldn’t stop. She had to get out of there. She couldn’t let anyone see her like this.
She grabbed her duffel bag and hurried away from the pond, turning off the walkway into the nearby trees. Under their sheltering, spring-fresh leaves, she found a small clearing and sank to her knees on the cool, dry ground. With a new freedom that seclusion brought, the heart of stone became a heart of flesh, the deepest cries of the heart became a fountain, and she and the Lord God began to talk about things as the minutes slipped by unnoticed and the world around her became unimportant.
Above, as if another sun had just risen, the darkness opened and pure, white rays broke through the treetops, flooding Sally Beth Roe with a heavenly light, shining through to her heart, her innermost spirit, obscuring her form with a blinding fire of holiness. Slowly, without sensation, without sound, she settled forward her face to the ground, her spirit awash with the presence of God.
All around her, like spokes of a wondrous wheel, like beams of light emanating from the sun, angelic blades lay flat upon the ground, their tips turned toward her, their handles extending outward, held in the strong fists of hundreds of noble warriors who knelt in perfect, concentric circles of glory, light and worship, their heads to the ground, their wings stretching skyward like a flourishing, animated garden of flames. They were silent, their hearts filled with a holy dread.
As in countless times past, in countless places, with marvelous, inscrutable wonder, the Lamb of God stood among them, the Word of God, and more: the final Word, the end of all discussion and challenge, the Creator and the Truth that holds all creation together – most wondrous of all, and most inscrutable of all, the Savior, a title the angels would always behold and marvel about, but which only mankind could know and understand.
He had come to be the Savior of this woman. He knew her by name; and speaking her name, He touched her.
And her sins were gone.
A rustling began in the first row of angels, then in the next, and then, like a wave rushing outward, the silken wings from row upon row of warriors caught the air, raising a roar, and lifted the angels to their feet. The warriors held their swords Heavenward, a forest of fiery blades, and began to shout in tumultuous joy, their voices rumbling and shaking the whole spiritual realm.
Guilo, as brilliantly glorified as ever he was, took his place above them all, and swept his sword about him in burning arcs as he shouted, “Worthy is the Lamb!”
“Worthy is the Lamb!” the warriors thundered.
“Worthy is the Lamb!” Guilo shouted more loudly.
“Worthy is the Lamb!” they all answered.
“For He was slain!”
“For He was slain!”
Guilo pointed his sword at Sally Beth Roe, prostrate, her face to the ground, still communing with her newfound Savior. “And with His blood He has purchased for God the woman, Sally Beth Roe!”
The swords waved, and their light pierced the darkness as lightning pierces the night. “He has purchased Sally Beth Roe!”
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,” Guilo began, and then they all sang the words together with voices that shook the earth, “to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!”
Then came another roar, from voices and from wings, and another flashing of hundreds of swords. The wings took hold, and the skies filled with warriors, swirling, shouting, cheering, worshiping, their light washing over the earth for miles around.
Miles away, some of Destroyer’s demons covered their eyes against the blinding light.
“Oh no!” said one. “Another soul redeemed!”
“One of our prisoners set free!” wailed another.
A quick, sharp-eyed spy returned from taking a closer look.
“Who is it this time?” they asked.
The spirit answered, “You will not like the news!”
Tal and Guilo embraced, jumping, spinning, laughing. “Saved! Sally Beth Roe is saved! Our God has her at last!”
They remained, along with their warriors, keeping the hedge about her strong and brilliant, making sure that her conference with the Lord would proceed undisturbed.
Time passed, of course, but no one seemed to notice or care.
Later – she didn’t know how much later – Sally pressed her palms against the earth and slowly lifted herself up to a seated position, brushing dry leaves and humus from her clothes and using a handkerchief to wipe her face. She had been through an uncanny, perfectly marvelous experience, and the effect still lingered. A change, a deep, personal, moral restoration had taken place, not just in her subjective perceptions, but in fact. This was something new, something truly extraordinary.
“So this must be what they mean by ‘getting saved,’” she said aloud.
Things were different. The Sally Roe who first ducked into these woods was not the same Sally Roe that now sat in the leaves, a trembling, awestruck, tear-stained, happy mess.
Before, she had felt lost and aimless. Now she felt secure, safe in God’s hands.
Before, her life had no meaning. Now it did, with even more purpose and meaning yet to be discovered.
Before, she had been oppressed and laden with guilt. Now she was cleansed. She was free. She was forgiven.
Before, she was so alone. Now she had a friend closer than any other.
As for her old friends, her tormentors . . .
Outside that hedge, thrown there like garbage into a dumpster, Despair, Death, Insanity, Suicide and Fear sulked in the bushes, unable to return. They looked at each other, ready to squabble should any one of them dare to say the first word.
They were out. Vanquished. Through. Just like that. Somehow, she’d no sooner become a child of God than she began to assert her rights and authority as such. She didn’t say a lot, she didn’t make it flowery. She simply ordered them out of her life.
“She learns fast,” said Despair.
The other spit at him for saying it.
Kanayo Ikeh 