"Prayer is heaven’s ordained means of success in the conflict with sin and the development of Christian character. The divine influences that come in answer to the prayer of faith will accomplish in the soul of the suppliant all for which he pleads. For the pardon of sin, for the Holy Spirit, for a Christlike temper, for wisdom and strength to do His work, for any gift He has promised, we may ask; and the promise is, “Ye shall receive.” 15
“If you want home made pizza for supper,
I’ve got to pick up a few items, it’ll only take a moment,”
Snuggles said to Tex, her boyfriend, as they pulled into the parking
lot of the Friendly Giant grocery story on the south side of town.
Parking his white Ford truck in the second
aisle from the store entrance, business was brisk tonight, he
observed, Tex switched on the local country and western radio
station, while admiring Snuggles’ figure from behind, as
she disappeared into the store, shopping list in hand, black purse
slung over her right shoulder, with her coat flapping in the evening
breeze.
The store was crowded, Snuggles observed.
Her feet hurt in her new red high heel shoes from standing all
day at the bank, handling other peoples money. She was in a hurry
to remove them and change into something more romantic. Cute with
long, flowing light brown hair, a slim nose, lustrous brown eyes,
and rosy cheeks, she was ecstatic, for she had ample reason to
believe her boyfriend, of nine months, would pop the question
this very evening and she already knew the answer.
Two cans of tomatoes, a large pizza shell,
spaghetti sauce, a pound of hamburger, two onions, a green pepper,
flowered napkins, a bottle of wine, and two long, red candles
filled her hand held shopping basket as she neared the check out
counters.
They were all occupied with the exception
of the 10 items or less counter, but she had twelve items. Hesitating
before choosing the shortest line of shoppers waiting their turn
to have their groceries bagged, she observed a sales clerk, wearing
a red vest with a name tag on it, gesturing to her from the 10
items or less counter. Thankfully, she laid her groceries on the
moving belt as she leaned against a rack of magazines to rest
her weary feet while the friendly clerk ran her groceries past
the red lazar.
“This counter ain’t for you, dreary,
get out of her,” a woman yelled at her. “This aisle
is for ten items or less and you got 12.” She swore profusely
and vociferously, gesturing wildly at Snuggles, causing Snuggles
to redden in embarrassment and the sales clerk to glower in disapproval.
Screaming curses at Snuggles, as she carried
her bag of groceries to the truck, the lady, clad in green pants
and white blouse, carrying her plastic bag of four items, gestured
wildly, an irate expression on her face.
Scanning the AM dial, Tex heard the commotion
and glanced up in time to see the cursing woman accosting his
girlfriend. People stopped to stare, wondering at the cause of
the commotion. The stream of profanity, issuing from the irate
shopper’s mouth, awed the trucker. Never had he heard such
profanity, not even from his fellow truckers.
The woman in green pants, seeing him approach,
dropped her plastic bag, reached into her coat pocket, whipped
out a gleaming knife and with one last burst of screaming, slashed
off the end of Snuggles’ nose, then slashed at her arm.
Snuggles screamed in terror, dropping her
bag of groceries, as blood streamed from her severed nose and
arm. Tex was so dumbfounded by the unexpected attack, that he
paused in mid stride, shock registering on his face, as green
pants waved her knife, filling the air with imprecations.
Forgotten were the pizza and ‘the question,’
as Tex rushed to staunch the bleeding with a pocket handkerchief.
* * *
Ismini loved to fly. She had often thought
of taking private flying lessons, she enjoyed the beauty of the
unobstructed sky and fleecy white clouds that floated past her
window as the plane cruised at 41.000 feet over the Mississippi
river on its way north to Chicago. She could see the glint of
the sun on the brilliant waters far below which only reminded
her of how puny human beings really were in the sight of God.
Ismini loved her Lord and attended church
faithfully every Sunday morning, sang in the choir, attended prayer
meeting almost every Wednesday evening, and studied her Bible
faithfully. Even now, she had her King James Version open on her
lap and, between introspective glances out of the window, she
read passages from Isaiah, one of her favorite Old Testament prophets.
However, she had to confess that she didn’t always understand
some of the prophecies, and the obscure illusions to events in
the history of the chosen people left her perplexed, but she enjoyed
the prophet’s style of writing and spiritual insights that
she could not find elsewhere in the Bible.
Ismini was short and plump, rosy checked,
with short curly hazel colored hair that tended toward the gray,
a plane, ordinary woman of no singular distinction. She looked
twenty years older then her actual age of 45, Two pregnancies
had taken their toll upon her failing vitality leaving her complexion
sallow and gray. She wasn’t healthy nor vibrant, arthritic
pains bothered her wrists and ankles, and she suffered from chronic
headaches. But her spirit was unbowed, and her face radiated love
and joy.
Socially aloof, she had few real friends.
She wasn’t as well educated as one might think, preferring
to remain at home, content with her role as a homemaker. She filled
her days with TV romance dramas, and gossiping on the telephone.
She loved her Lord for His goodness to her
over the 45 years of her life, of which 32 were spent in the church.
Her entire adult life was centered around Easteban, her children,
and the church. In addition to singing, she enjoyed helping out
with community suppers and meals-on-wheels. She especially enjoyed
visiting shut-in people and bringing some joy into their otherwise
drab and dull lives. Because God had blessed and favored her on
so many occasions, throughout her life, she felt privileged to
return these blessings, by blessing others who could not repay
her. Yet she was lonely with few close friends. Her Christian
help work never really sufficed for her lack of friendships.
She believed that religion should influence
every thought and word of a believers life. She was troubled by
others in the church who did not share her views. She was certain,
although she did not know this for a fact, that not a few of her
smiling friends spoke disparagingly about her over their Sunday
dinner. She believed that God expected her to love others as He
loved her and she endeavored to live this principal every moment
of the day. It grieved her bitterly when she fell under temptation,
therefore, she spent much time in prayer for divine strength and
wisdom to perceive Satan’s subtle temptations and seek her
Lord’s grace to meet them with a “Thus sayeth the Lord,”
as her best defense. She could quote the Bible extensively and
always had a verse on her lips ready to counter the tempters assaults.
Ismini was particularly troubled this morning,
on her way to visit Candace, her mother for what she correctly
surmised would be her last time, by an unresolved problem. She
only had one vice, if it could be called a vice, Easteban didn’t
even know about her small, insignificant, occasional nip at the
wine bottle. She was careful to hide her bottle where he would
not find it, in her lingerie drawer, although she had a carefully
crafted explanation ready in the event that he discovered it and
questioned her. It really wasn’t a lie, she reassured herself,
only a half truth, perhaps, but her conscience troubled her, nonetheless.
While Ismini didn’t realize it, her
little bottle of wine was only the tip of an iceberg of unresolved
or unrecognized sins. She loved to gossip, spending endless hours
on the telephone while Easteban was at work. She loved to inform
herself, she called it, about the problems and follies of her
brothers and sisters in the church so that she could pray for
them and then share the latest tidbit of gossip with five or six
of her acquaintances, ostensibly for the same purpose. She also
spent far too much for clothes, cosmetics, and shoes, but she
rationalized these purchases by her desire to be attractive for
Easteban, although, in her more thoughtful moments, she had to
admit that they pleased her far more then they pleased him. She
knew they were chronically short of money, but since he allowed
her to handle the checking account, he never fully understood
where his paycheck went or what it purchased.
She also loved her afternoon television
dramas, but, then so did millions of other women, and men, also,
she rationalized. But what was wrong with a little titillating
drama in a woman’s life, the Bible didn’t condemn this
harmless practice, she reasoned, although her conscience bothered
her lately about this also.
That was the trouble, she complained to
herself, as she self-consciously took a sip of wine from a small
bottle served by the airline hostess, her conscience was overactive
lately. It seemed that her Lord was bothering her about far too
many things, such as her overeating, her wine, the excessive purchases
of clothes and cosmetics. She could agree that some of the things
she did weren’t the best, but God was going a little to far,
she thought, when He suggested she needed to give up her wine.
She wasn’t an alcoholic, she only took an accessional drink,
now and then, she consoled herself, well, maybe, every afternoon,
and occasionally when she and several of her girlfriends were
out on the town. But that didn’t constitute drunkenness as
the Bible described it. Certainly not! She wasn’t like those
people she watched on her day time dramas, with a cigarette in
one hand and a glass in the other, she was more refined then that,
only a small amount, really, insignificant, no big deal, nothing
to get disturbed about. Yet she couldn’t escape the conviction
that this small amount was more then her Lord wanted her to drink.
The flight landed on time and Ismini quickly
claimed her luggage and headed for the main terminal and a taxicab.
She was accustomed to traveling alone, and even enjoyed the exhilaration
of large airports, but this morning really was too much. Walking
along a well traveled concourse, she saw two men in front of her
holding hands. As she passed, eyes missing nothing, so that she
could give a full report to her friends at home, they paused,
and without a shred of embarrassment, she thought, kissed each
other.
Gays! Where was their conscience, their
self-respect, their sense of embarrassment and shame? She knew
about gays, after all, who didn’t, but in her relatively
sheltered life in the South she had never actually seen homosexuals.
Yet, in full view of hundreds of travelers, and small children,
these men were acting like two heterosexuals, almost like a husband
and wife, she thought as she made her way toward the main entrance.
Disgusting, something should be done about those people. Didn’t
the Bible say something about stoning homosexuals, putting them
to death if they didn’t repent, she would have to look it
up when she got home. Certainly God would punish this country
for allowing those people, those disgusting people to continue
to practice their abominable, dirty habits. Something had to be
done, Ismini lamented.
The cab driver was a talkative man in his
middle forties with a wife, four children, two dogs, a mother-in-law
who didn’t know when to go home, noisy neighbors, politically
conservative; hated President Clinton, democrats, and women in
the military; and agreed that something had to be done about the
gays, all this he informed her with in the first two miles. Ismini
loved him immediately, he was her kind of man.
“Did you hear about that earthquake
in San Francisco,” he asked her, turning in his seat to face
her just as a semi-truck passed them on the freeway? Ismini cringed,
Not at the prospect of an earthquake, but at the nearness of the
truck and his apparent disregard for her life.
Without waiting for a response, he continued,
“radio says its a 10.2 on the Richter scale whatever that
is. Big quake, tore up the city pretty bad, they say, Fires all
over the place. Buildings tumbled down in heaps all over the city.
Electricity, telephone, water, sewer, all busted up. They say
the death tool may reach several thousand and this on top of the
drought, fires, hurricanes, and floods, what more can happen?”
“Serves them right,” Ismini replied,
with more vehemence then she supposed, The sight of two gay men
kissing each other had upset her more then she realized. To say
she was filled with righteous indignation and a sense of outraged
judgment and condemnation was not altogether wrong.
“San Francisco needs a little shaking
up,” the driver continued. “Those gays are going to
catch it from God one of these days. The Bible says their an abomination
in His sight and He won’t tolerate them much longer, unless
they repent, and that right soon.”
These words seemed to echo Ismini’s
own thoughts. The world is getting more wicked every day and sinners
are getting bolder. If only God would do something to stop this
rampant godless behavior, she thought self-righteously. If only
He would stop it, this country could return to its former days
of glory.
“Did you hear about that stabbin’
last night,” the older man queried? Without waiting for an
answer he continued, “them blacks got into a gang fight,
three men and a little girl were stabbed before the police could
stop them. Them blacks are getting out of hand again. Hay, ain’t
you from the South? I could tell by your accent. Your got blacks
down there, how do you keep them in line?”
This question disturbed Ismini. While she
had no particular fondness for blacks as a group, she didn’t
hate them. Not really. They hadn’t done anything to her.
If they wanted to be treated with respect and given job opportunities,
she saw no reason why they should be denied the same privileges
she and other whites enjoyed.
But the cab driver didn’t wait for
an answer from his passenger but continued his monologue of woes
and calamities. “You know that mercy killing, what’s
it called these days, assisted suicide, that’s gettin’
out of hand. People killing themselves and calling it mercy, why
ain’t nothing but murder. Murder, mind you, and so’s
abortion, murder! Why they say we’ve murdered or aborted
over 17 million kids over the last twenty years. Hitter didn’t
even kill that many Jews and look what happened to him. Here we
kill five times more babies then was killed during the holocaust
(he had his math wrong, but neither of them cared) and now we’re
killing unwanted adults, and, why, they say its even legal, nothing
they can do to stop it. Killing people cause they ain’t wanted.
Why them children of the parents, they want the insurance money,
you bet they do. Can’t wait till Mom or Pop, Grandma or Grandpa
die to collect, so they help them along, you know?”
Here Ismini finally found a place to enter
the conversation. “My mother is in the hospital with terminal
cancer.”
Interrupting at the mention of cancer, the
driver responded, “sorry to hear that, ma'am, that’s
terrible, they say cancer can be awfully painful. Now, if there
were a God in heaven, he wouldn’t let people suffer like
that.” He went on without noticing the pained expression
on Ismini’s face, “if there ever were a justification
for killing people, your Mom’s a good candidate. Why them
medical bills will eat up, and what for? Just to prolong her life
another year or two. There might be some merit to assisted suicide
after all.”
He paused to curse a driver who switched
lanes in front of him causing him to slam on his breaks.
“Why its not as if we were killing
people, you know, not like Hitter did with them Jews, that’s
different, here we are being compassionate, showing mercy, just
like God does, and besides,” he paused, then rushed on, “they
just get to heaven faster that way.” He laughed over his
little joke but Ismini cringed inwardly and saw no humor in his
careless remark.
Ismini was confused. This man seemed to
echo her thoughts, yet it was her mother he was talking about.
She loved her and wanted her to remain alive a little longer.
Yet, was it selfish of her to ask the Lord to preserve her life?
Wasn’t it more merciful to let her die, to, maybe help her,
a little. Perhaps, his joke wasn’t far from the mark, after
all. Perhaps her mother would be better off going to heaven a
little sooner then expected, she is in such terrible pain, but,
no, she didn’t want the insurance money that bad, well, maybe,
no, she didn’t, not really. Her mind was torn in several
directions. On the one hand he made sense when considering someones
mother but it was cruelty when she thought of her own mother.
But the insurance money, no, she would put that out of her mind,
that was no way to pay their bills, over the dead body of her
mother, no, never!
As they neared the hospital, the cab driver
became more subdued, perhaps on account of the increased traffic,
Ismini thought, as she tightened her seat belt.
“I don’t think God will allow us to go unpunished much longer,” he muttered. “All this crime and immorality must stop soon. What more can happen to us,” he queried rhetorically?
Ismini didn’t know but would
soon find out.
