In Flaming Fire

A thousand years ago, I and the Abbess Anna were in secondary school together. Well, not really together, not quite anyway, for neither of us had yet been felled by that Cherub’s arrow. In fact, if the truth were told, and the good Abbess often tells it thusly, she was none too very enamored of me. God only knows why, for I was truly much enamored of myself. Come to think of it, I suppose that fact may hold a clue to her lack of interest, for she was, even then, a lover of the unlovely, not so much of those who loved themselves so much.

She actually thought me conceited. Imagine that. Well, if I were, it certainly would have been for good reason. I was, after all, a strikingly chiseled god-like specimen, sharp of wit and fleet of foot, without equal on the yard-marked plain, that green gridiron of glory, where fame fell on me like so many rays of the sun. I will not here regale you with the list of accolades, except to say they were myriad indeed. Still, she somehow mustered the internal fortitude necessary to resist my theretofore irresistible charm.

Until the dream, that is…

In her dream I stepped onto her school bus for a field trip and she instantly knew that I would be the boy she would grow old with. The next day, not in a dream, I walked into her class, and that was that.

Young Ann thought it right that she should invite me to a camp of Christians to learn of her Savior. An invitation I gladly accepted, though not for the reason she might have hoped. For I had learnt that at this camp there was to be an annual, so called, “Staff versus Stuff” game of football. Furthermore, I had learnt, that the “Stuff” had never once emerged victorious in this perennial battle of masculinity. The challenge was on, and I was hooked.

My ragtag band of brothers, Bubba, Stumblebum and the Beard, all warned in unison, “Your gonna come back singin’ ‘Praise the Lord.’ But I scoffed at their jeers. "Not I." Said I. For though it was truly the days of the Jesus Revolution, and though good atheists truly were falling like flies all around, I would not succumb. Never I. For I was strong. 

I would not make it to the big game. For upon arriving at the camp, as I rose to exit the van, a searing jolt shot up my strong spine and I collapsed in pain. They carried me to my room where I would find relief only so long as I remained flat on my back. As the days passed, one Christian soldier or another would poke his head in my room and ask, "Feeling better yet?  Will you be coming to the meeting today?"

"No! I will not be coming to your meetings, thank you very much."

"Ok. We're praying for you."

"You do that. Not necessary, but whatever."

After a few days I could hobble a bit so I ventured to the field to toss the football about. My first attempt at a catch resulted in a grotesquely dislocated finger, and more searing pain. "What is happening to me!" I yelled. 

Then, it was the final night. One of the staffers skipped the meeting and asked if I fancied a walk. "Sure." I said. "Why not."

I had been able to successfully repel the daily barrage of kindness from the campers, but my defenses melted in that fateful walk in the woods, as I learned of the love of Jesus…for me.

I fell hard.

On the bus ride home, with a new wellspring of joy in my heart, a cross around my neck, and a chorus of, “Praise the Lord!” on my lips, I recalled the faces of my jeering friends, those unwitting prophets who had foreseen the truth and had declared it so. Praise the Lord! This, I thought, will certainly be interesting.

The bus had no sooner parked when another friend met me and offered, “Sorry to hear about your mom.”

“My mom! What about my mom!?” I was stunned to learn she was in the hospital! I remembered she too had been having back pains when I had left a week prior. I had helped bring some measure of relief by rubbing her back. Turns out it was a blood clot. Rushing to see her, I was relieved to find her in good spirits, sitting up in the bed, grading papers for her beloved second-grade students. She would be home in a couple days as the thrombus was being dissolved.

Then the code blue.

The clot dislodged and went to her heart, and it stopped. They got the muscle going again, but she was comatose. She lay in the bed, unable to move. Unresponsive. The family took turns by her side, one at a time, in the intensive care unit. A day passed. Then another. Then a third. Her mother, my lovely Gramma B, emerged from the room into the hallway where I sat, confusion distorting her face. “What’s the matter Gramma?” I asked.

“I’m not sure.” She said, “Your mother sat up in bed. She opened her eyes and a smile came as her face lit up with joy. She was looking intently at something. I turned around to see what it was,” she continued, “But there was nothing there.”

“Wow!” I said.

“Yes, but that’s not all. As she was staring, still smiling, she spoke out softly, ‘Fire. Fire. Fire.’ Three times, she said it, then she laid back down peacefully.”

“Wow.” I said again, not knowing what else to say.

“Fire,” she muttered, “That doesn’t sound good.”

We both just stood there in the hallway, a bit numb, for what seemed like a great while.

What does this mean, Lord? I thought, never expecting an answer. I had a bible some kid had given me at the camp. I hadn’t yet cracked it, but now I did. Not really on purpose, I just kinda flipped it open and started reading in the middle of a page. It was Second Thessalonians, one and seven. I don’t have to look it up. The verse is permanently etched into my memory…

To you who are afflicted, rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire...

And my beloved young mother entered her rest.

And her coming-of-age son embarked on his quest.