Angels of Humility: A Novel (7 page)

Sarah had never read the Bible growing up so she didn’t even have a grid for God being active in anyone’s life. She certainly didn’t understand what the Lord was going to do in hers. The Lord, in His mercy, was helping her to redeem her wasted time, enabling her to spend the last of her life serving His Kingdom, and preparing her for a good death. She didn’t fully understand the principle of heavenly rewards, and she certainly had no way of knowing that she would reap more eternal rewards than most people who are Christians all their lives.

She couldn’t see Joel and Malta, who had taken up permanent residence with her. At night, they stood on either side of her bed, vigilant against the enemy’s attacks. They needed no sleep and spent the night hours praying for Sarah and joining in the continuous heavenly worship around God’s throne. In the spiritual realm, both angels glowed brightly with the Lord’s glory,
lighting Sarah’s bedroom like a thousand candles. Since Sarah’s natural eyes were unable to gaze into the spiritual realm, she could see only darkness.

“The Lord really enlightened her today through Paul’s joke,” said Malta. “I think she understands now that the Lord’s Kingdom has nothing to do with status or possessions.”

“Pride drives humans to fight for all those temporal things,” replied Joel. “Satan’s deception is so great. It’s all a bankrupt system that is passing away. It’s like fighting for a first class cabin on the
Titanic
. The whole thing is going down.”

“His Kingdom is about being a servant to the least on earth and being exalted later. Humility fixes its eyes on God’s Kingdom, and never wavers.”

That night Sarah had a dream. She saw herself walking around her neighborhood. Her neighbors’ houses were painted black; even the bushes, flowers, and grass were black. There were no lights on inside any of the houses, even though it was dusk. She walked around the block and arrived back at her house, which was painted its normal color, but a blindingly bright light was shining out from every window. It was so bright she almost couldn’t look toward it.
It’s like the sun has been captured and squeezed inside my house
. Then she woke up.

Sarah had the same dream the next night, too. Tuesday night before dozing off she prayed,
God am I going to have this dream every night? Please show me what it means
.

That night Sarah had the same dream, except this time she was pulling a child’s red wagon filled with brightly burning, antique kerosene lanterns. She walked to each neighbor’s house and left a burning lantern on each porch. She woke up with the following sentence in her mind. “Prayer walk—do this while you are able.”

I just read about prayer walking in my women’s missionary magazine. Now I understand. Thank You, Lord, for showing this to me. My neighbors are lost and I must help them
. She wasted no time putting on her walking shoes, the broken-in brown loafers, grabbed her shawl, and headed outside.

The fall winds scattered dried leaves across the sidewalk, and her shuffling footsteps crunched them as she walked. She headed counter-clockwise
around her block speaking out loud, “Lord, bless the Smith’s, let them come to know You. Lord, bless the Stephens; let them come to know You. Lord, bless the new family who just moved in here. I don’t know their names. I think they’ve got two toddlers; bless them Lord. Lord, bless the Bakers, especially their teenage daughter who’s going through such a hard spell. Lord bless these people, I don’t know who they are, but You do. Lord bless this family; they always keep their yard immaculate. I love their red gladiolas, Lord. Bless them today.” Sarah walked completely around her block, then the next block.

She stopped in front of a small Victorian house with a new real-estate sign in the yard. For reasons she couldn’t identify, she felt drawn to this house. “Lord, bless whoever just moved out and bless whoever will move in, too.” She loitered a few minutes, finished that block and then moved on to the next block and ended up in front of the Reynolds’ parsonage.

“And bless the Reynolds, Lord. You were so good to bring this family here. Thanks for the joke he told on Sunday that helped me to see things so differently. Help me to intercede faithfully for my pastor, his family, and my church.”

Inside, Kathy watched Sarah outside. She recognized her from church. Sarah stood on the sidewalk facing the house, talking a mile a minute—to nobody.
How strange. I wonder what she wants?
Kathy headed for the front door, but by the time she unlocked it and stuck her head out, Sarah had turned the corner praying fervently for Kathy’s neighbors. I
hope she’s not a troublemaker
, thought Kathy. I’ll
have to remember to ask Paul if he’s heard anything about her
.

Sarah continued her prayer walks, usually in the morning, sometimes adding a second round at 4
P.M.
, too. She didn’t see Joel and Malta walking to her left and right, blessing, praying, and agreeing with everything she said. Anyone looking with spiritual eyes would have surely been amused to see two, huge, strong angels in dazzling garments towering over a little 5’2” woman, wearing a brown robe of humility, who shuffled down the street—all three fervently praying for salvation to come to this neighborhood.

The Father sends Joel and Malta at the time of salvation to protect their charges from the enemy’s attack, and to help them to become more humble and Christlike.

“Father is beautifully transforming Sarah’s heart. It’s a pleasure to serve one so willing to follow,” said Malta.

“Yes, she will finish spiritually strong, even though her body will be very weak.”

“Father is full of mercy to snatch her at the end of her life from the enemy’s camp. You can bet Satan is spitting sulfur right now—”

“He’s planning a counterattack,” interrupted Joel, putting his hand on his sword. “We need to be especially vigilant.”

Depression, Agoraphobia, Suicide, Discouragement, and Lying were arguing among themselves at that very moment. Demonic strategy sessions frequently deteriorated into vicious quarrels—there is no loyalty between demons, no cooperation, only hatred and vying for status.

Agoraphobia turned to Suicide, “You’re worthless now. She’s never going to take her own life.”

“You had months and you couldn’t take her out. I was only here for a few days,” screeched Suicide. “If I’d had as much time as you—”

“Depression is right,” hollered Discouragement, “we don’t need you; you’re of no value to us now.”

“I’ve got better assignments available than with you losers.” Suicide cursed and disappeared.

“If the truth is known, we’re all pretty ineffective now that she’s saved,” grumbled Depression.

“I can’t believe she slipped through our claws. We almost had her,” whined Discouragement. “Can you believe those angels that are around her now? The whole miserable situation just got a million times harder.”

“There’s no hope. We have no weapons to overcome her.”

“Yes we do,” said Lying.

“Right,” they both responded, “like we’re going to believe you.”

“Listen to me—for once,” sneered Lying. “Since ‘You Know Who’ was raised from the dead carrying the keys to death and Hell, we are totally defeated.”

“We know that,” whined Depression, “I hate being reminded. Get on with it. What’s your big secret weapon?”

“We have one weapon and only one weapon, but it is powerful—the ability and authority to exploit her ignorance. We can attack her in every area where she doesn’t realize she has the victory. She’s a new Christian; she doesn’t understand that she’s more than a conqueror.”
³
They all shuddered at that phrase. “Since she’s His daughter, a joint heir, she has all the power He does at her control, but she doesn’t realize she has the power—”

“So she can’t wield the power against us,” interrupted Discouragement, his yellow pointed teeth showing behind his evil grin. “She’s like Dorothy in
The Wizard of Oz
. She had the shoes that could take her home any time, but she didn’t realize what they could do for her.”

“That’s right,” said Lying. “The only weapons we’ve ever used in the last 2,000 years are deceit and bluff. But we’ve taken out many Christians because of their ignorance,
⁴
and we can still take her out, too.”

Most of the families on her street were gone during the day, so Sarah, with help from her unseen warring and worshiping angelic companions, grew bolder and progressed from merely asking blessings on her neighbors to declaring their salvations.

One day she stopped in front of the Reynolds’ and paced back and forth praying. Kathy, who was hanging a picture in the living room, glanced out the window and saw Sarah pacing in front of the house, fists clenched, looking very intense and talking, talking, talking—to nobody.

Oh dear, this is getting worse all the time
. She dialed the church. Paul wisely agreed to take her call, even though he was meeting with Mike Brooks, the head of the elders. He wanted Mike’s opinion of phase one of his mega five-year church plan and was giddy with anticipation.

“Hi Hon, what’s new? Again? No, I don’t know anything about her, but I’ll find out.” He hung up the phone; his brow furrowed, and he leaned across the old mahogany desk toward Mike. “Tell me everything you know about Sarah Edwards; don’t hold anything back.”

“Why?”

“Well, it appears she’s stalking my family. She comes to our house every day, sometimes twice a day, and paces up and down the sidewalk with her fists clenched, ranting and raving about who knows what.”

“Are you talking about our Sarah Edwards?”

“Exactly. What do you know about her?”

“Not much, but I’d never peg her as a stalker, that’s for sure. Does she knock at your door or look in your windows?”

“Well no. Stalking is probably too strong a word, but it’s like she’s got some weird obsession with our house.”

“She was widowed about seven months ago. She’d never been to the church, and Reverend Hall led her to the Lord. She made her profession of faith, was baptized the following Sunday, and has been coming here ever since. That’s about all I know. She seems sweet, sincere, and totally harmless to me.”

“Has she caused any problems since she’s been here?”

“Well,” said Mike haltingly, “I don’t know her personally, and I wasn’t in on this so I hate to say anything, but there was one incidence shortly after she got saved; she was telling all her Sunday School class members that she heard from the Lord about them. It didn’t go over too well. I can’t say that they ostracized her, but they’re not overly friendly. But I still don’t think she’s a stalker.”

“She hears voices and thinks they’re from God, and she stakes out the pastor’s house?” said Paul, stroking his chin. “She’s probably still experiencing heavy grief. I studied the stages of grief at seminary, you know. It sounds like she’s not coping well. Is she still trying to tell people she hears from God for them?”

“I think that got nipped in the bud pretty quickly.”

Paul leaned back in his well-worn office chair and let out a deep breath. “I think I’ll let it go for a while then, if she’s not causing problems in the church now. Maybe Jessica could sit by her this Sunday and get an idea about what’s going on. If Sarah’s got some kind of fixation or need to be recognized by us, I think Kathy and I should keep our distance for the time being. She probably needs grief counseling, but I sure shouldn’t be the one to do it.”

“I’ll remember to ask Jessica when I get home,” Mike said, but he forgot.

After Mike left, Paul had a counseling session scheduled with one of the college-aged church members, Luke. Paul had spent some time praying earlier in the week for Luke who was struggling with a call to missions. The Lord had showed Paul that it was His will for Luke to minister in India, but he knew better than to give a directional word.

Paul listened with compassion as Luke poured out his heart. He felt a strong call to India, but wondered where the finances would come from and if he should drop out of the community college and enroll in a mission’s training program. Paul sympathized; he remembered struggling with his decision to enroll in seminary.

“Luke, I’m not going to give you an opinion one way or the other. I need to let the Lord bring you to the right conclusion; that way, if you go, when things get hard you won’t doubt your call or blame me. I know that doesn’t seem to help much,” he said with a sympathetic grin.

“Here’s what I’m going to recommend,” he said as he stood from his desk and scanned his book shelf. “I’m suggesting you read these two books. One is about the life of William Carey and the other is about Amy Carmichael. She ministered 55 years in India without going on furlough! Also keep praying, and I’ll pray for you, too. After you read the books, call me and we’ll meet again.” He gave Luke a big hug, looked at his watch, and then headed home.

Finding a balance between church and family is going to be harder than I thought
.