Miracles (22 page)

Bree shot an alarmed look to Andy and quickly turned the doorknob. It was unlocked, so she pushed the door open. “Hello?”

“In here.”

A woman's weak voice came from the kitchen. Carl bolted through the house and led them to an old woman lying on the floor.

“Thank God you've come . . .” Her words were slurred.

Flash.

Bree saw the woman lying on the floor, trying to get up, but one side was paralyzed. She'd had a stroke, and no one was there to help her. Bree watched her turn to her paralyzed side and push up with her good hand until she managed to get to her feet. She took a step and fell again.

“God! Can You see me at all? Are You there? Do You remember me?”

Flash.

“Call an ambulance,” Bree said. “She's had a stroke. Ma'am, how long have you been lying here?”

“Since yesterday.” The left side of her mouth didn't move with her right as she spoke.

Bree and Andy got the trembling woman up and carried her to the couch while Carl called for the ambulance.

“God sent you.” She turned her faded eyes to Bree's face. “I prayed and prayed for help.” She reached out a trembling hand. “I'm May Sullivan.”

They each introduced themselves.

“Yesterday, when she couldn't get up, she felt like the Lord forgot her,” Bree whispered to Andy, who took the baton.

“Ma'am, do you know the Lord?”

“He knows me.” May chewed out the words. “Sure seems to, don't He?”

“Yes, ma'am, He does.” Andy's words were soft and gentle. “But He doesn't just want you to get medical help. He wants your spirit healed too. Ma'am, the Lord wants me to tell you what it says in Isaiah 49, verses 14 through 16: ‘But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me.” Can a woman forget her nursing child, and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands.'”

Tears began to run down the woman's half-paralyzed face, and Bree heard a siren approaching the street. The woman reached out for Andy's hand. “Come to the hospital with me. I need to hear more of what the Lord is saying to me. I did think He'd forgotten me. But He ain't, has He?”

“No, ma'am. He hasn't forgotten. We'll come with you and finish this conversation.”

The paramedics were the same ones who had rushed Bree to the hospital the day before, and because she pleaded with them—and they were so amazed that she had walked out of the hospital without any of the injuries with which they'd taken her in—they broke the rules and allowed all three of them to ride with the woman to the hospital.

Bree and her friends waited with May, and Andy told her of God's love and the fact that He'd never had her out of His sight. When she had been admitted, they promised to come back and visit her later. She hugged them goodbye as if they were family.

As they left the hospital, they ran into Dr. John again. “Hey, guys.” He looked better than he had yesterday, and Bree was certain he was sober, though his hands trembled slightly, and his skin had a gray cast. She supposed his body would have to adjust to its new state. “Were you looking for me?”

“No,” Bree said. “We just brought a friend in. She had a stroke, and we found her on the floor of her kitchen.”

“What's her name?” Dr. John asked.

“May Sullivan. She's in room 413.”

“I'll stop by and see her. So . . . about church tomorrow. I was going to call you.”

“You're not backing out are you?” Andy asked. “Come on, man, you need to be there.”

“I know.” He raised his hands in a mock vow. “I'm going. I just wanted to make sure you didn't forget. I hate going in places like that by myself. I haven't been to church since my best friend's wedding. That was six years ago.”

“We'll meet you on the front steps,” Carl said. “You won't be the only one. There are a few others we'll be meeting too.”

“Great.” He patted Carl's shoulder. “I'll be there.”

Carl was already starting to walk off, and Bree knew he'd been hit again with that foot thing. So she said goodbye to Dr. John and took off following him. Andy was close behind.

They hurried out of the hospital and up the sidewalk, and Bree shook her head. Where in the world would Carl's feet lead them now?

12

C
ARL DIDN'T LEAVE THE HOSPITAL CAMPUS. INSTEAD he led them around the building to the courtyard beside a pond, where patients and staff members sat on benches, smoking their cigarettes or staring at the water. Carl's step slowed as he reached a man who sat facing the water, his arms crossed, a stricken, pained look on his face.

“Him?” Bree asked, and Carl nodded.

Bree stepped up to the man. “Excuse me, sir?”

He looked up, and met her eyes.

Flash.

She saw him holding his wife in a dark hospital room, lit only by the night light above her bed. She wept against his chest, and he wept with her. “My baby. Everything was going to be so perfect. One more week, and he would have been born. One lousy earthquake changed everything.”

“At least you're all right.” The man's voice was pained, strained.

“I wish I was dead,” she said. “I want my baby.”

Flash.

“Do I know you?” The man frowned up at them.

“Uh . . . no.” Bree wondered how to proceed. She couldn't very well tell Andy what was wrong right in front of the man. No, she was going to have to start this herself. “I'm so sorry about the death of your baby. How did it happen?”

He shook his head. “The earthquake. My wife fell when our floor caved in. It's a wonder she wasn't killed too.”

Bree looked up at Andy.

He took the seat on the other side of the man, then held out his hand. “Hi, sir. My name's Andy Hendrix. Do you mind if I sit down for a minute?”

The man shook Andy's hand. “Sam Jones. No, I guess not.”

“I don't know if you've ever read Psalm 116:15, but it says that ‘precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His godly ones.'”

Sam brought his wet eyes to Andy. “It's not so precious to me.”

“No, it never is to us, but your baby's in heaven, and you have the opportunity to see her again.”

“Him.” Sam cleared his throat. “He was my son.” He started to weep again and covered his face to hide it from them.

Andy touched his back. “God understands your pain. His Son died too. An excruciating, cruel kind of death.”

The man looked up at him, his features twisted. “I know all about the cross. Never made any sense to me. And the bit about God giving up His only son . . . If there
were
a God, why would He do that? Why would He let Him die?”

“He let Him die because that was why He was born,” Andy said. “Jesus came for one purpose: to die so we wouldn't have to.”

“Then why do we?” Sam challenged. “If He came to die for us, then why isn't my son alive? Why aren't my parents still here? Why do I have to visit them at their graves?”

Bree watched Andy, waiting to see his answer. She wasn't sure she could have answered that herself.

“It all goes back to Genesis,” Andy said. “When man fell. He had a perfect world, and then Satan tempted him. Told him he could be like God and that he wouldn't die. But Adam died, and so did Eve, and so has everyone in the world since that time. Jesus came to stop that cycle, to give us a chance to live, to take on Himself the punishment that we've all deserved because we've all sinned. Hebrews 5:8–9 says that, ‘Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation.'”

“Obey Him in what? What has God ever asked me to do for Him?”

“Obey by believing in Him. If you do that, we're told that we do not grieve as those who have no hope. That when Jesus comes again, the dead shall rise first. Yes, your little son will rise first, and then you'll join him in the clouds. We'll be caught up together with him in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and we'll always be with the Lord.”

“Jesus is coming again?” Sam shook his head. “I don't even know if I believe He came the first time.”

“I'm betting my eternity on it,” Andy said. “So are you, whether you do it consciously or not.”

The man stood. “I have to go back to my wife. She needs me. I just came out to get some air.” He looked at Andy, then Carl and Bree. “I appreciate you talking to me like this, but I'm not much into religion, you know?”

Andy sprang up. “We go to Brotherhood Community Church. Our service is at 11:00 tomorrow morning. If you can, try to come. At least hear the Lord out. He's after you. He sent us to talk to you because He knows the pain you're suffering.”

Sam nodded and offered them a weak wave. “Thanks. I'll think about it. My wife's getting out this afternoon, though. I don't think I can leave her that soon.”

They watched him as he headed back up to the hospital, his head hung low.

“So much pain,” Bree whispered. “I wish you could have helped him. But I guess even a supernatural gift can't do miracles.”

“Of course it can,” Andy said. “We planted some seeds. I'm sure of it. The Lord led us here as a team, just like He's done with all the others. It wasn't in vain.”

“So should we check on him later, or what?”

“Let's just see what God urges us to do.” Andy grinned. “He'll let Carl's feet know.”

Already, Carl had started walking, and Bree and Andy followed.

13

T
HEY SAW SIX MORE PEOPLE ACCEPT CHRIST BEFORE the day was over, and planted seeds in the hearts of eight others. The next morning, Bree, Andy, and Carl showed up early for church, hoping to talk to their pastor before Sunday school and church began.

They found him in his office, going over his sermon notes. Carl knocked on the door, and the pastor looked up.

“Hey, Jim,” Carl said. “Can we talk to you for a minute?”

Jim got to his feet and laughed as he saw the three of them. “Well, sure. Come on in. I always have time for the miracle trio.”

“The miracle trio?” Bree shot Carl and Andy a look. “Why do you call us that?”

“Because that's what you are. Pulled out of the rubble after being buried for five hours? And not one of you hurt? It's a miracle, that's all there is to it.”

“Oh, yeah,” Bree said. “I guess you're right. I thought you meant . . . something else.”

“Something else?” He laughed. “Like what?”

Bree sat down, and Carl and Andy took seats on either side of her.

“Well, see, uh . . . it's like this,” Carl began.

Andy blurted it out. “We've been given some real strange supernatural gifts, and we've been sharing Christ and seeing lost souls turn to Him all over town.”

Jim frowned. “Supernatural gifts? What do you mean?”

Andy looked at the others. “I mean . . . we can do things that we couldn't do before. Soul-winning things. Fruit-bearing things.”

“Well, that's great.” Jim clapped his hands. “That means you're growing. I could tell last week when you said you were starting a Bible study at your office that you were growing and stretching. I've been so proud of you guys.”

“No, that's not the kind of gift he means.” Bree shifted in her seat. “Not the plain old ordinary work-of-the-Holy-Spirit kind of gift.”

Jim laughed out loud. “The ‘plain old ordinary work of the Holy Spirit'? Bree, you've got to be kidding. There's nothing about the work of the Holy Spirit that's ordinary.”

“I just mean—”

“She means that we're doing some really bizarre things,” Carl said. “I have this walking thing. My feet just start walking, and I find these people who need our help.”

“Well, that's good, Carl. That's great. We should all be willing to go where the Lord wants to send us.”

Bree wanted to shake him. “But I have this vision thing. I can look in someone's eyes, and I see pain and loneliness and things in their lives that have made them into who they are.”

Clearly, Jim loved it. “The Holy Spirit is making you sensitive to other people, Bree. See? There's nothing ordinary about that. Yes, it's supernatural. It sure is.”

He wasn't getting it. Bree looked at the others. “But Andy is talking, saying things he never would have said.”

“Yeah, man,” Andy piped in. “I'm quoting Scripture like crazy and teaching and explaining the gospel like I never could before.”

“Because you've been studying your Bible,” Jim said. “See, Andy? I told you that the more you knew, the more confidence you would have to talk to others. You've always had a teaching gift. That's why I encouraged you to lead the Bible study at your office.”

A knock sounded on the door, and Stanley, the choir director, leaned in the door. “Jim, can I see you for a minute?”

He got up. “Excuse me, guys, I'll be right back.”

When he was gone, they sat staring at each other.

“Do you believe that?” Bree asked.

Andy started to laugh. Bree joined in, and Carl followed.

“He doesn't get it. He thinks we're just doing regular Christian things.”

“I don't know why,” Carl said. “We never did them before.”

“Well, maybe this is another God thing,” Andy said. “Maybe we're not supposed to tell anyone. Maybe we're just supposed to be obedient and keep it all to ourselves.”

Bree got up, went to the doorway, and looked out into the hall. “Do you think so?”

“I don't know,” Carl said. “Hardly matters, though, if he isn't hearing what we're saying.”