The Frank Peretti Collection: The Oath, the Visitation, and Monster

by Frank E. Peretti

  Harold Martin, who looked like he’d spent the night in a ditch, stared up at me blankly for a second or two. “It’s a heavy trip, isn’t it?”

  Karla Dickens, blonde, bespectacled, and jolly, shook my hand and giggled. “I sort of figured,” she said.

  I learned that this particular move of God centered around the Kenyon home on Wednesday nights, and the next Wednesday night, I was there to see it for myself. I wasn’t disappointed.

  I could tell this was going to be good stuff, powerful stuff—the kind of thing I grew up with and needed more of. The cozy living room became even cozier as more than a dozen high schoolers filled the couches, the chairs, and several cushions on the floor.

  Mrs. Kenyon led the meeting, sitting in her big stuffed chair in the corner. She was a pleasant, conversational lady, short in stature and beyond rotund, wearing a loose, tentlike dress and slippers she didn’t have to tie. Mr. Kenyon was quite “blessed” himself, sitting across the room with arms folded over his expansive paunch.

  David, Karla, and Andy had guitars and we wasted no time launching into some praise songs, clapping—that’s right, clapping— and getting into Jesus.

  We sang songs like:

  Thank you, Thank you Jesus

  Thank you, Thank you Jesus

  Thank you, Thank you Jesus in my heart.

  Thank you, Thank you Jesus

  Thank you, Thank you Jesus Thank you,

  Thank you Jesus in my heart.

  That song must have taken the composer months to write, but I learned it the first time through. The next one was a little tougher:

  You gotta move when the Spirit says to move, Oh Lord

  You gotta move when the Spirit says to move.

  When the Spirit says move, you gotta move, Oh Lord

  You gotta move when the Spirit says to move.

  Then we replaced the word “move” with dance, sing, pray, shout, preach, kneel, and anything else that came to mind, and sang the whole thing again. This was an easy song to wear out.

  After several songs, when things got cooking and the joy was just right, Mrs. Kenyon lifted her hands and started speaking in tongues, and that was everyone’s cue. All around the room, hands went up like blooming plants and tongues started fluttering, making all nature of sounds with a commonality of rapid, repeated phrases, rolled r’s, and stuttered t’s and d’s. David was the loudest and maybe the fastest, speaking phrases that sounded like a dirt bike downshifting. Harold stood with arms outstretched and eyes a little buggy, rolling his r’s on a long string of rah-rahs. Amber wasn’t saying much at all, just standing there with her palms upward, looking sweet. Benny Taylor could have been addressing invisible troops like Patton the way he was barking phrases and throwing in an occasional clap for emphasis.

  I’ll be honest: It was clamorous. This was not a convenient time to hear yourself think or compose a prayer of any substance. But that was okay. We didn’t have to pray with understanding because we were praying in the Spirit, and I was right in the middle of it.

  Then Mrs. Kenyon called out in a bold, loud voice, “My children,” and we all fell quiet, our eyes closed prayerfully. I knew from my upbringing that an opening such as “My children,” “My people,”

  “Thus saith the Lord,” or “I am here” meant the start of a prophecy.

  This was God talking.

  Mrs. Kenyon continued, “Surely I have heard thy praises, and I receive them as a sweet smelling savor. Continue to praise me, and I will walk in your midst. Drink of my Spirit, and I shall grant you a mighty increase on this island . . .” She went on like that, delivering words of encouragement as we thanked God quietly but audibly and praised him for speaking to us.

  Then Clay Olson gave a prophecy much like Mrs. Kenyon’s, which really made my evening. I always thought this guy was so cool and sober about life, and now here he was, yielded and being used of God. Would wonders never cease?

  By the time the meeting was over, we’d just about done it all.

  We had opened the Word, prayed for the sick, shared testimonies, even laid hands on some new kids so they could get the baptism like the rest of us. By the time I walked out of that house I was reeling with ecstasy and my emotions were in wondrous, healing reversal. Regret had turned to joy. Perplexity had turned to understanding. Loneliness had vanished. I was home. I belonged. “Hallelujah,” I kept saying, hugging everybody. Hallelujah! For the first time, I was glad to be exactly where I was. God had a plan all along!

  He brought me here to find this bunch, to be a part of this mighty outpouring!

  But I had to stretch my thinking a little. At the Allbright Gospel Tabernacle, being a Christian meant you didn’t smoke. When we were kids we even equated condemning tobacco with preaching the gospel: “Mom, I witnessed to Robbie today. I told him we don’t smoke.” Well, not only did Bernadette, Harold, Karla, and Andy smoke; Mr. and Mrs. Kenyon smoked as well. In fact, the moment we said Amen to the closing prayer, she grabbed her pack and her lighter and started pulling down smoke like she was making up for lost time.

  I think she noticed my discomfort. Between puffs, she let me know it was something she would be giving up in the Lord’s time.

  The Lord had given her a vision about it. “I saw a huge garden full of weeds, and I saw the weeds being plucked out around the outside of the garden, and then more weeds being pulled farther in toward the center, and in the very center of the garden was a big cigarette stuck in the ground, and the Lord said, ‘This is the garden of your life. I’m going to start pulling weeds, working from the outside in, and after I take care of these other weeds in your life, I’ll take care of this weed too.’” She laughed at the pun. “The Lord called it a weed. He really has a sense of humor.” Then she added as she crushed out a spent cigarette and lit another, “But praise is the answer. God is perfecting things and all we have to do is praise. Every Wednesday night there’s someone new at the door, and we just pray and praise them in.”

  And that’s what we did, week after week, Wednesday after Wednesday, all through the fall and into the winter of my senior year. Every Sunday I sat in the quaint little quiet church, and I admit I got good preaching and teaching there, good meat and potatoes.

  But for spice, for energy, for a spoonful of Pentecost per week, I made it to the Kenyons’ and hung together with my on-fire buddies at school. We witnessed around the school, got into religious arguments with other students and sometimes our teachers. We won a few, lost a few. We developed a reputation, of course, but when people saw that Christianity was okay for guys like David, Benny, and Clay, they weren’t so quick to say it was only okay for kooks like Andy and Harold. Things were going great.

  Pretty much.

  Harold became a puzzle to me. I vividly remember the cold Wednesday night in November when he and I stepped outside so he could have a cigarette and we could talk. It was a rule at the Kenyons’: No smoking during the meetings, and only Mr. or Mrs.

  Kenyon could light up in the house afterward.

  We stood out in the yard. It was dark and there was a cold drizzle. Harold hunched his shoulders and kept one hand jammed in his overcoat pocket as he used the other to hold his glowing cigarette. I could barely see him.

  “Ever smoke pot?” he asked me.

  “No.”

  “You ought to try it. I can get you some.”

  My answer came out halfhearted because he’d thrown me off-balance. “Well, no, I, uh, I don’t need that stuff.”

  “Fair is fair. I came over to your side and gave the Holy Spirit a try. I got high your way. You need to see what marijuana’s like.

  You’d be getting high my way, see what I mean?”

  “Harold . . .” I really didn’t want to become some kind of parent to this guy. “Smoking pot is wrong. It’s against the law.”

  “Man’s law. God gave us pot. It’s a gift from him. You need to try it. If you love God, if you love me, you should try it. You can’t say something’s wrong if you haven�
�t even tried it.”

  I couldn’t think of what to say.

  “Fair is fair, right?” he repeated.

  I don’t remember how the conversation ended. I only remember that it ended quickly and I went home to brood about it.

  I’d seen Harold at almost every meeting, singing the songs, raising his hands, and doing his rah-rahs. I didn’t get it.

  But God was moving and he would perfect things. In time.

  DAVID LOVED TO TALK about demons. No one else ever saw them, but David saw them all the time.

  “Man, I had a scary experience with a demon yesterday.”

  “I saw a demon on Mr. Carno’s desk.”

  “She has a demon. Sometimes I can see it looking out through her eyes.”

  “Last night a demon came right through the window and sat on my bedpost looking at me.”

  “There were two demons sitting up in that tree today. I think they’re looking for somebody.”

  He’d point them out to me. He’d even draw them, and he was so casual about it. I would have been scared spitless, but he just gave us a daily update as calmly as reporting the weather. I was present at a meal when he told his folks about another incident, but they only listened, praised the Lord, and went on eating.

  I finally figured it was his unique gift from the Lord, the discerning of spirits. I wasn’t sure what good it was doing him or any of us, but I still had much to learn.

  ANDY SMITH KEPT RUNNING HIS CAR on empty in full assurance and faith that the Lord would multiply his mileage. I had to bring him a can of gas a few times so he could get his car off the highway and to a gas station. I guess that made me the tool in God’s hands to honor Andy’s faith. Well, it worked. He got some gas out of the deal.

  Karla converted about twenty kids in just one day. All they had to do, she told them, was say “Jesus” out loud, and they would be calling on the name of the Lord, and that meant they would be saved.

  What could be easier?

  Mrs. Kenyon had a friend, Mrs. Bannister, who began to frequent our meetings and even take leadership. Mrs. Bannister was a normal-looking homemaker in tennis shoes, but she was also a prophetess, just like in the Book of Acts, and could tell you God’s answer to most any question. Bernadette asked if she should continue going with some non-Christian guy named Barry, and Mrs.

  Bannister said it was the Lord’s will, because Bernadette would win him to the Lord and they would further his kingdom together.

  Clay asked her if he would pass his U.S. Government final, and she said he would, and he did. One evening, Mrs. Bannister addressed the whole smoking issue by telling us about the vision she’d had regarding Mrs. Kenyon’s cigarette habit, the vision of the garden full of weeds with the big cigarette growing in the middle. It made me wonder which lady actually had the vision, but I didn’t push it. Somebody had the vision, and that was good enough for me. On another evening, Mrs. Bannister laid hands on Mr. Kenyon and appointed him bishop of the island. She didn’t say what that was supposed to mean or what Mr. Kenyon was supposed to do, but okay. He was bishop of the island.

  The Kenyons and Bannisters would often visit a large church in Seattle to pick up new ideas on prayer, praise, and gifts of the Spirit, but neither family was regularly committed to any church. They met with other adults on Sunday mornings, either in their home or over at the Bannisters’ place, and the meetings were much the same as the ones on Wednesdays. It was a whole new concept for me.

  Their way of dealing with problems was a new concept as well.

  Once a doctrinal conflict flared up at a Wednesday meeting—the old dispute between “once saved, always saved,” and “stay holy or else.” A newcomer from the “stay holy or else” camp started arguing that we’d better get holy or God would deal with us. I was from a strict Pentecostal background, so he made sense to me.

  Considering the smoking, crusty language, and romantic indulgences going on in the group, I was glad he’d brought it up.

  We did not discuss the matter. Neither Mrs. Kenyon nor Mrs.

  Bannister would allow it. Instead, the two ladies broke into their heavenly languages, encouraged us to do the same, and filibustered in the Spirit until the problem went away—specifically, the newcomer let it go, held his peace, and never came back. I can’t say he would have felt welcome if he did.

  Praise was the answer. Moving in the Spirit. Praying in our heavenly languages. Through these things, God would perfect us.

  God had a plan, and we were at the center of it. As for the rest of the churches on the island, they’d better get on board or fall behind.

  But there was an enemy, lurking outside the walls of the Kenyon home, just beyond the safe cocoon of our joy. A Question kept occurring to me, but I dared not speak it, perhaps for fear that even Mrs. Bannister wouldn’t have an answer. I know I turned away from it, blaming the very thought of it on the devil. God would perfect this too, I kept telling myself. God will speak, and move, and someone will come up with something. Until then, don’t talk about it. Don’t let it in.

  But I could hear the Question rapping at the windows, scratching at the door, constantly whispering, “I’m still here.”

  It lived out in the everyday world where cars break down, children fall from their bicycles, and parents get into fights.

  It hovered behind the big plastic jar on the checkout counter at the grocery store, the jar with the slot in top and all the small bills and change inside. Atop the jar was a small sign asking for help and a photo of a little girl with crutches and braces on her legs.

  It leaped at me mockingly from between the lines as I heard about a school chum’s mother: She had brain cancer and the doctors didn’t expect her to live.

  It rode on the wheelchair of Tim Ford, a young man at our church with multiple sclerosis. His parents had taken him to traveling healers and miracle evangelists, but still he could not walk. They requested prayer for his healing so often that their request should have earned a permanent slot in the printed order of the service.

  Tim was sixteen now and virtually helpless, and they could not rest, could not feel complete until God answered their prayers.

  One Sunday morning, while the people sang the hymns, the pastor gave the announcements, and the church service plodded along at its customary cadence, I sat quietly in my pew, oblivious to it all, secretly laboring over the Question.

  Must this be? What was still broken, still wrong with this world God had made? What were we leaving undone? How could this enemy, this pain and suffering and sickness still be hanging around when God was so powerful and his work so complete?

  Maybe it was our fault. Christians today were spoiled from materialism and having it easy. We had no faith. If we truly had faith, we wouldn’t be such helpless victims in an imperfect world. God could work through us to change things. We could be victorious.

  Help me to have faith, I prayed. Dear Lord, help my unbelief.

  A thought flashed through my mind.

  Huh? What was that? Run that by me again.

  The pastor’s lips were moving, but I didn’t hear his words. I was having a revelation. Of course God wanted to change things.

  It was God who was troubling my spirit right now, letting the Question nag at me. He was trying to get through to me, shake me up, and get me seeking his face for a resolution. He wanted me to do something about it.

  Hope began to swell within me. Maybe this was God’s plan all along. Maybe God was granting me a heart of compassion for the suffering so I could do something about it.

  I looked down at my hands. They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

  I determined at that moment that I would begin a fast. I would pray, fast, and seek God.

  I had just turned eighteen, and things can develop quickly when you’re young. I began my fast on Sunday, and by Tuesday, I’d heard from God and could eat again. I had the gift of healing.

  I believed it, and that was all there was to it. By his stripes we are
healed. They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. The prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up. This was my world now. This was my life, my truth, my calling. When I passed by the plastic jar in the grocery store with the picture of the little girl in braces, I thought, No more. It won’t have to be this way. I laid a hand on that jar and silently prayed for that child, allowing myself to think and believe nothing other than the child would be healed, right then and there.

  I saw an older man out in the parking lot of the store, coughing violently as he tried to climb into his truck. I could lay hands on him, I thought. I could heal him. I was immediately timid and nervous. Instead, I prayed for him silently, remotely. God would hear my prayer.

  I thought of the hospitals that would no longer be needed and the crutches that could be burned. I thought of the wondrous revival that would sweep the island and then the rest of the country because God was going to fix that one thing still wrong with the world.

  It was such a wonderful hope, such a giddy elation. I was looking forward to Wednesday night.

  At the Kenyons’ on Wednesday night, we sang our songs, praised the Lord in a noisy, joyous circle, and then had our time of sharing.

  Clay shared about a friend he’d been witnessing to who was still holding back, but God was working on him. The ferry dock hill was icy, but Clay prayed for his car while his friend watched, and then Clay made it up the hill. The skeptic friend tried it and his car came to a pitiful, wheel-spinning stop only halfway up. We laughed, cheered, and praised the Lord for such a direct demonstration of his power.

  Amber had been witnessing to her friend Liz, and tonight Liz was there to observe. Mrs. Kenyon emphasized how getting high on Jesus was better than any drugs, and if there was any doubt in Liz’s mind, she should just try it. “Instead of LSD, try some PTL,” she said, and we all laughed.

  I raised my hand, and then shared my journey of the past several days, how I’d been chased by the big, ugly Question until I finally confronted it in church on Sunday. I shared the illumination I received, the knowledge from the Spirit that God was speaking to me, shaking me up, giving me a heart for the sick and suffering.