by Randy Alcorn
“What?”
“His wife’s confession devastated him,” Ollie said. “He knows he’s ruined politically, of course, and he’s never done anything else but be a politician. The papers, TV, radio, they’re all over it. He loves his wife and feels guilt over his affair with Leesa. I’ve heard his daughter won’t speak to him for what he did to her mother and her best friend. Plus, he feels like he betrayed everybody. I found out it was Gray who asked Raylon Berkley to stuff the story on Leesa, didn’t give him the real reason for asking of course, but now Berkley’s embarrassed and keeping his distance from his old friend Norcoast. I guess it was all too much to handle—Norcoast lost his image, his job, his family, and his friends, so he took a bottle of pills. He’s not out of the woods yet. He may still die.”
“What hospital, Ollie?”
“Right where you’re calling from—Emanuel.”
Clarence went to the front desk to get Norcoast’s room number. He’d just been moved off critical condition and out of ICU but was still under close monitoring. Clarence went to his room on the fourth floor and stood over him. The councilman was drained of color, pale and pasty. Unconscious, he lay very still. Clarence stood over him for ten minutes before Norcoast started to move. He shuddered and trembled. He started mumbling, appearing to be seeing things and hearing voices.
“O God, they’re trying to get me.” Clarence backed away from the tortured voice. “Monsters, demons attacking me.” His arms flailed. “It’s so hot. Hurts so bad. No. Stay away. Don’t hurt me.” After a few minutes of incoherence, he calmed down a little, then spoke again, eyes closed. “Gone now. Where is everybody? I’m so alone. I’m burning up! Help me!” He screamed out, writhing, soaking himself in sweat, casting the sheets to his side and bumping against the bedrails. Two nurses ran into the room.
Clarence backed out of the room, shaken. He went directly to the hospital chapel and prayed fervently for his father, but even more fervently for Reggie Norcoast.
The next morning Clarence came early to the hospital, first visiting his father, who was unconscious. Then he went up two floors to visit Norcoast. The door was closed. A nurse told him the councilman had had terrible hallucinations all night, but he was now awake and out of trouble.
Clarence peeked in the door. Norcoast, usually vibrant and healthy, looked pale and peaked, like a man who’d been through a wringer. Clarence knocked lightly on the doorframe.
“Hello, Reg, can I come in?”
“Clarence?” Norcoast looked down. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about Esther and Gray and everything.” He lay there looking dejected and pathetic. Clarence pitied him.
“Reg, I need to talk to you about some things. I know I’ve never talked with you about my faith before, but I feel it’s—”
“Clarence, something wonderful happened last night.” Norcoast suddenly sounded euphoric. “I was just about to die—in fact I think I may have died, really. I was walking down this shining corridor and there was this magnificent angel of light. It was so beautiful. The angel assured me there’s a special place in heaven for me. He said I just needed to get in touch with myself, live a good life, and do the best I could to love others. It was so real. I was on the verge of heaven, and I didn’t want to come back. But I realize I was sent back for a reason. To tell people about God’s love and acceptance.”
Clarence looked at him, slack-jawed. “Reg, I was here last night. I heard you crying out to God and screaming and talking about demons attacking you. You felt like you were on fire, then you talked about being all alone. You weren’t on the verge of heaven. You were on the verge of hell!”
“What are you talking about?” Norcoast said. “No, you’ve got it all wrong. I remember it clearly. A bright angel, a beautiful home, peaceful feelings. Serenity. It was the most wonderful place I’ve ever been. The most extraordinary experience I’ve ever had. I’ve lost so much that’s dear to me in the last few days, but this is a great comfort. I’ve made contact with my angel now. Esther says eventually I’ll learn to talk to him and get his guidance.”
Clarence stared at him, at a complete loss for words.
“How is he?” Harley asked Clarence as the brothers stood outside their father’s room.
“Not good. Still unconscious,” Clarence said. “The doctor doesn’t think… there’s very much time.”
Harley nodded, removing his glasses and rummaging in his pockets. Clarence handed him an extra handkerchief.
“Look, Harley,” Clarence said. “There’s something I need to say to you….I’m sorry I’ve got such a big mouth sometimes.”
Harley looked at him somberly. “What do you mean, ‘sometimes’?”
They both laughed and put their arms around each other in a long embrace for the first time either could remember, maybe the first time since Mama died. Suddenly they heard the sound of faint singing. They both rushed into Daddy’s room. The words were barely audible, the tune broken but recognizable.
“O Freedom, O Freedom, O Freedom over me. And before I’ll be a slave I’ll be buried in my grave, and go home to my Lord and be free.
“O Canaan, bright Canaan, I’m bound for the land of Canaan.
“Amazin’ Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.” His voice whispered, but with surprising intensity.
“Someday when I his face shall see, someday from tears I shall be free. Somebody’s callin’ my name. Git on board, little children, git on board. De gospel train’s a comin’, git on board.”
Clarence and Harley stood over him, Clarence’s arm around his brother. Daddy’s eyes were open, but they seemed to be looking somewhere beyond the room.
“I hears that whistle blowin’,” Obadiah said. “Train’s a comin’. Folks a gatherin’.” His whisper gained strength, energized by something the brothers couldn’t see. “Who’s dat walkin’ beside me now? Tall as an oak. These ol’ legs don’t feel so sore. Who’s dat up ahead? Whose face I see? O, my sweet Jesus. It’s you. It’s you.”
Obadiah grew suddenly quiet, his eyes staying open, not blinking, but watering up. Clarence wiped away Obadiah’s tears with a tissue. After a minute the old man suddenly started talking again.
“Who dat, now? Daddy, it’s you, ain’t it? O Daddy, what you told me was true, and here it is. And… O Mama, yes, me too, Mama.” Silence again. “Moses! How are you, brother? How long’s it been now? And where’s my Dani? There she is! O Dani, I hadn’t stopped cryin’ for you yet, little girl. And who’s this one? My little Felicia, that you? O sweet Jesus, sweet Jesus. I never knowed such joy. Thank you, my sweet Jesus.”
Clarence and Harley stared wide eyed as the tears streamed down their father’s face. “He’s hallucinating,” Harley said. Clarence nodded. The brothers stood shoulder to shoulder, leaning close over their father, wanting to hear every word as his voice faded in and out.
“My oh my, and who’s dat woman? Uncommon pretty, she is. I missed you terrible, Ruby. Gets lonely countin’ cricket chirps and watchin’ stars all by yo’self.”
Clarence looked at Harley. He wondered whether…
“Wait a minute, there.” Obadiah said, “Mike? That you, ol’ soldier? Now there’s a grip. Been waitin’ a long time to shake that hand again. Hold on. Who dat behind you? Elijah? Where you come from, brother?”
No, of course not. It was all just a hallucination after all. Amazing what the mind could do. The old man’s body jolted with a spasm of pain.
“You all come out to get me, didn’t you? Well, don’t want to stay out here, that’s sure. I hears that ol’ porch bell a ringin’. Time to come inside, ain’t it? Time for me to cross dat ol’ Jordan. Time to come…”
Obadiah’s eyes grew big and his pupils contracted as if seeing a bright light. Then his eyelids fell over them as if they were blinds suddenly tugged shut. Obadiah Abernathy gasped his last breath in one world and his first in another.
The body lay abandoned. Clare
nce and Harley looked at each other in disbelief. It seemed impossible that only an instant before this empty shell had still contained a man.
“O Daddy,” Harley sobbed.
Clarence fell to his knees, laying his head on the bedspread. “We gonna miss you, old man,” Clarence said, choking out the words. “We gonna miss you terrible.”
Several minutes later, Harley and Clarence helped each other up and walked out into the hall.
“Antsy?” Clarence hadn’t heard Harley call him that for twenty years. “For just a moment, I thought maybe Daddy was really…I don’t know. Did you think…?”
“Yeah, I did,” Clarence said. “Up until he thought he saw Uncle Elijah. I just talked to him last night. ’Lijah’s still in Mississippi.”
“And if anything’s for sure,” Harley said, “it’s that Mississippi and heaven aren’t the same place.”
That evening, at Keisha and Celeste’s insistence, the family sat down to read. Clarence, Geneva, Jonah, and Ty all gathered close to the girls in the living room, sitting on the floor, propped up against the couch and beanbag chairs.
“Before Granddaddy read to us, he always sang a song,” Keisha said.
“What did he sing?” Clarence asked, figuring he knew the answer.
“‘Amazin’ Grace.’ And a bunch of others. He said some of them were slave songs.”
Clarence’s low voice rumbled up slowly, as if climbing stairs. “Amazing grace—how sweet the sound—that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.” He continued verse by verse, climaxing with, “When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise, than when we’d first begun.”
“You’re a good singer, Daddy,” Keisha said.
Clarence cleared his throat, searching for a slave song. “Someday when I his face shall see, someday from tears I shall be free. Somebody’s callin’ my name. Git on board, little children, git on board. De gospel train’s acomin’, git on board.”
Geneva closed her eyes as Clarence sang. She absorbed the sound of her husband’s soothing voice, which resonated into her soul. It had been so long since she’d heard him sing like this.
“Swing low, sweet chariot, comin’ for to carry me home, swing low, sweet chariot, comin’ for to carry me home.” The more he sang, the more Clarence felt like they weren’t alone in the room. The music linked them to other voices far away and yet very near. For a moment he sensed a voice that had been very thin when he’d last heard it this morning, but was now full and robust. It struck him as eerie, like hearing the whispers of eternity. He didn’t understand that the songs shared by earth and heaven sometimes create a momentary bridge connecting the two worlds.
The phone rang. They’d had calls coming and going from relatives all day, so Geneva reluctantly got up to answer it.
In a few minutes she returned. “It was your cousin Jabo in Jackson,” Geneva said to Clarence. “I left him the message about Daddy earlier. He called about your Uncle Elijah.”
“I suppose he’s taking it pretty hard,” Clarence said. “They were so close.”
“It’s not that,” Geneva said. “Uncle Elijah passed away.”
“When?” Clarence asked.
“Ten o’clock this morning, Mississippi time. Jabo said he was sorry he didn’t call earlier.”
“He died three hours before Daddy,” Clarence said. He put his big hands on his face and tears overtook him again. Geneva and the children put their arms around him and each other, there on the living-room floor.
After a few minutes of reminiscing about his father and uncle, Clarence led his family in prayer. Then he picked up the last Narnia book, opening to the bookmark at the beginning of the final chapter.
“Uncle Antsy,” Celeste said, “what does it mean when it keeps saying Aslan is not a tame lion?”
“Well…” Clarence hesitated. “Maybe that he’s good, he’s faithful, but he’s not predictable. He doesn’t always do things the way we want him to. He’s not a genie you can call out of a bottle to do your bidding.” He saw the children weren’t quite following him. “You know how a lion tamer is a man who makes the lion do what he wants? Well, God isn’t a tame lion. We can ask him for what we want, but we can’t make him do it. He’s the King, we’re not. He calls the shots, we don’t. We have plans that make sense to us. He has better plans that make sense to him. No matter what happens, we need to learn to trust in his wisdom, not our own.”
After reading twenty minutes to an unusually attentive audience, Clarence turned to the final page of The Last Battle.
“Only one more page?” Keisha said. “I don’t want it to end.”
“I hope C. S. Lewis writes more books,” Celeste said. “Then we can read those too.”
“C. S. Lewis is dead,” Geneva said. “Sorry.”
Celeste and Keisha looked very disappointed.
“Okay, girls, here’s the end of the book.” Clarence read the final section heading, “Farewell to the Shadow-Lands.”
“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are—as you used to call it in the Shadow-Lands—dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”
And as he spoke he no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page; now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read; which goes on forever; in which every chapter is better than the one before.
About the Author
Randy Alcorn is the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries (EPM). Prior to this he served as a pastor for fourteen years. He has spoken around the world and has taught on the adjunct faculties of Multnomah Bible College and Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon.
Randy is the best-selling author of 27 books (over three million in print), including the novels Deadline, Dominion, Lord Foulgrin’s Letters and the 2002 Gold Medallion winner Safely Home. His ten nonfiction works include Money, Possessions and Eternity, Prolife Answers to Prochoice Arguments, In Light of Eternity, The Treasure Principle, The Grace and Truth Paradox, The Purity Principle Why Pro Life? and Heaven: Resurrected Living on the New Earth.
Randy has written for many magazines and produces the popular periodical Eternal Perspectives. He’s been a guest on over 500 radio and television programs including Focus on the Family, the Bible Answer Man, Family Life Today and Truths that Transform.
The father of two married daughters, Randy lives in Gresham, Oregon, with his wife and best friend, Nanci. He enjoys hanging out with his family, biking, tennis, research and reading.
Feedback on books and inquiries regarding publications and other matters can be directed to Eternal Perspective Ministries (EPM), 2229 East Burnside #23, Gresham, OR 97030, 503-663-6481. For information on EPM or Randy Alcorn, and for resources on missions, persecuted church, prolife issues, and matters of eternal perspective, see www.epm.org. Visit Randy Alcorn’s blog: www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com.
Chapter one from Randy Alcorn’s forthcoming novel,
Deception,
due in stores September 2006
“My eyes have been trained to examine faces and not their trimmings. It is the first quality of a criminal investigator that he should see through a disguise.” —Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles.
The phone rang at 2:59 a.m. I know this because three enormous red digits assaulted my eyes.
I knocked the phone off the cradle, then groped for it in the darkness. My tongue was stuck.
“Hello?” The voice was deep and croaky. “Anyone there?”
It
’s not enough that I pick up the phone at 2:59 a.m.? I have to say something too?
“Chandler?”
I nodded my head, admitting it.
“Detective Ollie Chandler?”
“Yeah,” I groaned.
“You didn’t answer your cell phone,” he said, sounding like a hacksaw cutting a rain gutter. “You awake?”
“No. But you may as well finish the job.”
“In bed?”
“Nope. Mowin’ the lawn. Who died?”
Welcome to my world.
I’ve been waiting all my life to get good news from a 3:00 a.m. phone call. It’s been a fifty-six-year wait; a wait of Red Sox and White Sox proportions.
Many people imagine middle-of-the-night phone calls mean someone’s been killed. I don’t imagine it. That’s just how it is.
Jake Woods tells me there’s a God who’s in charge of the universe. Tell the truth, I’m not convinced. But if there is, I’d appreciate it if He would schedule murders during day shift.
“The victim’s Jimmy Ross,” said the voice, which only then I realized belonged to Sergeant Jim Seymour. Sarge worked day shift. I pictured him sitting home in his underwear. It was not a pretty picture.
“Drug dealer.”
I didn’t shed a tear. They say cops are cynical. Okay, to me drug dealers are a waste of protoplasm. They should be shot, then injected, then put on the electric chair on a low setting. Does that sound cynical?
“Officer Foley is the patrol,” Sarge said. “2229 Northeast Burnside, apartment 34.” I scratched it down in the dark. I hate subjecting my eyes to the daggers of first light, so I postpone it as long as I can.
The moment I put down the phone, I sensed a presence in the dark room. An intelligence was near me, watching, breathing. I knew it. My throat tightened and I reached my hand toward my Smith & Wesson 340 revolver on the night stand. I heard a groan. Then I saw the whites of two eyes, three feet away.