But they didn't. It had been nine months now, and the boys were worse than ever. Carried their Bibles to public school, no less. Became known as church kids. Their grades perked back up. That was all right. But the cost.
Oh, my, Chris thought, the terrible cost. Now he was the Pan-Con first officer with a long, boring marriage, a plain wife, two Christian-kook kids, and a guilt-inducing private life that included another wife. Why did it make him feel so bad when he didn't claim any moral authority? He couldn't say. He just knew that what he was doing on the side was something Jane--for whatever her shortcomings and weaknesses--would never do to him and didn't deserve having done to her.
Strange, Christopher barely thought of wife number
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two in this moment of crisis, but he found himself frantic to know how his real family was. The boys were supposed to be at some church thing tonight, and Jane was to pick them up when it was over. If these vanishings really happened at the same time all over the world, they could very well have been right out in the middle of it at the time.
As a woman knelt before the altar of fire, Jesus stood and began to narrate scenes from her life depicted in Irene's mind. She noticed that Raymie looked just as fascinated as she.
First Irene watched as the woman, clearly from the first century, buried her husband. Then she moved from a comfortable home into a small room at the back of a hovel shared with two other families who seemed to ignore her. Irene watched her visit the Temple in Jerusalem and pray.
The woman ate from gleanings of the fields she passed on her way to sweep out the home of a rich family in an area where she had once lived. Often she stopped to pray. At the end of each week the house owner pressed into her palm a single coin.
Now she was visiting the Temple again, standing in line behind wealthy people making a show of dumping huge amounts of money into the coffers. In the background Irene could see Jesus sitting opposite the treasury.
As the woman's works were tested in the fire and
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resulted in precious metals and stones, Jesus said, "And many who were rich put in much. Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites--the least valuable Roman coins, two of which make a farthing. I called My disciples to Myself and said, 'Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood.""
Chris Smith hadn't talked--really talked--to his boys for years. Oh, they'd had shouting matches, threats, reprimands, punishments. There had been a full complement of cold shoulders, slammed doors, epithets, and ultimatums. But in the end, just before the boys had found that old-time religion, Chris had given up. He'd been no prize as a teenager either, and look how he turned out. Yeah, just look.
Did he want them to turn out as he had? A dishonest, cheating weasel? A bigamist? All Chris knew was that no matter what he did or said, he was no example to them and they were going to do what they were going to do, regardless.
But he was curious. Could this, whatever it was, be a religious thing? a God thing? And if so, what did it mean? Would the boys know? They really seemed into church, and they were smart, but had they learned enough to know about stuff like what had happened
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now? Chris felt an urgent need to talk with them, to see what they made of it all.
He also began having a crisis of conscience. Little from the real world had ever affected him to any significant extent. To Chris, news was news, something that happened to everybody else. But now he was the number-two man in a jumbo jet with a third of her passengers gone. This wasn't going to be something he could watch on TV and gas about with his poker buddies.
Worse, as the 747 made the huge turnaround and he set the coordinates to get them to ORD by early morning Central time, Rayford asked him to start twisting the dials to see if he could dredge up some news signal from anywhere. They were in one of the worst spots in the world for that, but it wouldn't be long before they would come within range of Greenland and Canada and even the eastern seaboard of the U.S. If it was true that this was some kind of global phenomenon, Chris couldn't imagine what the news would sound like.
New emotions began to roll over him as he played with the dials. Captain Steele seemed preoccupied and wasn't checking in with him for a progress report, apparently assuming that as soon as Christopher found something, he'd let Rayford know. But as Chris encountered solid static for several minutes, he couldn't keep his mind from going where he really hadn't wanted it to go. What was it about a natural disaster that seemed to focus one's inner eye squarely on one's self?
Except for knowing that his private liaisons--and of course the other marriage--were not things he ever
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wanted Jane to know about--and especially not the boys--Christopher had rarely had a problem keeping his conscience at bay. There was much in his life he wouldn't be proud to have made public, so he just rarely thought about it.
That wasn't working now. It was as if a black cloud was descending on Chris Smith, and he couldn't get out from under it. What kind of person, what kind of man, was he? For whatever shortcomings his wife had, Jane was a good person, surely more than he deserved. She could even be sweet. And she was a servant.
Guilt. That was what Chris was feeling. In one sense he was grateful that he had always been careful and that she had no clue what he did on the road. That was big of him, wasn't it? To consider her feelings? That's what he had always told himself. He deserved these secret pleasures, but he was considerate enough not to hurt or embarrass his wife. Hadn't that been his motive?
Of course it hadn't, and he had known that all along. He had been covering for himself, but now this crazy worldwide-vanishing business was making him focus, keeping him from hiding behind his usual blather. He was feeling like the scoundrel he was.
Chris shook his head and tried to block these thoughts and feelings by busying himself even more with his task. But it wasn't rocket science. He was spinning dials hoping to lock onto some signal strong enough to bring the news into the cockpit. He could have done that in his sleep, and what a relief that would be.
He had to admit that this was becoming a personal
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crisis. Chris found himself desperately wanting to talk with his wife, yet he knew that it would take an awful lot longer to come within range of air-to-ground telephoning than it would to finally pick up some scratchy radio-news report.
Christopher was actually shaking and wondered if it showed. What would he do if something had happened to Jane? And the boys? While they had become a nuisance and an embarrassment, he was suddenly overcome with the reality that they were his flesh, his life, his heart. What was this? Love? Was he loving his family, or was he just afraid for them... or for himself?
The longer the plane droned on, the deeper Chris felt himself burrowing into a dark hole of despair.
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CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Irene and Raymie sat fingering their crowns and--Irene knew--thinking the same thing without speaking. It was so joyous to be in the presence of Jesus, the lover of their souls. But just as Pastor Billings had predicted so many times in so many sermons on so many Sundays over so many months, there was something unique not only about their new, glorified bodies but also about the way their new, glorified minds worked.
As wonderful as it had been to hear "Well done" from the only perfect man to have ever lived and to be welcomed into God's house and to receive crowns of reward, none of that hit them as some cheap imitation as it might have on Earth. Irene had attended countless meetings where people were thanked and lauded and presented with plaques, trophies, cups, framed certificates, and the like for any bit of service they had rendered or accomplishment they might have achieved.
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But to be holding in one's own hands a reward for your works in service of Christ would h
ave been beyond comprehension and expression on Earth. This gold-and-silver amalgam was unlike anything Irene had ever seen. And the jewels embedded in it were so exquisite and dazzling that even her new eyes had to adjust to light reflected not from the sun or artificial sources but from God Himself.
As she sat there, somehow able to cherish and admire the headpiece while missing nothing of the hundreds of thousands of judgments and rewards as people filed past the altar and the throne, Irene came to realize what her pastor had been driving at all that time.
As thrilled as she was to be here and to feel the personal attention from the One loved and admired and exalted by all of creation, she had no more interest in her crown than she did in leaving this place. As beautiful and meaningful as it was, representing her life in Christ, she simply did not want it and could not keep it. Raymie was experiencing the same emotion; she could tell. They glanced at each other and shrugged.
This jewelry had one purpose only, and that was to be returned to the Giver, bestowed, laid at the feet of Jesus. In Raymie's eyes Irene saw that he was getting the same impression she was, that the 20 billion or so other saints in God's house had come to the same conclusion. And above the din of constant praise to the Lamb who had been slain for the sins of the world and the bursts of celebration by the angelic choir every time someone on Earth was welcomed into the Kingdom, there seemed a palpable
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hum, a buzz of excitement and anticipation. For at some point, Irene realized, everyone there was going to cast their crowns at Jesus' feet.
"Mom," Raymie said, "we don't even have to discuss things here, do we?"
She shook her head.
"I mean, at first it seemed like we were on the same wavelength and I could communicate with you without words, but I wondered whether it was true, whether we were thinking about the same thing at the same time. But I don't wonder anymore. I just know."
"Me too," Irene said.
"How much fun is this? What am I thinking right now?"
Irene felt like smiling, only to realize that her grin couldn't get any bigger anyway. She had been in a constant state of euphoria since she had arrived, and somehow it invigorated her, didn't exhaust her. She wanted it to never end, and she knew it would not. "You're wondering how much we can do all at the same time."
"Right."
"You want to study the crown, witness the judgments, talk with your heroes--old and new--sing with the choir, praise Jesus, talk with me, communicate silently with me, and--above all--you want to tour the rest of this place."
"I do. But I'm a little hesitant to ask. What is that? I should know by now that God knows what I want before I say it, even before I am aware of it myself. Why do I wonder if I'm bothering Him or if something is too much to ask?"
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Irene shrugged. "We have new minds and bodies, but we have memories. Maybe in a million or so years we'll be completely free of our humanness."
Raymie laughed. "We already are."
"I know."
Christopher Smith was frantic by the time he finally realized the Pan-Continental 747 was within satellite communication range of the United States. For some reason the usual connections with Greenland and Canada had produced no results. He couldn't make that compute. Had something happened in the atmosphere to interrupt the signals? Radio and TV signals couldn't be jammed from overloading.
A superstation out of New Jersey reached his headphones, faint and staticky and in and out at first. Finally Christopher was able to catch every word if he pressed the earphones tight, shut his eyes, and concentrated. He would let Rayford know as soon as the signal was listenable without such work. The captain clearly had enough on his mind.
Chris's neck and shoulders tightened and cramped as he concentrated, but suddenly, as if they had passed some invisible barrier, the signal came through strong and clear. He flipped a switch that allowed him to communicate directly to Rayford's headphones. "Patching you through to Jersey Shore All-News Radio, Cap."
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"Roger, thanks. Keep us on course."
That was Rayford's way of saying he would listen to the radio while Chris did the work for a while. Fat chance. Chris was as curious as the boss was, and the plane was on autopilot. Chris knew how to appear as if he were concentrating on the controls while leaving the radio frequency open to his own headset.
Once the controls were set Chris stared out the window at the strange colors in the sky. Here they were heading back toward the States at an unusual time of day, working with various towers to stay on course and at the right altitude as thousands of planes sought landing strips all over the world. How different, he thought, to have the rising sun at our backs.
The impact of the global tragedy was transmitted directly into Chris's ears. Depressed, terrified, despairing--that had been one thing. Now thoughts of suicide began to invade, and he knew if he didn't talk to his loved ones soon, he might go mad. Loved ones. When was the last time he had referred to Jane and the boys as his loved ones? His women had been his loved ones, but he knew he had never loved one of them. Not even his other wife. Not even Hattie, the young senior attendant on this very flight. Of course, she had not given him the time of day since a one-night stand they had enjoyed in Spain several months before. He'd had no illusions about that. Half the time even then she had peppered him with questions about Rayford. As if she would have a chance with a dyed-in-the-wool family man like Steele.
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"Yes," God told Raymie Steele, "you can do anything and everything you wish simultaneously."
"Without missing anything?" Raymie said.
God did not answer that, which was okay with Raymie, as he knew the answer as soon as he had blurted the question. And in the next instant he was in his mansion. When first he had heard this business about a "mansion over the hilltop" in heaven, Raymie hadn't known what to make of it. He knew what a mansion was. It was a home much bigger than the comfortable suburban house his father had provided. He had seen incredible houses on TV shows. Maybe it would be something like those.
On the other hand, Pastor Billings had hammered home the point that Jesus had left the earth two thousand years before "to prepare a place for you," so it would have to be something more spectacular even than the earth itself, which was created in six days.
The first surprise to Raymie was that his name was on the door. He had been expected. And inside his seventy-five-cubic-acre estate was a stunning reproduction of Earth, a gigantic sphere suspended before him like a school globe come to life in full color, so bright and glittering that he was irresistibly drawn to it.
There was no chair, no table, no bed--none of the necessities of earthly life. Raymie simply wouldn't need anything like that. The question was, what did he need with this replica of Earth, big enough for him to walk around on and in it? He learned that as soon as he stepped aboard. It proved merely a trigger to his mind.
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Regardless of where he stepped, artifacts from various periods of history appeared, and by merely looking at them or touching them, he was instantly conveyed to that time and place and could watch as history repeated itself.
Why not start from the beginning? he thought, and he moved toward the Fertile Crescent and found himself in the Garden of Eden. A gleaming piece of fruit caught his eye, and there he was, watching as Eve conversed with the serpent and took the fateful bite. The snake hissed in glee, Eve's countenance fell, and Adam soon joined her.
It had all been true, the biblical record, and Raymie could immerse himself in every incident and see as it played out. He leaped from there to Mount Ararat and saw Noah's ark bobbing on forty days and nights' worth of water. He would get back to this, for there was a pile of bricks and mortar and thousands of men milling about and working, building... what? The tower of Babel.
Raymie had all of eternity to watch and listen and experience everything that had ever happened. He experimented with speeding ahead in time and saw the assassinations of Julius Ca
esar and then Abraham Lincoln. And how about that time his friends had all sworn he was out at second base, when he just knew they were wrong? He touched the base and watched the play, bursting with laughter when his friends were proved right.
All the time Raymie was experimenting, hopping from here to there and from this age to that, he was also enjoying the judgment of the works of the saints from the ground floor of God's house. What could be better
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than this? In due time he would return and witness the death of Jesus on the cross and then the triumphant Resurrection.
When the captain had come back on the intercom with the information about returning to the United States, Buck Williams was surprised to hear applause throughout the cabin. Shocked and terrified as everyone was, he assumed most were from the States and wanted at least to return to familiarity.
Buck nudged the businessman on his right. "I'm sorry, friend, but you're going to want to be awake for this."
The man peered at Buck with a disgusted look and slurred, "If we're not crashin', don't bother me."
Irene soon realized that with all she had seen in what supposedly was just minutes on Earth, those "first" on Earth who were to be "last" here had finally begun. It seemed that many of the heroes of the Bible, despite all they had been through and all they had accomplished, were considered first because they had been made known to generations through the Bible.
Irene was fascinated by the stories of many of the disciples, some of whom approached the altar from their positions among the twenty-four elders before the throne. Matthew, the tax collector, of course had none
The Rapture: In the twinkling of an eye, countdown to the earth's last days (Left Behind: Prequel - Main Products) Page 23