by Beth Jones
Yet what else was there to do but eat? Pray, she heard the Holy Spirit whisper in His still, small voice to her heart. Pray for your marriage.
She sighed deeply, frustrated with God. She knew that God hated divorce, that He wanted their marriage to work, and now He was asking her to pray for her husband, even in the middle of this storm. But she didn’t want to. A lot of times she just wanted to run away—or file for divorce. She hadn’t yet, because of Faith.
Or was Faith the only reason? Did Rachel really love Jackson, deep down inside? Was she just too stubborn and prideful—and scared—to let him know how she really felt about him? That she was terrified he’d leave her and no longer love her?
The other reason she didn’t want to divorce Jackson was because Rachel didn’t want to give the devil his victory and his satisfaction that he’d won at last.
He’d been after her marriage from day one. He knew that Jackson and Rachel had a ministry calling on their lives. The few times they’d ministered together at church and in home churches, the power and fire of God fell. People were saved, healed, and delivered, and gave God the glory. For that reason, the enemy tried all he could to destroy their marriage…and it was working. She didn’t know if their marriage was going to survive. The thought broke her heart.
Satan’s onslaught with Jackson’s emotional infidelity, severe financial crises, Jackson’s career struggles, Jackson’s and Autumn’s health issues, the foreclosure of their only home, and near bankruptcy had left Jackson and Rachel both weary—and eyeing each other as the enemy instead of the devil. They were depleted and tired, having nothing to give each other. They needed soul rest and their joy restored.
Somehow deep inside, Rachel knew Jackson loved her, even if he didn’t know how to show it. At times she would catch him staring at her with a longing, hurt look in his hazel eyes. Eyes that had black pupils the size of the ocean. How did his eyes always look that way? Her pupils were always pin-point size. Maybe it was anxiety. His eyes were one of the things she loved about him. Loved. Did she love him?
Lightning and thunder outside boomed, startling her. It was almost as if God were asking the question. Do you love him?
She faltered. Did she? It struck again, this time so loudly she jumped in fright. It sounded like it was going to hit the house. What if the house caught on fire? Her cell phone service wasn’t working right now with the weather. The landlord who had rented her the beach house, for her time away from everyone and everything, didn’t install a land line. It wouldn’t work right anyway with the power flickering on and off from the storm.
She had a weather radio and a CB radio in the house for emergencies, but there was so much confusion on the CB channels and it had limited range—not to mention all the cussing and perverts on there. Not exactly family friendly! She’d be afraid to ask for help on it! Who knows who’d show up to “help” her? Sort of like selling furniture or giving away a pet on Craig’s List; no telling who would show up at your front door. Scary.
Rachel knew that her neighbors were next door, but would they dare to venture outside in this frightening, raging weather? Would she? She’d never been in a hurricane before. She wished so much that she had a hand crank radio, as well as many other supplies. Despite her neighbors’ amazing help and continual reassurance that everything was going to be just fine, she still felt unprepared for the worst. She knew only God could keep her safe and alive in this dangerous storm. Would she make it? Or was she being a complete, lunatic fool?
“Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High, will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust,’” she prayed, quoting Psalm 91:1-3.
Trust. Yes, that was it. Jackson didn’t trust her and she didn’t trust him. Trust was essential to a marriage. The floozy he’d gotten entangled with. Her spending too much money and telling her family and her friends about the floozy and other intimate details of their bad marriage, uncovering and embarrassing him.
They viewed each other as the giant Goliath, the Philistine enemy to the Israelites, sneering at and mocking them. Their conversations, which used to be long, deep, and intimate for hours at his house when they dated, were now laced with contempt, anger, and totally void of affection and love.
So many issues. Jackson used the Biblical concept of submission over her head like a whip. If he had his way, she thought, I’d be rolling out the red carpet for him every night, belly dancing, and feeding him grapes. Ugh.
What was really wrong in their marriage, she wondered.
Men need and want respect, and women desire love, she thought, remembering marriage book after marriage book that she’d read through the years in desperation for an answer, which outlined principles for success in marital relationships. She knew both love and respect were sorely lacking in their marriage. Jackson may love her, but he wasn’t very good at showing her!
And I’m terrible at respecting him, she acknowledged, biting her lip, the guilt rising like the waves outside. Jackson sometimes accused her of being a feminist because of her resistance to “submitting” to him. She wasn’t a feminist. She cringed at the word, and considered it an insult. Oh yes, she was all for women being able to vote and get equal pay in the workplace and men sharing some of the duties at home, including changing diapers, cooking, and washing dishes, but no, she wasn’t a feminist at heart.
She wanted to do the right thing. She wanted to respect and honor her husband and be an excellent wife, like the Proverbs 31 woman, a woman with a gentle, submissive and quiet spirit, which is precious in God’s sight. She was anything but quiet! She talked all the time, and she had very definite opinions about almost everything. Jackson often joked that she was the only person he knew who was an expert in every topic. And the most unsubmissive woman he’d ever met.
Rachel knew that submission was God’s idea, not man’s. Men (and women) had simply perverted the beautiful concept of a divine partnership. He was to love her as Christ loved the church, giving up himself for her. She was to be a crown to his head, his support and greatest cheerleader, his best friend.
The world had taken the idea of the woman’s submission and made it into an ugly, old-fashioned and outdated thing, likening it to the robotic, brainless women in the Stepford Wives book and movie. The world defined submissions as the man just controlling the woman, like trafficked sex slaves or cattle, property of men in strict religions, to be used and abused.
Jackson didn’t abuse her, physically or sexually, but he did have a firm idea, set like concrete in his mind, of what men and women were “supposed to do,” which included the woman “submitting.” He talked about it so much she wanted to scream.
Was that all he ever thought of? She was a strong-willed woman, and nobody ever told her what to do! So they argued about it a lot, going around the same mountain again and again.
Maybe if Jackson’s approach was different, she would submit easier. Maybe if he’d really lead their family, instead of trying to control her every move, she’d cooperate better. As their pastor said once, if he would just lead, she’d follow. Jackson’s idea of leading was her doing whatever he said.
“I’m not your dog!” she’d shout angrily, when he’d get controlling again. She reminded him of Ephesians 5:21, “Honor Christ by submitting to each other.” It was supposed to be mutual submission, not just the woman’s, she said. And the husband was supposed to submit to Christ, even as the woman was supposed to submit to the husband. And they both knew there were areas in Jackson’s life where he was not submitted to God!
This just made him mad and he’d justify his behaviors and blame her again. She closed her eyes, fatigued physically and emotionally. Would she never find peace in this lifetime?
She listened to the wild wind outside and swallowed her fear, threatening to engulf her. She supposed she needed to try to sleep some. She spread out her Hello Kitty sleeping bag, soft pillow, and extra blankets on the air mattress, putting
her Ziploc bag of important papers, her gum boots, her purse with her car keys, the LED flashlight, and the CB right by her head, just in case she needed to escape and get out fast if, God forbid, the house flooded despite the stilts or was destroyed in the hurricane. Rachel longed for her comfy bed upstairs with the white comforter.
A canoe with paddles was outside the back door if her red VW beetle was submerged and the streets flooded. Not that she’d know where to paddle to…the first place she’d go was to her neighbors’ house. She fought back a growing fear, What if their house is destroyed? What if they all die? What will I do?
She prayed again, trying not to think of the news reports she’d heard earlier about winds possibly reaching 90 mph or higher, storm surges, power outages, deaths, and more. She placed herself carefully in God’s good, loving hands, and lay down after brushing her teeth and hair, and washing off her black eyeliner, mascara, and eye shadow, the only makeup she’d had on all day. Her dark eyeliner was her defense against the world, her trademark.
As her breath slowed and she began to relax, despite the sound of the howling wind and the rain which sounded like horses’ hooves racing across the sky, Rachel began to dream. And to wait out the storm, as she always waited in life.
She thought again of Faith, and her heart squeezed with painful longing to see and hold her precious child again. She saw Jackson’s face in her mind, his black pupils huge, love and worry etched on his tired face about his wife. She knew they both must be worried about her. Even Jackson, no matter what state their marriage was in right now.
Jesus, she prayed as she drifted off to a restless, haunted sleep, will you please heal and restore my marriage? Will You please do a miracle in our lives? Little did Rachel know how quickly God would answer that prayer, and how.
Chapter 4: Dreams
The hurricane was much bigger than they’d expected. In Panama City, there was a storm surge of 25 feet high. The whole city was destroyed, just like New Orleans, looking like an atomic bomb had hit it. Rachel heard it first, then the surge hit the house. Ocean water poured into the house, freezing cold, the force slamming her against the wall. She screamed, but nobody could hear her. She began panicking as the water filled her lungs and she couldn’t breathe. Her last thoughts were of her family and of Jesus…
Rachel woke up, sweating heavily. Her heart was racing from the nightmare. Yet it wasn’t just a nightmare. She could hear the force of the wind outside, as if the demons of hell had been unleashed against her. She began shaking violently and praying. It sounded like the house was going to collapse from the wind and the rain pelting the roof. What if the roof tore off? What if the house fell in on her? What if the 10 feet tall steel pilings (stilts) of the beach house didn’t hold against the force of the hurricane?
She remembered the landlord Mr. James’ words about the solid construction of his Topsider Home beach house, when she’d first talked to him on the phone to inquire about renting it for several months in the summer. His two-story, 2,140-square feet beach house was specifically designed by architects to be “hurricane proof” on the Florida coast, for protection against any severe storms with high impact glass windows, low maintenance exterior materials, and steel pilings to elevate the house to keep it safe from storm surges—“a structural battleship” against hurricane force winds and surges, he’d reassured her. One of his best friends was a Topsider architect and Topsider homes had stood the test of time for 45 years against the worst that old Mother Nature could throw at them, he told her passionately. He sounded like a commercial for Topsider, she thought, wryly grinning. But she decided, maybe against her better judgment, to rent it.
Still, there was no such thing as a totally hurricane or storm proof home. Yet she prayed in faith Psalm 46:1-3 from The Message version: “God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need Him. We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom, courageous in sea storm and earthquake, before the rush and roar of oceans, the tremors that shift mountains. Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.”
She looked sleepily at her white waterproof watch with the LED light. 3:05 a.m. Just after 1 a.m. in Colorado, she thought. Faith would be asleep, maybe. She usually went to bed at midnight, after Rachel would fuss at her to go to bed. She was 20 years old, and didn’t have a curfew, she’d remind Rachel.
Jackson would still be wide awake, watching a sci-fi movie on TV. He often fell asleep with the movie on, snoring loudly like a bear. She’d quietly turn the TV off, and he’d wake up, get mad, and say he wasn’t asleep and he was still watching it. The man drove her crazy.
Suddenly she longed to have Jackson’s strong arms around her, protecting her from the hurricane. Or at least it would feel that way. When she was in his arms, she always felt so safe. Any time he told her, “It’s going to be okay,” it always was. Only this time he hadn’t said that to her. He’d told her to come home.
She wanted to call him to hear his voice, just to hear him say it was going to be okay. But she was afraid he’d just tell her she was stupid for staying and couldn’t bear the thought of the last words he said to her being something angry, plus her cell phone wasn’t working now anyway. The power in the house must have gone out after she dozed off for a little while. Jackson had been upset earlier when she talked to him, and she didn’t want him hurting her heart again. He didn’t realize how deeply his words cut her sometimes.
The darkness, except for the flashes of brilliant lightning against an almost purple sky, seemed ubiquitous.
Rachel shivered as she heard the wail of the wind outside, like a siren, mythological creatures who were part women and part nymphs, whose high-pitched singing seduced and lured sailors to their deaths on the rocks surrounding islands. You’ve read too many stories about shipwrecks, she scolded herself.
Her stomach growled. Normally Rachel wouldn’t eat at this time of night since she changed her lifestyle of eating and exercising. She might have a handful of almonds around 8 or 9 p.m., and then she was done eating for the night until breakfast time.
Jackson didn’t think anything of eating half a can of Pringles salt and vinegar chips, a bbq sandwich, and a couple of cans of beer at 10 or 11 p.m. He wasn’t about to “join the program” and get fit and healthy with her. He was immortal and invincible, he’d tell her and Faith jokingly, and then look down dubiously at his big hairy belly. Faith would giggle, and Rachel would shake her head, resigned to working on just herself.
She opened the package of club crackers, gluten-free, and cut a few slices of cheese, trying not to dwell on her fears. She now wished she’d gone over to her neighbors to eat the pepperoni pizza.
She wished she could talk to her neighbors, but the storm was brewing and her cell phone wouldn’t work. She wished she could talk to anyone. She was stupid to have stayed over here by herself. But Mr. James had insisted his Topsider Home was the safest house in the community. Her neighbors wanted to stay in their own home, believing they’d weather the storm, just as they had for years. They had named their house “Alice,” and said laughingly that Alice was a feisty old woman and would be just fine.
The wind picked up outside, a high-pitched, shrieking, ominous sound that sent shivers down her spine. The storm was getting worse, and Rachel began praying in the Spirit under her breath again. She wished she was a heavy sleeper, or could take sleeping pills, but they always left her in a funk the whole day, unable to think clearly. She needed every brain cell possible functioning at its highest for this catastrophe.
Rachel turned on the weather radio, against her better judgment. Ignorance might be bliss, but being the control freak she was, she couldn’t stand to not know what was going on.
The announcer, Bob Bright, was saying in an animated voice that there was a 12 foot storm surge in the next town 40 minutes away, and to go now to the very highest level in your home, that your life was at risk. He repeated this two more times, as if to drill it in your head that you were about to meet God face to face. Am
I? Rachel wondered.
Under no circumstances were you to try to outrun the surge in your car or get too close to the water, as this storm was destroying lives and property, Bob warned, his voice breaking momentarily with grief.
Did he have family in danger now? Rachel could hear the fear in his voice. Reporters are only human, too. She didn’t know how they did their job, staying so calm and emotionally unattached to the news.
“Do not go to the pier! Do not go outside to look at the storm! There is a flood alert in eight counties in this area, with flood warnings in 15 other counties across Florida. We are in danger of coastal flooding with more rains and high winds, so please, folks, go to the highest place in your home, if you are still in this area! Winds are now reported at 100 miles per hour by the National Weather Service. The high tide has breached the sea defences, and roads are now flooded in eight counties. Again, folks, get to the highest ground possible and wait this storm out. Do not attempt to leave your home or try to turn back on your utilities. Please stay where you are and bunker down! Do not try to rescue your pets or other people right now. If you believe in prayer, in God, now is the time to pray! This is an extremely dangerous storm,” he was practically shouting.
Rachel gulped. She couldn’t believe such a liberal station was mentioning God, but desperate times called for desperate measures. And God was the only hope people had.
The Topsider home’s steel stilts were 10 feet high. She was on the first story of the beach house, prepared to go to the second story or even the attic if flooding reached the second story, which was unlikely. She had an axe and a thick rope nearby that her neighbors had bought her, in case she needed to chop through the attic and tie herself to a sturdy part of the house (like people did in hurricane Katrina), in the, however unlikely, event that the storm surge reached the second story.