by Darrel Bird
“praisin’ tha Lord.” One woman cut loose and started dancing round and round with her hands in the air.
Darren stood there, blocked in. He didn’t dare step over the woman, so he looked around wildly for another way out, but there was none!
If I step across her they might jump me! he thought, as he mulled the situation over. He couldn’t get out! He just didn’t know what else to do but to stay put. That woman lay there out like a light clear until the end of the service.
After all the singing and clapping was over, an evangelist stood up at the pulpit, and he went to preaching. He preached an hour-long sermon on death, hell, and the grave. By the time he got through, Darren was sure he was going straight to hell and would be shaking hands with the devil any minute.
Then suddenly, as the service ended, they all just turned back into normal people again. By the time the pumping, hugging, and backslapping was done with, Darren had calmed down some. They finally broke loose and were on the way home when again he asked his wife, “What did you think of that?”
Again, his wife answered with, “I dunno.”
He knew that was all he was going to get from her in the way of an answer, so he set to figuring it out by his own self.
By Monday morning, Darren had a whole list of questions for James. As the two men worked together, he asked James about the man who was trying to crawl like a snake. James said, “The man had a demon in him, and they cast it out.” He learned that the strange language was “tongues.” And the woman who was lying across the aisle was “slain in the Spirit.” Darren spent the day thinking about it all, up, down and sideways. He had more to think about now than he had in six months.
Crap, the whole world has changed! he thought. I don’t even want a beer! Sure is some strange stuff! he mulled as he swatted at the walls of the building with his paint roller. Whap, whop! Whap, whop!
He thought of all the friendly folks at “that there church,” and he liked it. They didn’t seem to be putting on a pretext; they seemed honest, down-to-earth, and humble. He was still fascinated with the fact that they spoke of God as if He lived next door. He thought about all this as he painted that day.
At the end of the day James urged him to, “Bring the family and come on out to the revival.” Darren debated the whole way home about whether to go. He was so lost in thought that he passed by the Red Rooster Tavern, where he usually stopped, without even giving it a thought, and pulled into the driveway of his home.
That was the third day Darren Bond was as sober as a judge, and he had not been sober for three days straight in fifteen years. He walked into the house, and his wife looked at him strangely, as she glanced at the clock. He just gathered his wife tenderly in his arms, held her, and kissed her sweet lips. She didn’t know what to make of it, but she liked it.
He said, “Get ready. We’re goin’ to that there church revival.”
Pandemonium broke loose again as his wife started rushing around to get four kids and a baby ready for “that there church.” The boys knew better than to say anything about having to go to church again. They were afraid they would get their block knocked off. However, that Darren was soon to disappear.
His wife begged off going to the revival the next night to stay home with the baby.
A little while before Darren Bond’s world changed, his only little daughter had “wanted to help Mom.” She picked up the baby out of his crib, and dropped him square dab on his head on the hard kitchen floor, cutting his head and fracturing his skull.
His wife’s brother was a local ambulance driver. He answered the call from his sister to come and get the baby. They rushed him to the nearest hospital, about two and a half miles from the Bond’s home. He said later that he didn’t think the baby would live till they got him to the hospital. That day, as usual, Darren had been off drunk somewhere. He didn’t even learn about the accident until the next day.
The baby had a long skull fracture that showed up on the x-rays, and the doctor had said they would just have to let the fracture close on its own, and that it would take time. The problem was the baby could not hold milk on his stomach, and every time Darren’s wife fed him, the baby would spit it back up. At times, he would just squirt the milk back out of his mouth as fast as it went in, and he was losing weight quickly.
When they started going to church, Darren’s wife had to struggle with the baby to try to get a little milk to stay on his stomach. That was why she had decided to stay home Tuesday evening, so Darren took the older kids and went on.
The revival ended on Thursday night, and he found he looked forward to Sunday. He had a hunger for “that there church.” He was getting used to the tongues by now. He still didn’t know what to make of them. All he knew was that he was sober, and he liked it. He was going to sleep sober and he was waking up sober. He had left the devil grieving over losing such a good customer. The devil was sure he would get him back if there was any way in hell. Trouble was that Darren Bond had left hell before the devil even knew the gate was open, and he had no intention of ever going back. So the devil slumped off, swearing like a sailor at loosing such a valuable piece of real estate.
Darren had begun to go the church any time the doors were open. The next Sunday night he went and knelt down at one of the altars, and he prayed to the God that everybody else around there seemed to know first-hand and he was serious as a toothache.
The following Sunday morning, the pastor, along with the whole church, including kids and dogs, prayed for the baby. That was one of the mornings he couldn’t keep his milk down, and he had squirted puke clean out into the aisle. The pastor just came back there to where Darren’s wife was sitting holding him, and she started praying for the baby, laying her hands on the baby’s head, on Darren’s wife’s head, and then even on Darren’s head! The whole church followed suit.
The pastor stood there praying at the top of her lungs and clapping her hands together like she was facing the end of the world. By the time she got done Darren figured the baby was thoroughly prayed for, up, down, and sideways. He didn’t know what to make of it, but he liked it.
The next week, the baby was no longer spitting up, and was holding his milk. At the next doctors visit, the doctor said the fracture had, “Just closed up, and the baby is ok.” He called in three or four other doctors, and they all stood around gawking at the x-rays, jabbering and twittering like a bunch of squirrels. They would all look at the baby, then back at the x-rays, and break out jabbering again, and flailing their arms around.
The baby never did puke that way again, except for the normal baby barf, and he put on weight. He took to peeing in Darren’s face every chance he got, and Darren figured he was looking for some payback.
During that time, Darren had heard a lot of preaching. He started wondering why he still didn’t know God like he was his next-door neighbor. He wanted to know if God was real or not.
One Tuesday evening he was reading the Bible somebody had given him. He read where Moses went up on some mountain to talk to God, and it made sense to Darren. Obviously it was closer to heaven than down in the valley. He made up his mind that he would just do the same. He remembered reading somewhere in there that God wasn’t partial with folks. Darren figured it just took a little elevation.
He thought about getting up on the roof of the house, but thought that wouldn’t be high enough, so he vetoed that idea right off the bat. Instead, on the next Saturday, he drove up to the mountains that rose from the valley floor. He parked the Olds and got out. He began to climb, got a little more than halfway up, and pooped out. He sat there with the evening sun shining on his face, huffing and puffing awhile. He wanted a cigarette but thought better of it.
It might offend him if I smoke at this altitude, crap I better wait until I get finished with this business.
When he got his breath, he sat and thought about the whole problem. He remembered Moses had to pull his shoes off
first. He couldn’t figure why the Lord would want to smell stinky feet, but he unlaced his tennis shoes and pulled them off. He was tempted to put them back on after he got a whiff, but he didn’t want to take a chance that God would not hear him. He sat there in his sock feet and tried to breathe through his mouth. He wondered about the socks, but he couldn’t remember reading any rule about no socks, so he left them on.
He looked up to the sky and said, “Dear God!” He thought it might be better to put it like a formal letter rather than to start out with just plain “God.” “Dear God! If you are up there I need to know it. Can you talk to me?” He said it loudly. He figured it was probably loud enough for God to hear, since he’d closed up the distance by climbing up there. He began to wonder if maybe he was going to have to climb to the very top to be heard. Had Moses had to yell or what? He didn’t remember the Bible saying anything about voice volume, and he wished the Lord had covered it in more detail if it was necessary.
Just about that time he heard a voice in his head, clear as a bell. “I