Angels of Humility: A Novel (8 page)

Kathy poured the boiling water into the kitchen sink, catching the spaghetti in a colander. She glanced at her watch for the third time and prayed another quick prayer asking for patience with her husband, who was late again. Valoe smiled and gave her a download of grace.

She strapped Jordan in his high chair just as Paul came into the kitchen with that “tail between his legs guilty dog look.” He had decided he wasn’t admitting to anything unless she brought it up, in spite of Saldu’s encouragement that he should immediately apologize. Kathy bit her tongue and started portioning out the spaghetti.

“Alright, Kathy!” shouted Valoe, “way to not give it to him. Love is patient, kind, and doesn’t keep track of wrongs.”
²
Although Kathy’s ears didn’t hear Valoe’s words, her spirit received their message.

As Paul ate, he shared what he had learned about Sarah. “It sounds like she’s just real needy, real lonely, and still grieving. She’s also been hearing voices and attributing them to God; then she went to her Sunday school class and tried to tell everyone what the Lord said about them.”

“Maybe she has a prophetic gifting,” said Kathy as she picked Jordan’s garlic bread up off the floor and inspected it for dirt. Paul looked up from his plate at that moment and grabbed the bread from her hand. “Thanks hon, don’t mind if I do.” And before she could say anything, he’d taken a big bite.

“Maybe she’s loony. Her
gifting
wasn’t well received by the class so she must have been doing something wrong. The ladies in that class have been church members for hundreds of years!”

“Maybe she’s not so much loony as she is lonely. I’ll invite her in for a cup of tea the next time she comes by.”

“I’d prefer you don’t do that. She might be like a stray cat; if you feed her, she’ll never go away.”

“Then I’ll speak to her at church and see if I can get a sense of what’s going on.”

“You’ve got a great heart, hon, but it’s just not wise. If she’s fixated on our family and has some desire for recognition, we shouldn’t feed into that. Besides I don’t want her around Jordan. Jessica is going to have a chat with Sarah. You can trust the situation to her.”

The conversation quickly shifted to Paul’s five-year plan for the church.

“Honey would you get me some coffee? I’d like to show you my completed plan. I finished it yesterday and ran it by Mike today, and he seemed impressed. He’s not only the head of the elders, he’s also head of the pulpit search committee, you know. I thought that was encouraging.”

Kathy returned with two mugs of coffee and a washcloth. She handed Paul the mug that said, “Old preachers never die—they just go out to pastor.” It was a graduation gift from his best friend in seminary. After cleaning applesauce from Jordan’s hair, face, hands, T-shirt, jeans, and shoes, she released
him from the confines of his high chair. He scampered into the living room to play with his collection of stuffed animals.

“Come around to this side of the table, honey, so you can see.”

Saldu, who was standing behind Paul, glanced sadly toward Valoe, who was shaking his head. “Paul,” said Saldu, “this isn’t just about your plan. You’re supposed to be pastoring Father’s beloved children. You’re supposed to be a servant-leader just like Jesus. If you want to tower over everyone in a grass root’s movement, it probably means you’re a weed.”
³

What Paul couldn’t perceive was a spirit of Pride perched on his shoulder, influencing him. He opened a black leather folder to reveal 100 pages printed in multiple colors, complete with graphs and pie charts. “I’ve been working on this all week. I think this is God’s plan for our church.”

“Our church?” exclaimed Kathy, rolling her eyes and sloshing coffee over the side of her cup.

“Yes,
our
church. I think this is where we’ll end up. I really do. Let me show you what I’ve done,” he said, ignoring her obvious frustration. Valoe laid his hand on Kathy’s shoulder, and she took a deep breath and vowed to compose herself.

“See, I’ve got a master goal of where the church should be in five years. Then I have subgoals for each of the individual five years and then smaller goals for every six months. If we break it down into six-month increments, it’s very doable. See, that’s 30 smaller goals, one on each page and the predicted timetable to start and accomplish it. If we’re on track, three years from now we’ll be starting a large building campaign. The church will be way too small. We’ll need to buy land; I saw some last week. It’s a little beyond the reservoir. It’s about three miles out of town on the corner of JJ and Old Highway 3. Right there, at the northwest corner is, I’m guessing, about 40 acres. It would be perfect. Don’t you think that sounds like God? I think He’ll provide this land for the church, and I’m going to pray about it every day.”

Saldu’s face was sober. He looked at Malta and shook his head, “I’m doing everything I can to discourage it. He just wouldn’t entertain the idea that his plan isn’t also God’s plan. It’s all about what he thinks and feels. Humility results from laying down the right to be right, but pride is like a
consuming fire. It’s insatiable and, unless he repents, it will be his downfall.”

Kathy was reeling from Paul’s discourse. “Don’t you think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself? You’re the
interim
. You have no guarantee you’ll be called as pastor. God might want us to take a church in downtown Harlem or Timbuktu—”

“But honey, you’re not listening. I
do
think this is the Lord. The plan just flowed—” This caused Manipulation and Pride to burst into wicked laughter. “He can’t tell the difference between our voices and God’s?” Deception broke into a fangy grin, “I’ve outdone myself!”

“—all the information I learned in my church planting class was so applicable. See, my first goal,” he said, flipping past the multicolored, multifonted title page, “is to start a prayer meeting, once a week. We have to ask the Lord to bless all this or it will fall flat on its face. I’m going to announce a prayer meeting. It’s time to open the building on Wednesday nights. We can’t just do Sunday morning and Sunday evening; we’ve got to stir the pot. This town needs to be saturated with the Gospel. Then after the prayer ministry is established, six months from now, we’ll start a visitation program every Thursday night. We’ll go out into the community in pairs and knock on every door.” He flipped to the next page. “See, I’ve got the whole town marked in sections. We’ll hit them one by one each Thursday night and keep going until every home in the community has had a visit from Victory Church of Bradbury.”

“But honey—”

“In seminary I learned that on average, for every 11 houses you go to, one family will visit the church. Out of every five that visit, I think we should be able to maintain one. It’s so simple. For every 55 homes we visit, we will gain a new family for the church. If you divide the number of households in our community by 55 I can predict—”

Paul’s face was suddenly invaded by a lovingly worn, one-eared Winnie the Pooh with a small rip by its grinning mouth. “Daddy, sing to Pooh.”

“Daddy’s busy right now, sweetie. I’ll sing to Pooh at bedtime.”

“Sing now—for Pooh!”

“No, Daddy’s busy I’ll sing later. I promise. Go play.”

Paul was too busy looking at his graph, showing the predicted attendance at the Victory Church of Bradbury, to notice the disappointed look on Jordan’s face as he shuffled back to the living room, dragging Pooh behind him. To Kathy, the disappointment was glaring. She glanced at Paul, still absorbed in his charts, and excused herself to the living room where she snuck up on Jordan and grabbed Pooh.

“My Pooh,” she said cuddling the well-loved, tattered bear close, as she sat cross legged on the floor. Jordan laughed.

“My Pooh,” he said reaching his chubby arms to grab Pooh’s one remaining ear. Kathy released her grasp. As Jordan snuggled on her lap, hugging Pooh, she put her arms around them both and rocked back and forth as she sang, “I love ice cream, I love candy, I love Tiggers aren’t they dandy? I love Piglet, I love Pooh. But most of all, I looovvve YOU!” She ended the song with a rousing tummy poking, which sent Jordan into gales of laughter.

“Come on sport. I think it’s Pooh’s bedtime. Let’s get ready and daddy will be in to sing….” She finished the thought in her mind…. Or I’ll
flog him within an inch of his life with his stupid graphs
.

The type for the headline on the
Bradbury Gazette
was bigger than it had ever been. The owner and editor, Clarence Harvey, had never felt the need to go bigger than a 63 font and had only used that once, when the robbery ring had been broken wide open by the sheriff. He only used it then because he was emotionally involved in the story—his home was one of the first ones hit, and they’d stolen his collection of antique fishing equipment, which was never recovered. Now he was equally stirred up and displayed the headline in all caps and size 82 font: “MINIMUM-SECURITY JAIL PROPOSED FOR BRADBURY!”

Emotions were running high all over the town that morning as residents opened their papers. The consensus was that no one wanted a jail anywhere close to their home or their hometown.

Sarah didn’t read the paper that morning. She, Joel, and Malta had covered their regular prayer walk, and then she drove to her appointment with Dr. Newbury. He had been her family doctor for 20 years. Even though George had been treated by a cancer specialist in Mt. Pielor, Dr. Newbury continued to drop by the house to visit George until he passed away.

After exchanging pleasantries, he asked Sarah the reason for her visit.

“I’m just having a harder time getting around,” she said uncomfortably, staring at the trashcan in the corner of the room. “I have a hard time getting out of bed and sometimes lifting my feet to take the next step; but then when I get going, it gets easier.”

“How old are you, Sarah?” asked Dr. Newbury still perusing the chart.

“I’ll be 72 next year.”

“I hate to break it to you,” he said with a sight grin, “but if you hadn’t noticed, you’re getting old. We both are!”

“Believe me, I know that. It just seems like it’s more….” She shifted self-consciously and her voice trailed off. She decided not to tell him about the tremors that she sometimes had in her hands.

“Are you still taking your arthritis medicine regularly?”

“Yes. No. Sometimes. Well, mostly just when I need it.”

“From now on I want you to take it every morning,” He turned to face her for emphasis, “Even if you don’t feel like you
need
it. Here’s a new prescription. You’re at five milligrams now; go to 10, and if you need to, you can increase to 15 at your discretion. If you don’t see improvements in your mobility in a month, call me back and we’ll do some testing.”

Sarah thanked him and left.
Lord, let it just be arthritis
, she prayed as she walked across Main Street to Tully’s drugstore.

Sarah handed the prescription to the pharmacist. He wasn’t the regular. She wondered if he was the Jernstrom’s son. His father was one of the deacons and had mentioned at church that his son finished his college and he’d returned to Bradbury.

He handed her the prescription. “That’ll be $20 even.”

“Goodness, that’s highway robbery! Last time I filled this it was $12.” “Well, maybe you can have me locked up in the new jail.”

“Pardon?”

“The new jail. They want to build a jail in Bradbury.” Sarah tried to refrain, but an audible gasp escaped her lips. She actually felt her heart racing.“A jail?”

“That’s kind of everyone’s response,” said the pharmacist. “It was splashed across the front page of the
Gazette
today. It’s already causing quite a controversy.”

Sarah smiled weakly, fished $20 from her purse, and headed for the door. She had to go home and pray.