“What about our kids?” she said, after a few seconds of hearing only the rain hitting the picture window behind Jesus.
Jesus nodded. “Yes, what about our kids?” His smile twisted slightly with irony. Though he looked like the carpenter from Nazareth, in Gladys’s eyes, he was really much more than that bachelor teacher of the first century. Then he said something that didn’t fit right away, for Gladys.
“Regret is just trying to be God in the past.”
“Regret?” Gladys thought, her brow hunkering down in question.
“Of course, Patty and Bill are the way they are now, because of things you and Harry did in the past, as well as others who influenced their lives. To regret who they are now is to regret the past. You can’t go back there, and even if you could you wouldn’t be able to change all of what you wish.”
Now Gladys nodded, understanding the earlier snippet of wisdom. “I still wouldn’t be God even if I went back into the past,” she said.
Jesus gave one slight half nod, his eyes blinking slowly once, acknowledging her understanding. “It would be better to reach toward being like God in the present and into the future. That will accomplish much more.”
“Like God?”
“Is it strange for a daughter to be like her father, to even expect that she could be like her father?”
“But God isn’t really . . .” Gladys stopped herself, suspecting that what would have followed bordered on blasphemy.
“Oooo, that was close,” Jesus said. “And in a lightning storm no less.” Then he laughed hard at his own joke and at the look on Gladys’s face.
A three-quarters, sideways smile was all Gladys dared. Nothing convinced her more that this was really Jesus sitting there talking with her than the constant splash of surprises from his mind into hers. She couldn’t have made this stuff up.
Jesus pursued Gladys’s unintentional admission. “You speak honestly when you say that you don’t think of God as your actual father. I know that. Honesty is good. If you’re not honest about where you are, you won’t have any chance of getting to somewhere else before the grave.” He waited for that much to soak in. Gladys felt heavier, as if she was sinking into the cushions of the old loveseat.
“Don’t fret about it,” Jesus said, “just decide you will listen to what I’m saying, and what your heart really wants.”
Gladys shook her head slightly, but not to negate what Jesus was saying, rather as a reaction to both the fretting and the regretting that was beginning to pile up. Jesus sensed this overload.
“It’s about time for bed, isn’t it?” he said. “I’ll bless your sleep and help you to settle into the things I’ve been saying. Sleep will be good.”
Gladys conceded to Jesus’s assessment, out of willing weariness. Even when she was just sitting and listening to Jesus speak, Gladys could feel her batteries running down, as her mind and her heart raced. Sleep did sound good.
In the morning, she didn’t even remember getting ready for bed. This seemed to be the way of things with this particular houseguest. But, this time, the dreams were peaceful and easily forgettable. And, when she woke, Jesus was waiting for her in the chair next to her dresser.
Chapter 14
SPEAKING
If you ever enjoyed the visit of your best friend, after a long absence, an absence that didn’t build distance between you, then you know how Gladys felt on those days. There to greet her in the morning, always cheerful, always interested in what she had to say, or just how she felt—though she didn’t always express that—he brightened even rainy days.
When showers finally passed to the east, and midmorning sparkled on budding branches and sprouting grass, Jesus suggested they try something together.
“Let’s go shopping,” he said. “You need a few things for Katie’s visit, and I want you to practice hearing what I’m telling you about the people you see around you.”
Gladys, standing next to the sink, a dishtowel in her hand, just stared at the confident teacher. Hearing Jesus say, “Let’s go shopping,” was startling enough all by itself. Add to that his detailed knowledge of her shopping needs, and Gladys was stupefied for a moment. But that was only preamble to what really stirred her curiosity, and skepticism.
“Hearing you tell me things about people around me?” she said.
“Yes,” he said, leaning his backside against the counter and crossing his arms casually over his chest. “I love to use my people to speak my words to each other.”
“You mean like witnessing?”
“By ‘witnessing’ I know you mean telling people the good news about me. But that’s not really what I was talking about.” He maintained his usual instructional beat, which generally only gave way when he told Gladys something about how much he loved her, or when he told a joke.
“Not everyone is going to see me and hear me as clearly as you do now. In fact, you’re not always going to see me this way either. When that’s the case, it’s often helpful to hear my voice through other people you meet, or people you know well. I want you to perform this ministry for the people around you.”
“To tell them messages from you?”
Jesus smiled, which served as Gladys’s answer. She thought about how this might work. It wasn’t so hard to imagine Jesus telling her things about other people. But something occurred to her.
“I thought you said I wasn’t supposed to worry about what you’re telling other people, or how they live their lives.”
“I was talking about comparing yourself to others. That’s nothing like what I have planned for you.”
“Planned?” That sounded like a setup. But, then, what else would you call it when Jesus shows up in your house and starts to teach you all the things you’ve been ignoring in church and in the Bible all these years?
The part Gladys couldn’t imagine about this delivering messages idea was how to tell people that she heard Jesus talking to her, without scaring them out of the store, or wherever this was to take place. This time she actually had to put voice to her question. Jesus appeared to be waiting for her reaction.
“What do I tell them?” She started and then paused to figure it out for herself. “I just say, ‘I heard Jesus tell me something I should say to you?’ ”
“Something like that would work most of the time,” he said, with an approving rise to one eyebrow.
Gladys pictured doing this. Even if it wasn’t the main purpose of this ministry, the notion of having someone to talk to was very attractive to the lonely widow. But, still, she didn’t want to be the sort of lonely old lady who talks crazy to people in public places.
“Don’t worry,” he said, still reading her thoughts.
“Okay,” was all she could say, in response to her own fears being resolved in his simple encouragement.
Gladys pulled together her things, including her old brown leather purse that was quite stylish in the 1980s, and her spring coat, circa 1995. She didn’t even notice the datedness of her accessories, let alone care. She was just glad for weather warm enough to accommodate something other than her heavy winter coat. Jesus was always ready, apparently needing no coat or jacket beyond what he always wore around Gladys. She envied the simplicity of immortality.
They drove to a big superstore, where Gladys could stock up on supplies for Katie’s visit. Gladys only kept soda in the house when she knew she was having guests. That was just one example of what she had to do to prepare for a visit from the younger generations.
As they drove to the store, located two towns to the east, they talked about that middle generation, Gladys’s children. She reviewed her concerns for them and Jesus explained things about the past that Gladys had missed. When she fretted or expressed regret he wouldn’t comment, almost as if he didn’t hear her. When she showed curiosity and looked for ways to change her approach to her present relationships, he asked questions and added ideas and encouragements.
Gladys reveled in having company for her errands. Jesus was her
favorite companion, she decided, except maybe Katie. As they paced slowly down the aisles, from groceries to household items to hardware, and even electronics, Jesus started pointing people out to Gladys.
In electronics he said, “That man looking at the Blu-Ray players is Donald.”
It seemed to Gladys that he said that name too loudly. If he had been audible to others beside Gladys, Donald would have heard Jesus talking about him.
Gladys looked at the middle-aged man, with dark hair and a comb-over, and started to speak aloud to Jesus. After half a syllable, she remembered that he could hear her thoughts.
“Why are you telling me about that man?” she thought.
“If I tell you what he needs, will you pray for him?” Jesus said.
“Sure, if that’s what you want,” she thought. Standing still, having this silent conversation with Jesus might just look a little crazy, she realized, nudging herself to keep moving, and to figure out which of those Blu-Ray players she should buy. She had passively resisted technological upgrades, but she knew that Katie liked to watch movies and could lead her grandma through the mystical process of renting a disk from one of those big metal boxes outside the store.
Jesus continued with his prompts. “Ask Donald if you can hook this one up to an old tube TV.”
Gladys looked at one of the slim little black players on the display shelf, two units down from Donald. She followed Jesus’s suggestion. Donald looked closely at the printed description and then peaked around to the back of the little appliance.
“Yep, no problem. But them new wide screen movies are gonna look kinda small, all slimmed down to fit the old TV. It might be time to get one o’ them flat screen new ones,” Donald said.
Without thinking about it, Gladys looked at Jesus, to see if this was sound advice. Jesus just pointed back at Donald who had returned to comparing features and prices on a more deluxe Blu-Ray player. Gladys thought Jesus wanted her to ask more questions, so she did.
“What’s so much better about that one, that it costs so much more?”
“Oh, it’s the brand name, this is a better brand, and then there’s the 3D and the Internet.”
“Oh, I see,” Gladys said, a bit dishonestly. She tended to shut down when the tech talk got out of her range, which it did pretty quickly.
“You might wanna look into getting some help with this,” Donald said. “It can get a little complicated, especially if you haven’t been keeping up on things.”
Gladys liked the way he put that, knowing that not “keeping up on things” was a nice way to say ignorant. “I bet my granddaughter can help get things set up okay. She’s eleven,” she said.
Donald laughed. “Yeah, that’s a pretty good bet.”
Gladys noted a tension around the smile that followed that little laugh.
“He’s here buying this stuff because he had to move out of his house, away from his wife. He’s really sad about it.”
That news was so intimate and surprising that Gladys actually grunted in response to what Jesus said. Donald pretended not to notice the oddness of that sound, engrossed in his buying decision. He was also secretly glad to have someone to talk to, even if just briefly.
Jesus intervened. “I want you to give him a message from me,” he said.
Gladys looked hard at Jesus for a second, and then turned back to locating the box below the display units that contained the inexpensive player she had settled on. Apparently, Jesus took her tense look in his direction as agreement.
“Tell him that you believe you have a message for him from God. Tell him what I told you about why he is here buying electronics, and then tell him that God isn’t angry at him for agreeing to leave his home. Tell him God will care for his heart and will not let him be alone.”
Gladys stood still, shaking her head very sharply in tiny movements, as if Jesus had overloaded her brain. Donald noticed this odd movement and had to ask.
“Are you okay?”
Taking that opening, Gladys just blurted out as much of what Jesus had told her as she could assemble from memory. When she was done, she was not even sure what she had said, let alone whether it had been an accurate representation of what Jesus had said. But, when she looked at him, Jesus seemed satisfied with the effort.
When Gladys informed him that Jesus had told her about his situation, Donald’s whole face dropped, his eyebrows staying in the same place, but everything else sinking lower and lower as she spoke. When she finished with the encouragement about God’s care for him, Donald had to fight to keep back tears. He was looking at Gladys’s collar, not daring to make eye contact. When he did finally look up, he saw the questioning look in her eyes, and lifted his hand to his mouth to cover the sobs.
Not knowing what else to do, Gladys stepped up to the crying man and put a hand on each of his shoulders. Then she said, “You’re gonna be just fine, if he’s taking care of you.”
That part didn’t come from Jesus’s mouth, but he smiled approvingly nonetheless.
Donald reached in his pocket for a white cotton handkerchief, wiping at his eyes and his nose. Gladys stepped back and checked with Jesus. Just like the opening and the middle, Gladys didn’t know how you bring something like that to an end. She noticed a woman down the aisle monitoring the odd happening, and a pair of teen-aged girls behind Donald whispering to each other as they watched from a distance.
“Thanks. That was just what I needed,” Donald said, pulling in a shaky breath.
“You’re quite welcome,” said Gladys. “But it’s Jesus you can thank, really.”
As much as she didn’t want to explain to everyone the extraordinary experience she was having, expecting most wouldn’t believe her, she answered naturally out of what she heard. Crediting Jesus was not just a religious form for her, it was a description of what had really happened, even if the key part of it was beyond anyone else’s seeing.
After getting help from Donald with finding the right box containing her video player, and then consulting with a young man working by the TVs, Gladys finished off her rather expensive shopping trip. She told herself, however, that this would be the last TV she would probably ever have to buy. For some, that might have seemed very pessimistic in terms of technological progress. But, for Gladys, it was realistic, given how little she paid attention to such matters.
Jesus was not finished in that store, however. The purchase of a 43” TV meant that Gladys would need some help getting her goods out to her car. A young man named Gio was assigned this task, rolling a cart with her TV flat on top of it, following Gladys and Jesus.
Speaking openly and much too loudly again, Jesus offered Gladys another opportunity. “I’d like you to tell Gio something about his schooling,” he said, indicating the young man following them. Gio walked with his eyes down, showing the long greased-back hair on top, and the shaved sides, of his head.
Gladys fished for her keys in her purse, and thought, “Okay, just let me know what to say. And maybe you could wait to tell me just before I say it, so I can be sure I get it right this time.”
“Of course,” Jesus said.
They decided that the TV would fit best in the back seat, the trunk not being very long and not nearly empty. When Gio finished slipping the big flat box over the gray carpet between the front and back seats, he stood up straight, perhaps looking for a tip.
Jesus fed Gladys what to say and she repeated it very accurately.
“Young, man, Gio, is it?” Gladys said. “I have something to tell you, that I believe is from Jesus. He knows that you were discouraged with your schooling and quit because of a lot of frustrations with particular classes. But he wants you to give it another try, ‘cause you’re gonna get a good opportunity at a different school in the near future.”
Gio tipped his head to the side, clearly impressed. “What? Are you like a psychic or something?”
Gladys recoiled in surprise. “No, I don’t think so. I mean, I just heard Jesus say to tell you that.”
Gladys shrugged slightly. “That sounds about right to me.”
“Great, thanks.”
Jesus whispered something in Gladys’s ear.
“Wait a moment,” she said, as Gio started to turn toward the store, his face like a boy who just received a large gift from a total stranger.
Gladys pulled her wallet from her purse, snatched out a couple of singles and gave them to Gio. “Here you go. Thanks for helping me?” she said. “And thanks for not thinking I’m crazy because I told you I heard Jesus tell me something.”
Gio’s smile at Gladys reflected his amusement at the humble old lady, who had clearly heard something supernatural. “You sounded like it was real. You were right on. That’s not crazy,” he said, waving and heading off to the store.
“See,” Jesus said, “Gio doesn’t think you’re crazy either. And now there are two people who have a bigger faith that God is paying attention to them and wants good things in their lives.”
The one-two punch of successfully delivering messages created a sort of giddy buzz in Gladys’s mind. “That was pretty fun, actually.”
“Yes, it was,” Jesus said, with a big laugh.
As she drove home, ignoring the cars honking and pulling around her across double lines, Gladys started to think about the experience.
“So what was that then?”
“It was the first step in a journey,” Jesus said.
Hearing Jesus (Seeing Jesus Book 2) Page 13
