Angels of Humility: A Novel

by Jackie Macgirvin

  “That’s an unbelievable story. God is so creative. You did the right thing, but….” Barbara hesitated. “It was really ugly at church this Sunday. You know how the people around here are gonna feel. Even if they heard your story, the spiritual significance would be lost on most of them. They’ll just think you’re looking out for your own interests, you money-hungry old coot,” said Barbara, assuming a different voice and shaking her finger at Sarah. They both laughed; then Sarah turned serious again.

  “Well, I don’t know how bad it will get, but I have God, and I’ve got you, my friend, and I have the unwavering belief that I was following God’s will. Surely that will be enough.”

  “It will be, but still no guarantees it will be easy.”

  Sarah convinced Barbara to let her help unpack as they talked. First they unwrapped dishes for the china cabinet. Then they finished unpacking the guest bedroom as they chatted and learned more about each other’s pasts. Much to Hugo’s delight, they even found the doggie biscuits. Barbara helped Sarah up and rubbed her back. “Oh, it’s 11! That’s way past my bedtime. I’ve got to go.”

  At home her phone had been ringing all evening. Pastor Paul finally gave up and went to bed at 10:45. I’ll call first thing in the morning, he thought.

  The ringing woke him the next morning. Why did I set the alarm so early? After a few seconds he realized it was the phone.

  “This is one of your church members, Alicia Moore. My husband, Jim, he doesn’t go to the church, but, well, he’s been rushed to the hospital with a heart attack….” Her voice cracked. “Would you come to the hospital now? I’d be very grateful.” Paul glanced at the clock 6:35.

  “Sure, I’ll be right there.” He started praying silently for Jim as he dressed and ran to his Toyota.

  Jim was in surgery when Paul arrived. He spent the next few anxious hours with Alicia and the kids in the waiting room. His prayers were a great comfort to Alicia, and he was unaware that they had helped her husband to survive his operation. Then she told the whole story of the heart attack. He even continued listening attentively when she told the story of their courtship—they had started dating at the senior prom. When he glanced at the clock on the wall, it was 10 a.m. Oh my gosh, I need to call Sarah. He excused himself and stepped into the hall.

  Sarah had just completed her prayer walk and arrived on her porch when she heard the phone ringing. By the time she unlocked the door, it was silent.

  Paul tried again in an hour, but Sarah was finishing yesterday’s laundry in the basement and didn’t hear the phone over the dryer.

  When Paul finally left the hospital, he swung through downtown. Clarence and his assistant had been busy. It was less than 24 hours since he’d conceived the fundraising idea, and already there were posters on every utility pole and in every store window, and several kids were at the intersection with cans collecting change from passing motorists.

  A sick feeling welled up from his gut. He needed to talk to Sarah right away. He turned his car around and headed toward her house, praying all the way.

  CHAPTER 19

  “Accept every humiliation, look upon every fellow-man who tries or vexes you, as a means of grace to humble you. Use every opportunity of humbling yourself before your fellow-man as a help to abide humble before God.”

  Andrew Murray1

  “Spite is never lonely; envy always tags along.”

  Mignon McLaughlin2

  As Paul stood on the porch and knocked, he felt himself sweating. Please God, she can’t have already sold the land. It’s been less than 24 hours.

  Sarah opened the door. He tried to read her face when she saw who it was. He sat down at her invitation. Where to begin?

  “Sarah, I know you feel like you’ve heard from the Lord to sell the land to BCCF, but—”

  “Oh, I did hear from the Lord, and it was in the most wonderful way, pastor. Let me tell you what happened.”

  “Maybe in a minute; right now I need to know if you’ve actually already sold the land.” He closed his eyes and braced himself for the answer he didn’t want to hear.

  “Why yes, I did. Right after you left yesterday I signed the contract and walked straight to the post office box. It all started with that verse you gave me, ‘For such a time as this,’ and—”

  He sighed deeply and looked at the floor. His heart raced. The deal was already done as he was pitching his fund-raising scheme to Clarence. He longed to be the hero; why was he always the goat? As he stood up a feeling of dread washed over his entire body. His demons were amused, laughing, celebrating their success of Paul’s failure.

  “You look a little pale. Are you all right?”

  “I just have to go take care of some business,” he mumbled numbly.

  “Can I finish telling you the story?”

  “No, not now.” He headed out the door.

  “Well, drop by when you can stay longer. I’d like you to hear it. It really is quite the story,” she called to him, but he was already gone.

  He shoved his key in the ignition and smacked the steering wheel with the palm of his left hand. How can one woman cause me so much trouble? Every time I turn around, she’s causing stress in my life.

  “That’s right, Paul. It’s Sarah. She’s like a thorn in your flesh,” Self Pity’s sticky voice flooded his mind.

  Even though he told himself there was no sense postponing the inevitable, he still drove around the block three times before parking in front of the Gazette. There on the plate glass window was a multicolored, canvas banner three feet by four feet, promoting the fund-raising campaign. He held his head in his hands. It had been years since he’d felt this scared. Oh God, do I feel sick. How can I work this out?

  He walked in the front door. Clarence’s face brightened. Paul shoved his hands into his pockets to conceal their shaking.

  “Paul, buddy, come here, I want to share the progress we’re making with you,” he said wrapping his arm around Paul’s shoulder. “We’re up to $15,000 already, and I still have three potentially large donors who haven’t gotten back to me yet.” He stopped long enough to look at Paul’s ashen face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I-I tried to get a hold of Sarah yesterday and this morning, but she’s been gone. I just talked to her, and she’s already sold the land.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday, after I left her house.” All Clarence’s frustration over not being able to stop the jail spilled out on Paul. He withdrew his arm from Paul’s shoulder and gave him a shove. Paul took several steps back to retain his balance.

  “WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME SOONER? I’VE GOT A FULL-FLEDGED CAMPAIGN GOING, AND I’M TAKING PEOPLE’S MONEY FOR A CAUSE THAT’S NONEXISTENT! THAT’S FRAUD. HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME? IT WAS SO STUPID….”

  Paul felt his face flush; he glanced at the other employees who were watching him and then stared at the floor until Clarence was done with his verbal assault. “Sorry,” Paul mumbled. “I tried to contact her….” His voice trailed off. As he walked toward the door, he heard Clarence’s continued rant about him to the office staff. “How can anyone be so incompetent? I’ve printed $500 worth of publicity….”

  All the spirits saw Paul’s vulnerability as their opportunity to torture him. Humiliation and Self-Pity hovered over him.

  “You can’t do anything right,” snarled Guilt. “Man, I can’t do anything right,” repeated Paul. He listened to the little car whine and shoved the gearshift forward. He headed out Old Highway 3, turned onto JJ, and parked. Leaning against the fence he looked out over the land. Saldu appeared behind him, laying a hand on each shoulder. This caused the gnarled demons to gnash their fangs and watch from a safer distance.

  Clarence’s tirade had made Paul feel small, stupid, and totally incompetent—the same way he felt when he was young and his father would rage at him. Sometimes I deserved it, he thought, but lots of times…well, I guess Dad had his reasons.

  “Paul,” Saldu said, “go back to your ch
ildhood, and think about your dad. God can heal the past wounds so you can minister powerfully from them out of a place of strength.” Suddenly Paul remembered the one summer he had played baseball.

  “I worked so hard. He would never even help me practice. The answer was always the same. ‘Dad would you pitch to me? Dad would you hit me some grounders?’

  “Not now son, I’m busy,” said Paul, rolling his eyes. “Geeze, you missed the first six games of the season. Finally you made it; Coach started me on shortstop. I caught every grounder except one fast line drive. At bat I walked twice, got two singles and a double. When the game was over Coach went out of his way to tell you what a good game I had played and your first and only comment to me was, ‘Why’d you let that grounder go by? You know they scored on that.’”Paul had raised his voice, shouting his painful memories to no one. “Uncle Emery was closer to me than you were, then that relationship ended,” his voice cracked as his shoulders slumped.

  His mind flashed to the terrifying times his dad came home drunk. Everyone would scatter. He still experienced those memories from the perspective of a little boy, and they were still too threatening to deal with. He forced them from his mind.

  It would have made such a good location for our church. God, why don’t things seem to go my way?

  Saldu said, “You’re not a failure in your heavenly Father’s eyes. He has great plans for you if you submit to His will. He has plans that exceed your highest expectations. Right now you think you want self-promotion and the approval of men, but what you really long for is to do work that will last for all eternity. You want fruit that remains.3 You want the earth to be different because you were here. Remember your favorite verse? Jeremiah 29:11–13, “‘I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.’”

  Paul quoted the verse along with Saldu and then smiled briefly. He used to pray it all the time at seminary until he got the position as interim and busyness took over.

  “Remember, Paul, His yoke is supposed to be easy and his burden light,4 but you’re creating a heavy load where it isn’t needed. You’re still knocking yourself out trying to get approval because you never got it from your dad. You’ve done it all your life. Let’s get your heart healed. The Lord is big enough to fill the gaping wound that your dad left. Then you won’t have to keep up a false persona of perfection and go chasing after approval from Clarence or anyone else.”

  God, why is it so hard for me to trust You? I want to believe Your Word. I want to do Your will. I’m messed up. What’s wrong with me? I really need help. Paul felt a little better after his honest confession.

  “All your life you’ve believed a lie. Your heavenly Father is not like your earthly father. He is trustworthy. You can just crawl up into His lap and relax. Just enjoy Him and let Him enjoy you. You don’t have to earn anything. He loves you unconditionally. Remember, even the best earthly dads can’t meet all their son’s needs. Only the Lord can do that. Quit knocking yourself out trying to look perfect. On your own, you’ll never measure up. Accept your weaknesses. Remember, His strength is perfected in weak people.”5

  I’m trying so hard, and it’s wearing me out.

  “You’re being driven by your insecurities. Don’t run ahead of God. You plant and God will harvest. It’s a partnership. He wants to be with you. He wants intimacy with you. He wants to play with you. He wants to work with you and pour His blessings out on you. It grieves Him when He sees you working so hard in your own strength on your own plans because you can’t accomplish anything of eternal value on your own.”

  I’m physically and mentally exhausted. I’ve got to slow down, Paul thought, shaking his head.

  “Do only what the Lord has called you to do. Forget the rest. Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing.”6

  “That’s right,” said Paul out loud, “I don’t have to do everything. I can never do everything.”

  Shame perched on the fence beside Paul and joined the conversation, “Remember how Clarence was your pal? Then you couldn’t deliver, and he blew up. People eventually see right through you, Paul. If anyone gets too close, they’ll eventually decide they don’t like you. You just need to accept that in spite of all your efforts you’re just not good enough. You’ll never measure up.” Paul’s face flushed as he relived Clarence’s tirade.

  “Wait, Paul, whose fault was that whole fiasco, really?” whispered Blame. Then Paul thought of Sarah. This is all her fault. I wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for her.

  “You’re entering dangerous water, Paul. Don’t hold on to bitterness. Confess it to Father now,” encouraged Saldu. The thought hit Paul’s mind, but angry images of Sarah pushed it aside.

  “Paul, don’t give in to the enemy. Blessed are the peacemakers.”7 After a brief battle for control of his mind, Paul gave in to Unforgiveness and began entertaining fantasies of revenge.

  This is going from bad to worse, thought Saldu. He took a step backward. Before he even saw them with his acute spiritual eyes, he could smell their ghastly stench. The additional winged creatures flocked around Paul, feeding on his wounded spirit with great delight. Tormenting spirits of Self-Hatred, Condemnation, Accusation, Faultfinding, and Impatience taunted him with flashbacks of past failures, from Clarence all the way back to his childhood. Paul was overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacies and failure. “WHY CAN’T I DO ANYTHING RIGHT?” he yelled as he kicked the fence.

  “Unmet expectations lead to disappointment, unforgiveness, and then bitterness,” said Saldu. “Cry out to Him to heal the lack and disappointment you experienced in others; that is where you’ll find peace. Once you learn how to receive unconditional love from Him, all the grudges from the failures of others will just fall away. Then turn your energy into looking at what you can learn from past actions. Purpose to react differently to disappointment next time. You are the only one you can change, and only then with God’s help.”

  To complete his tests Dr. Newbury asked Sarah to spread her fingers and hold her hands out. They both watched as her hands trembled.

  “Can you hold them still?”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Anything else different?”

  “Well my handwriting has changed; it gets smaller as I write.”

  “Sarah, I’m referring you to a neurologist, Dr. Schumacher, at Mt. Peilor. She can do a full battery of neurological tests.”

  “Tell me what you’re thinking—worst-case scenario.”

  “I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but since you asked, worst-case scenario I think would be Parkinson’s.”

  “What exactly is Parkinson’s?”

  “Parkinson’s disease is caused by the death of brain cells that produce the chemical dopamine. Dopamine helps control physical movement. That could be why you can’t control the movement in your hands and it’s harder for you to get around.”

  Sarah felt numb as she drove out of the parking lot. That she could have Parkinson’s was not a new thought for her. She’d thought it every day for the last three months. But hearing a doctor say it gave it more weight—it crushed in on her like a heavy rock on her chest.

  Despair whispered, “You’ll have to leave your house. This seals it; you’ll have to move to a nursing home.”

  “Maybe,” said Accusation, “If you’d fed George healthier food, he’d still be here to help take care of you now that your health is failing.”

  I’ve never been helpless before… thought Sarah as a tear rolled down her cheek.

  “Sarah,” said Malta, “your life is secure in the Lord’s hands. Your days were numbered before the foundation of the world. Every day of your life is already written in His book. He will walk you through each day and will be waiting to meet you when you’ve lived the last page and the back cover closes on your life.” She
tried to cling to these thoughts and found a small measure of comfort.

  She made an appointment to see Dr. Schumacher in six days and called Barbara to see if she’d go along.

  Sarah’s phone rang that evening; the raspy voice whispered, “Get ready for another brick through the window.” Click.

  “Oh, Jesus, help me. I can’t take this again. Please protect me.” Her prayer stunned an infiltrating spirit of Fear, and Joel easily sent the black-winged beast retreating with a slap from the back of his hand.

  “Keep praying. Pray for your enemy. They hate that,” said Malta. “You have no idea how powerful those prayers are.” Sarah turned on the porch light and all the inside lights. I‘m here by myself. What if they break in? Her heart began to race.

  “Sarah,” said Joel, “don’t let the enemy run wild with your thoughts. Once he gets a foothold with worry in your mind, he can literally control you. Second Corinthians says, ‘We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.’8 Taking your thoughts captive is an action you have to constantly repeat. It’s not something you do once or something that will be done for you.”

  Sarah picked up the brick from the television and went to her bedroom and locked the door. She didn’t want to be in the living room in case another one came hurtling through the window.

  “Remember what the apostle Paul said?” asked Malta. “Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right and pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.9 He certainly had enough to worry and stress about. His life was constantly in danger, but if he had let the devil control his thoughts with fear, we wouldn’t be reading the story of his incredible ministry in the Bible today.”