Christian ContradictionI was so gripped by fear I fell to the hard, white tiling. The lights blurred around me and I stood up again. My mouth dried. My blood turned to ice water, the icicles scraping the inside of my skin so that I was jumpy. My vision blurred with tears. Gravity had its grip on me, but my stomach floated up. Grandpa was going to die.
Two weeks later I visited my grandfather in the recovery room. He was perfectly healthy and due to be released with minor medication a day later. On the way there I jumped around in the car. My sister had been muttering how she couldn't believe it and was so grateful. I told her, “Don't say you can't believe it! Grandpa's...
alright.” My voice cracked and I broke into tears.
The white hallways were shut behind the door and it was just Grandpa and me, an hour later and I had just forty-five minutes until we were to leave. He was sitting up, reading a book by Catherine Marshall. “Hey kiddo!” he said in his Jazz singer's voice, so warm, deep and embracing. I rushed over to hug him. I felt his heart beating as I did and he squeezed me closer. “I'm gonna be okay...” he said, tears coming to his eyes. “God's healed me!” he muttered. I sighed and sat in the chair by the wall.
Minutes went by, Grandpa telling me about the book, what it was like on the brink of death and his new outlook for life. “This lady had a remarkable gift,” he said, the brown edges of his face crinkling in a smile, revealing pearly white teeth brighter than the gates of a heaven as my mother had always put it. “The amount of stories in this book. If you were to remove one from each chapter...” his fingers moved so that he was holding half the book's pages between his index finger and his thumb. He looked at me and grinned then put the book down. “God had a blessing on her.” He looked up at the roof. “I want to make a confession.”
I shifted in my seat, and checked the time. Ten minutes left. “Shoot.”
“And don't be nervous,” he said. “You're seventeen Max. You can't keep ignoring Jesus. I'm going to tell you something and I want you to face Jesus up-close. Either deny Him or accept Him, stop running.” That was the most awkward thing my grandfather could've told me. My defensive mind started running but I shut it up, ready to hear him out.
He said, “I've given my life to Jesus again. But there's something more this time. The first time was honest, and I never slid back,
believe me.” He laughed. “But,” he said, turning in his bed to face me directly and knitting his eyebrows together, frowning, “I began reading this book about a month ago. And I realized I wasn't giving my all to Jesus - to God. So I re-affirmed my commitment. In the Bible, - please read the Bible, Max – Jesus says how he does not want to do away with a piece of us, our old selves. He wants to kill our old selves and give us new selves from heaven. I don't know whether he meant physically... I hope not!” He laughed again which made me feel uncomfortable. How could he be so free with death? “Catherine warned that if you give Jesus your whole self, good and bad, for him to destroy and re-make you, there will be a painful part – kinda like growing a new tooth. It won't do any permanent damage, but will target what you... fear most and tackle that. I believe that scare had been to fix me up that I no longer fear death.” I felt a nudge in my stomach that turned over. I shook my head when Grandpa frowned.
“Continue.”
“Now, with the examples of people in Catherine's book, it was because of a sin, or God preparing them for something. I always feared death, Max, now I don't. I am ready to do anything for Jesus. I have re-affirmed my commitment and given Him my life. I won't breathe unless He says so.”
A nurse popped her head in the door. “Sorry, Max, you have to go now. You guys are picking up your grandpa tomorrow right, you'll see him then. He's had a miraculous recovery.”
I left the room and grandpa winked at me mouthing the words, “
Miracle!” to me and shifting in his bed, only to continue reading. Suddenly he put his book down again and said, “Oh, Max! Do you still like tuna-fish?” I nodded. “Good, I left you a little gift coupon for tuna-fish sandwiches down at our favourite place. Just when I thought I was going to die.”
That night I decided to read the Bible. While we'd been talking, Grandpa had recommended a few verses on the subject. My fairly agnostic mind was already turning over, but I sighed and trudged through them, for Grandpa. I'd like to say something like that night, I began to cry, “I'm sorry, God, I'm sorry!” but no. Grandpa had recommended stories on what happens when you give your life and will, your free-will that God has never violated, back to Him. Jacob did, and bad things happened to him, but in the end he became Prime Minister of Egypt. Paul did - “
it is no longer I that live but Christ that lives in me. And on the night he was betrayed, Jesus did. Jesus actually reminded me a lot of grandpa... or the other way around? Anyway, I figured Grandpa should not have let me read that last bit. Jesus gave his will to God that night, saying that although he didn't want to die (please do not let me have to take this cup), He had no more control over His own life and it was in God's hands. God let Him die.
I didn't finish reading the rest, Grandpa had just recommended the certain part. I went to bed without any change of thought. All I could think was about Jesus' commitment and what came of it .
Ouch, that's sad.
I woke up in the middle of the night. I felt as I had when Grandpa's life hung in the balance. Something came over me, I began to scream. My dog barked at the moon and footsteps approached. My parents burst through the room to find me speaking gibberish. I shook my head, and fell back onto my pillow. It was cold and wet with sweat. “Nightmare,” my father asked.
“No,” I murmured “Just...” I began to speak the gibberish again but all that passed through my mind was the image of a gravestone with the initials of my grandfather.
“What's wrong, sweetie?” asked my mother.
I shook my head again and calmed down. My dog continued to bark and a Voice inside me echoed,
Dead! “Nothing,” I said. “Let's check on Grandpa.”
My mother was the only spiritual one among us. She insisted something was wrong and in the next moment we were downstairs phoning the hospital. My parents placed the call on loudspeaker. “Yes,” my mother said in her sweetest voice, “We'd like to check on a patient in your care. He's my father.” After trudging through the details, there was a scream and a cuss on the other side. Suddenly a strong male voice interrupted, that of a doctor, “Mrs. O'Neils?”
“Yes?” my mother asked, her right hand shaking.
“I'm... I'm afraid your father is dead.”
We arrived at the hospital in little over an hour. Mom was distraught, her face looked as if it were hurricane stricken. Whatever make-up she'd had on was running down her face and smeared it. Her hair was frail and messy and tossed around by winds of despair and she was still in her sleeping gown.
We met the doctor in Grandpa's room. Dad refused for us to see Grandpa's dead body. “I don't want to remember him that way.”
The doctor had said that there had been no apparent reason for the death. It had come almost supernaturally. It was as if someone had stolen his life straight from him. He asked me, since I was the last to talk to him, if there was any symptoms or problems he'd shown.
Mom wept on and muffled into my father's breast, “
Why?”
I knew why. I knew exactly why. I ripped away from my father's grip. “You know, Grandpa always asked me if I believed in God. At a time I was agnostic, sometimes atheist. But now I know better. There is a God. My grandfather told me... before he died, that he'd re-affirmed his life and will to God. He told me at any moment God could take it and do with it what he wanted. I think we all know what happened. And I have no doubt now, that He exists. How else do you explain the sudden death of an innocent man?”
It was dumb, and stupid. My mother wept terribly after I said this. My father's mouth hung open and tears welled in my eyes. The doctor looked down. To him it was just another case, he'd probably seen worse displays. I ran off.
The gravestone was granite black, emblazoned with a golden cross. It read:
He bore his Cross to Calvary, Always a champion for Jesus. But alas, there he died
Larry Russels, 75
I didn't bother reading the rest, my vision was blurry and my hands were shaky. My father held Mom and me close and tight. We wept. My mouth was dry and my heart empty. My knees buckled and I pulled out my handkerchief. My eyes were so red and puffy they hurt. My muscles rippled with pain. Grandpa was dead.
Mom had chosen to have the funeral at night, under the stars. Grandpa loved the stars. He'd always look up and wonder. The pastor that was conducting the funeral was narrating the story of the crucifixion, that I had read a week earlier. He got to death, blood and pain and I shut it all out. I knew why Jesus had reminded me of Grandpa now. They'd both given their lives to God and he'd taken them. The lives of innocent men.
“He's dead?” said a soft voice next to me. It was the voice of a girl.
“Yeah, didn't you hear?” She was dressed in a white dress with a periwinkle ribbon in her long brown hair. She had a cross on her necklace. The stars seemed to reflect in her tears. I blinked. That didn't seem plausible, but so it was. I looked her in her beautiful blue eyes. Then I noticed the earpiece – she was deaf. “Oh, I'm so sorry.”
She tapped the earpiece and said with a slight lisp, “Sorry, what? I'm kind of deaf, by the way.” She smiled at me and I couldn't help smiling back.
“My grandfather is dead, yes,” I muttered. She threw her arms around me.
“Can I tell you a secret?” she whispered. It was so odd. We weren't on the dance floor that she should whisper into my ear, but I answered in the affirmative. She muttered a Bible verse in my ear. She giggled and muttered my grandfather's name.
A week later I finished the story of Jesus. My hope rebounded and I re-read the piece in John that everyone always talks about.
I stepped outside with my Bible, heading towards the park. The day was beautiful. The trees whispered to me in what would be a lisp. The sky was a periwinkle blue and then sun shone down on glittering green. The dew drops were like stars. I found myself staring into a pool of water. The brown of the trees was reflected in this, tied together with a ribbon of blue sky. I found I couldn't get her off my mind. And I didn't even know her name.
While I was thinking about her, I remembered the Bible verse she'd recommended. It was the story of Lazarus.
Because of grandpa's death, and my mother telling a few of her friends about my outbreak against Jesus, I found myself receiving more and more Bible verses. It was kind of cool, the Bible. There was war and romance. I found that most of the stuff said was true. I found myself growing closer and closer to God.
I began accompanying Mom to church. Grandpa had really loved the place and I thought I'd give it a try, but I wasn't absolutely convinced. I met the girl there. Her name was Ella. She loved butterflies, sunshine and walks in the park. We began hanging out a lot. We became good friends.
Six years from then, we were studying in the same university. We came home for the Easter holiday and decided that night to visit the man who'd brought us together.
I was so gripped by fear I tripped over grass. The stars blurred above me and I stood up again. My mouth dried. My blood turned to ice water, the icicles scraping the inside of my skin so that I was jumpy. The cold bit me in the spine, electric and icy. Gravity had its grip on me, but my stomach floated up. But this time, it was a good thing. I patted the little box in my back pocket.
We arrived there, arm in arm. We remembered the very first time we'd met. I looked her in the eyes, not glancing at the hearing aid still in place, and asked, “So why did you tell me about Lazarus?”
With her adorable lisp she said, laughing first at my stupidity, “Don't you understand?”
“I do. Larry Russels.”
“And tonight is Monday, three days after Easter, the anniversary of Jesus death.”
I smiled. “Today he apparently came back to life.”
“Like Lazarus,” she said with her beautiful lisp.
Somewhere behind us, a Jazz singer's voice said, “Like Larry Russels.”
The spirit of Larry Russels was clothed in white. The edges of his eyes were crinkled heavily. “So heaven really is fun?” I asked.
“How can you tell? Besides, boy, I thought you didn't believe in God!” Larry laughed, his form shimmering.
“You have smile wrinkles.” Larry looked amazed, as if he hadn't noticed. “And of course Jesus exists, how else would I be speaking to you now? How else was your life taken?”
“Boy, do you understand why it had to happen?”
“Yes, Grandpa.” Ella's arm was tightly wrapped into mine. She was crying and smiling and muttering the name of Jesus Christ.
“Well, have to go,” Grandpa said, checking his watch. He waved at Ella and then winked at me. “I had to leave, so that a new life can come into existence. Quite frankly, I wasn't ready to be a great-grandfather. Hey, Ella,”
“Yes, Mr Russels.”
“Do you like tuna fish?”
“It's okay.”
Grandpa winked at me and shimmered in the air. He disappeared into nothing. As he left, I caught a waft of the smell of heaven that flooded in during the transition. There were flowers, and perfume. I heard laughter and my Grandpa ordering a round of tuna-fish sandwiches. Then nothing.
Ella and I were engrossed in the moment. It was something special. That night I did two of the most amazing commitments of my life. I didn't regret either, neither did Ella.
---
The title is inspired by the Prayer of St. Francis which, as my teacher put it, describes the Christian paradox. How in humility we gain glory, in death we have Life. This is the Christian Paradox. I chose contradiction 'cause it's a stronger word and suits it better, in addition to the alliteration.
Anyway, that was my first short story! I'm sorry if it's in the wrong forum, I didn't know where to put it. Fell free to move it around mods!
What do you guys think?
Subject: Christian Contradiction 