The Visitation Part 1

THE.

VISITATION.

FRANK.

Peretti.

In loving memory of Kip Jordon.

INTRODUCTION.

I NEVER THOUGHT I'd get sick of being a Christian. I was practically born a Christian, raised in a Christian home, nurtured in church and Sunday school. If there was anything going on at church - special meetings, singspirations, Bible studies, vacation Bible school - I was there. I read my Bible every day, prayed regularly, witnessed to others whenever I could, and knew all the hymns by heart. I was a youth pastor, an a.s.sociate pastor, a teacher, a preacher, a public speaker. I was on the right road, had plenty of approval, and no plans to change course.

But no one told me I was still growing up and that the time would come when all the familiar trappings of the Christianity I grew up with would no longer be comfortable. Like a child growing out of his clothes, I was having trouble getting things to fit- except for one T-shirt that said, BEEN THERE, DONE THAT.

No, I wasn't backsliding. Satan wasn't tempting me. I wasn't even disillusioned-well, not with G.o.d. Call it growing pains. I was beginning to feel the difference between religion and relationship. The more I longed to know G.o.d, the more fed up I got with all the Christian "stuff." Where was G.o.d really? Would I really find Him in all the religious trappings, my particular Christian culture that told me by word and example what a Christian ought to look like, act like, believe, and do? For most of my life I'd wrapped that world around me like a security blanket; I felt safe, like a child at home with loving parents.

But kids like us grow up and need our own relationship with G.o.d, forged in the heart through time and experience, not draped around us by the church we attend. We need to know G.o.d for ourselves, not secondhand.

Coming to that realization, that point of growth, can be a lonely time. You just feel so tired of everything: No, I didn't have my "quiet time" this morning, so arrest me. If I have to sing that chorus one more time I'll scream. Maybe I'll stay home from church this time just for some peace and quiet.

And you don't buy everything so readily: Maybe that was a prophecy to you, but to me it was bad acting. How do I know G.o.d really said that to Pastor? I didn't hear anything. Are we really going to vanish in the twinkling of an eye?

And everyone has a cure for what ails you: You need to read your Bible and pray more. You need to come back to the Lord. These are lies of the Enemy; speak in tongues and they'll go away.

Well, don't worry. I made it through. Jesus walked with me through every moment, and I could see Him so much more clearly on the other side. I have a wonderful church family, I like singing the choruses, and I still read my Bible and pray every day. But things look different now. My faith is my own, I like where the Lord has brought me, and I won't be going back.

Having been there, having done that, and having survived, I thought I'd write about it. Wherever you are in your own walk with the Lord, I'm sure you'll find some common ground between yourself and Travis Jordan, struggling out of all that religion to find the real Jesus.

- FRANK E. PERETTI.

June 2003.

PROLOGUE.

THE HAMMER RANG against the nail, piercing skin, cutting vessels. It rang against the nail, piercing muscle, chipping bone. It rang against the nail, anchoring arm to rough-hewn wood. It rang. It rang. It rang.

And then the ringing stopped, and the young man hung there under the scorching sun, faint with pain, alone. He could not shift his weight, flex his knees, or even turn his head without feeling the fire of the nails. His wrists were swelling around the nail heads. His blood was drying in the sun, turning brown on the wood.

He cried out, but G.o.d did not listen. It could have been G.o.d who drove the nails, then put his hammer down and turned away, smiling in victory. It could have been G.o.d who left him to bake and bleed in the sun, unable to stand, unable to fall, as the sun marked the pa.s.sing hours across the cloudless sky.

Stinking with sweat. Crimson with sunburn. Dried blood crackling around the nails. Pain the only reality.

He cried out, but in the cauldron of his sun-boiled mind he heard only the voices of his accusers and the ringing, ringing, ringing of the hammer-sounds that would forever haunt his memory and echo through his nightmares.

"You're a child of the devil," they said. A child of the devil who needed to be contained.

A child of the devil?

He cried out once again, and this time, a voice, a mind, answered and a power coursed through him. Suddenly, he could bear the pain and make it fuel for his will. With burning will, he determined he would live.

And living, he knew what he would do.

1.

SALLY FORDYCE left the house as soon as the breakfast dishes were done, walking a little, jogging a little along Highway 9-a narrow, straight-as-a-string two-lane with a fading white line and an evenly s.p.a.ced parade of utility poles. This was eastern Washington State, quiet and solitary. Wheat fields, spring green, stretched in every direction over the prairie swells. Straight ahead, the highway dipped and rose gently into the distance until it narrowed to a vanishing point at the far horizon. The sun was warm, the breeze a little biting. It was April.

Sally was nineteen, blonde, slightly overweight, and severely unhappy, mainly because she was no longer married. She had believed everything Joey, the trucker, told her about love, and how she was that girl silhouetted on his mud flaps. The marriage-if it happened at all-lasted three months. When he found another woman more "intellectually stimulating," Sally was b.u.mped from the truck's sleeper and found herself coming full circle, right back to being Charlie and Meg's daughter living at home again. She had to keep her room clean, help with dinner and dishes, get home by eleven, and attend the Methodist church with them every Sunday. Again, her life was not her life.

She had tasted freedom, she thought, but she was turned away. She had no wings to fly and nowhere to fly even if she did. Life wasn't fair. (To hear Charlie tell it, he and Meg must have made up a list of all the dumb mistakes they hoped she would never make and given her a copy. Needless to say, things were tense.) Even before she tried Joey, the trucker, Sally used to find escape out on the wheat prairie in the stillness of the morning. Now she returned, even fled to this place. Out here, she heard no voice but her own thoughts, and her thoughts could say whatever they wanted. She could pray too, sometimes aloud, knowing no one but G.o.d would hear her. "Dear G.o.d, please don't leave me stuck here. If you're there, send a miracle. Get me out of this mess."

In all fairness, it was past time for Sally to feel that way. Except for those who had wheat farming in their blood and couldn't wait to climb on a combine, most everyone growing up in Antioch heard a call from elsewhere-anywhere-sooner or later. When they came of age, all the kids who could find a way out left-usually-for good. Sally had come of age, all right, but had not found a way out. Charlie and Meg would probably tell you that she was not the kind to look for one, either. She was still waiting for it to come to her.

The halfway point of her jog was a spreading cottonwood at the top of a shallow rise, the only tree in sight. It was monstrous, and had to have been growing there long before the roads, farms, or settlers came along. Sally double-timed her way up the rise and was breathing hard by the time she reached it. She'd developed a routine: Every day she braced herself against the huge trunk and stretched out her leg muscles, then sat and rested for a moment between two prominent roots on the south side. Recently, a short prayer for a miracle had also become part of the routine.

The stretches went easily enough. She had cooled down, her breathing had settled, she could feel the flush in her cheeks from the exercise and the cool air.

She rounded the tree- And almost jumped out of her skin.

A man was sitting between the two roots, exactly in her spot, his back against the gnarled trunk and his wrists draped lazily over his knees. He had to have been there all during her stretching-out, and she was immediately curious, if not offended, that he had said or done nothing to indicate his presence.

"Oh!" she gasped, then caught her breath. "h.e.l.lo. I didn't see you there."

He only chuckled and smiled at her with a kindly gaze. He was a remarkably handsome man, with olive skin, deep brown eyes, and tightly curled black hair. He was young, perhaps as young as she was. "Good morning, Sally. Sorry if I startled you."

She probed her memory. "Have we met before?"

He shook his head teasingly. "No."

"Well, who are you?"

"I'm here to bring you a message. Your prayers have been heard, Sally. Your answer is on his way. Be looking for him."

She looked away for only a moment, just a slight, eye-rolling gesture of consternation. "Be looking for who-?"

He was gone.

"Hey!"

She walked around the cottonwood, looked up and down the road and across every field, and even looked straight up the trunk of the tree.

He was gone, just like that, as if he'd never been there.

After one more hurried trip around the tree, she stopped, a hand against the trunk to steady herself, her eyes scanning the prairie. Her heart was beating faster than when she'd come up the rise. Her breathing was rapid and shallow. She was shaking.

AT OUR LADY OF THE FIELDS CHURCH in Antioch, Arnold Kowalski was busy dust-mopping the quaint little sanctuary, pushing the wide broom between the pews and down the center aisle, moving a little slowly but doing a thorough job. Arnold had been a soldier, a carpenter, a diesel mechanic, and a mail carrier, and now, since retiring, he had taken upon himself the unofficial t.i.tle of church custodian. It wasn't a paid position, although the church did provide a little monetary gift for him each month as an expression of love and grat.i.tude. He just did it for G.o.d, a few hours a few days a week, pure and simple. It brought him joy, and besides, he liked being in this place.

He'd been a devout member of Our Lady of the Fields for some forty years now. He never missed Sunday morning ma.s.s if he could help it. He never failed to make it to confession, though now at seventy-two the confessions were getting shorter and the penance easier. He liked to think that G.o.d was happy with him. He considered himself happy enough with G.o.d.

Except for one thing, one minor grief he had to carry as he moved slowly down the center aisle pushing his broom. He couldn't help wishing that G.o.d would pay just a little attention to Arnold's arthritis. It used to flare up occasionally; now it was only on occasion that it didn't. He was ashamed to think such a thought, but he kept thinking it anyway: Here I am serving G.o.d, but G.o.d keeps letting it hurt. His hands throbbed, his feet ached. His knuckles cried out no matter which way he gripped the broom. He was never one to complain, but today, he almost felt like crying.

Maybe I'm not serving G.o.d enough, he thought. Maybe I need to work longer. Maybe if I didn't take any money for what I do here . . .

What am I missing? he wondered. What am I leaving out?

He always took off his hat when he entered the building and blessed himself before entering the sanctuary. Right now, as usual, he was wearing his blue coveralls. Perhaps a tie would show more respect. He pushed a little more dust and dirt down the center aisle until he stepped into a beam of sunlight coming through a stained-gla.s.s window. The sun felt warm on his back and brought him comfort, as if it were G.o.d's hand resting on his shoulders. From this spot he could look up at the carved wooden crucifix hanging above the altar. He caught the gaze of the crucified Christ.

"I don't want to complain," he said. Already he felt he was overstepping his bounds. "But what harm would it do? What difference would it make to this big wide world if one little man didn't have so much pain?" It occurred to Arnold that he had addressed G.o.d in anger. Ashamed, he looked away from those gazing wooden eyes. But the eyes drew him back, and for a strange, illusory moment they seemed alive, mildly scolding, but mostly showing compa.s.sion as a father would show to a child with a sc.r.a.ped knee. Sunlight from another window brought out a tiny sparkle in the corners of the eyes, and Arnold had to smile. He could almost imagine those eyes were alive and wet with tears.

The sparkle grew, spreading from the corners of the eyes and reaching along the lower eyelids.

Arnold looked closer. Where was the light coming from that could produce such an effect? He looked above and to the right. It had to be coming through that row of small windows near the ceiling. To think he'd been attending this church for so many years and never noticed this before. It looked just as if- A tear rose over the edge of the eyelid and dropped onto the wooden cheek, tracing a thin wet trail down the face and onto the beard.

Arnold stared, frozen, his mind stuck between seeing and believing. He felt no sense of awe, no overshadowing spiritual presence. He heard no angelic choir singing in the background. All he knew was that he was watching a wooden image shed tears as he stood there dumbly.

Then his first coherent thought finally came to him. I have to get up there. Yes, that was the thing to do; that would settle it. He hurried as fast as the pain in his feet would allow him and brought a ladder from the storeroom in back. Pausing before the altar to bless himself, he stepped around the altar and carefully leaned the ladder against the wall. Every climbing step brought a sharp complaint from his feet, but he gritted his teeth, grimaced, and willed himself up the ladder until he came eye to eye, level to level with the carved face.

His eyes had not been playing tricks on him. The face, only a third life-sized, was wet. He looked above to see if there was a leak in the ceiling but saw no sign of a stain or drip. He leaned close to study the image for any sign of a device or some kind of trickery. Nothing.

He reached, then hesitated from the very first tinge of fear. Just what was he about to touch? Dear G.o.d, don't hurt me. He reached again, shakily extending his hand until his fingertips brushed across the wet trail of the tears.

He felt a tingling, like electricity, and jerked his hand away with a start. It wasn't painful, but it scared him, and his hand began to quiver. Electric sensations shot up his arm like countless little bees swarming in his veins. He let out a quiet little yelp, then gasped, then yelped again as the sensation flowed across his shoulders, around his neck, down his spine. He grabbed the ladder and held it tightly, afraid he would topple off.

A strong grip.

A grip without pain. He stared at his hand. The vibration buzzed, and swirled under his skin, through his knuckles, across his palms, through his wrists. He lightened his grip, tightened it again, held on with one hand while he opened and closed the other, wiggling and flexing the fingers.

The pain was gone. His hands were strong.

The current rushed down his legs, making his nerves tingle and his muscles twitch. He hugged the ladder, his hands glued to the rungs, a cry bouncing off the wall only inches from his nose. He was shaking, afraid he would fall. He cried out, gasped, trembled, cried out again.

The electricity, the sensation-whatever it was-enveloped his feet and his scream echoed through the building.

SUNDAY, PASTOR KYLE SHERMAN prayed the prayer of benediction, the pianist and organist began playing the postlude-a modern rendition of "Be Still My Soul"-and the congregation of the Antioch Pentecostal Mission rose to leave. The after-service shuffling was the same as one would see in any church. Folks gathered up their coats, Bibles, Sunday school papers, and children, then formed slow-moving cl.u.s.ters in the aisles and doorways to joke and chat. Families, singles, friends, and visitors pa.s.sed through the main doorway where the young pastor stood to shake their hands and greet them. Kids went as wild as their parents would tolerate, running outside after being scolded for running inside.

Dee Baylor was among the departing saints that day. A steady and constant presence at Antioch Mission, she was a robust, heavyset woman in her forties with a prominent nose and hair that added measurably to her height. Short, mousy Blanche Davis and tightly permed, blue-rinsed Adrian Folsom were walking with her across the gravel parking lot as the three worked excitedly to keep the Christian grapevine alive.

"That's all he said?" Adrian asked.

Dee didn't mind repeating the story or any part of it. "Just that *her answer was on his way.' And according to Sally he said his way, not its way."

"So who was he talking about?" asked Blanche.

"Maybe her future husband," Adrian ventured. "G.o.d told me I was going to marry Roger."

"So what about the crucifix at the Catholic church?" Blanche wondered.

"You can't limit G.o.d," Dee answered.

"No, you can't limit G.o.d," Adrian agreed with extra insistence in her voice.

"But a weeping statue?" Blanche asked, making a crinkled face. "That sounds awfully Catholic to me."

"Well, it's something a Catholic would understand."

Blanche considered that in silence.

"We need to be seeking the Lord," said Dee, her eyes closing prayerfully. "We need to be expecting. G.o.d has plans for Antioch. I think the Lord is ready to pour out his Spirit on this town."

"Amen." That was what Blanche wanted to hear.

"Amen," Adrian echoed.

Dee looked up at the sky as if looking toward heaven. The clouds were breaking up now. Patches of blue were beginning to show, promising a pleasant afternoon.

Adrian and Blanche walked and continued the conversation until they noticed they were by themselves. They looked back.

"Dee?"

She was standing still, clutching her Bible to her bosom and looking heavenward, her lips moving rapidly as she whispered in another language.

"Dee?"

They hurried to her side. "What is it?"

All she could do was point, then gasp, her hand over her mouth. Adrian and Blanche looked quickly, afraid something might fall on them. They saw nothing but billowing clouds and patches of blue sky.

"I see Jesus," Dee said in a hushed voice. Then, raising one hand toward the sky she shouted ecstatically, "Jesus! I see you, I see you!"