Gabriel's Story - 30 March 2020
Before he reached Sean’s room, Gabriel could hear him singing from halfway down the hall. Turn your eyes upon Jesus…Look full in His wonderful face…And the things of earth will grow strangely dim…In the light of His glory and grace. His voice sounded angelic, and the irony wasn’t lost on Gabriel that he was singing about seeing Christ, even though he had been blinded. A couple of years ago, he would have laughed at the irony. Now, though, he laughed at the power behind the words.
He had taken up trying not to surprise Sean anymore, so Gabriel joined as he entered Sean’s room. “Through death into life everlasting, He passed, and we follow Him there…”
“Gabriel! It’s good to hear your voice, my friend.” Sean smiled. “How are you and how is the church?”
He sat in his usual chair, the one staff at the Good Shepherd had brought from the nurse’s lounge when they realized Gabriel would be a regular, and reached out his hand, grasping Sean’s firmly. “Good morning, Pastor. How are you feeling today?” He pushed off Sean’s question.
“I’m feeling pretty good this morning, er, afternoon. What time is it?”
“Just after one p.m.”
“Oh.” Gabriel could see from Sean’s face that he wasn’t aware it was already early afternoon. “Ok, well feeling pretty good this afternoon, other than struggling with knowing the actual time of day.” He tried to smile.
“That’s one of the reasons I’m here.” Gabriel pulled a box from his pocket and absentmindedly showed it to Sean, then chastised himself under his breath.
“Oh? How so?” Sean perked up a bit.
“Yeah, the church wanted you to know we’ve been thinking about you, and, even if most of the congregation that’s left can’t come in here, we pitched in and got you this watch.” Gabriel stumbled over what words to say and what words actually came out of his mouth. “It’s that new G-Watch with a cell phone and GPS…it’s the white one.”
Sean smiled and Gabriel could see him slump his shoulders a bit. “That’s a nice thought, Gabriel, very touching, but I have a watch,” he pointed to where his old Timex sat silent, useless to a blind man, on his dresser, “and it doesn’t do me much good these days.”
Gabriel took Sean’s left wrist and strapped on his gift. “How’s that? Is it too tight?”
“No. It fits fine.”
“Ok, now touch the face.”
Sean hesitated, but reached up with his right hand and touched the face of the watch, feeling first for the frame, and then tapping the face with his index finger.
“Good afternoon, Sean. The time is one-twenty-three p.m. on Sunday, March the 29th.”
Gabriel watched as a smile broke across Sean’s face and a tear formed and fell. “That’s nice, Gabriel. Thank you.”
“We had the voice app installed for you, along with GPS and phone.”
“GPS?” Sean laughed. “You think I’m going to get lost?”
“Well, you won’t be blind forever, Sean. When you get your sight back, you just might want to get out and explore again.”
Sean felt around his wrist and marveled at the comfort he gained from wearing a watch again. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d gone without a watch – basic training, his initial stint in Germany and then Bethesda when he lost his legs, and now with the complications from his implant correction surgery. “I know.”
Sean sat up, smiled, and started singing again. Gabriel and a couple of the nurses, along with a few patients from other rooms, joined in. Gabriel watched as tears flowed freely from Sean’s eyes at hearing the impromptu chorus. When the Sunday afternoon praise service at the Good Shepherd ended, Sean asked Gabriel a question he wasn’t expecting.
“Did you really wear that shirt and tie to speak to the congregation?”
“Yeah,” Gabriel played with the dark blue novelty tie he wore to church. It had a big ‘Election 2020’ down the middle with small writing that said ‘nCOV-19: to the victor goes the spoils.’ “It’s a bit kwerky and a play on…wait. What?”
Sean laughed out loud. “Yes, Gabriel. I can see your tie!”
---***---
“Round one is finished, master.” The tall, powerful demon’s muscles rippled in the waning moonlight of a pre-dawn Chinese morning. Samnu stood in stark contrast to the grotesque Abaddon, but the Destroyer wasn’t envious. Instead, he reveled in the singular focus of Samnu the soldier. Not only was he effective in waging war, but he reveled in the misery it caused. He wasn’t hungry for power and he had never challenged Abaddon, instead fully accepting his place as one of Lucifer’s foot soldiers.
“And round two?”
“It’s on the wind.” Samnu pointed toward the sky as Covid returned from the Eastern Hemisphere, riding on the back of Samnu’s personal dragon, Tathamet.
“Ick. He’s a repulsive little thing.” Abaddon was visibly annoyed by the arrival of the slovenly little Covid. “Why him. Why not one of the Master’s finer plagues?”
Samnu wasn’t used to being questioned, but he also didn’t challenge his master. He took the personal affront as a failure on his part to explain his plan clearly. “Master Destroyer, Covid is perfect for the Master’s plan. He’s deceptively fatal, highly contagious, and his slovenly, unkempt appearance makes them doubt his strength.”
As if on cue Tathamet snapped at Covid, the little demon’s drool dripping down the side of one of the dragon’s heads and burning his nostril. Without any visible effort, Covid reached up and snatched the near fang of Tathamet’s attacking head, pulling it to his face and causing the dragon to careen toward Earth. When Covid released his grip, Samnu and Abaddon watched as the forcefully extracted fang fell harmlessly to the ground.
“They won’t understand the true threat until it’s too late.”
Abaddon smiled in recognition of his newfound admiration for the little demon. Covid was so perfect, he had even fooled the Destroyer. He watched as the rotund little demon waddled over toward a group of soldiers and stood there, pudgy little hands with sausages for fingers resting on his hips. One of the soldiers put a hand on Covid’s shoulder and the group laughed. “What do they see?”
“He’s a Zhongjiang,” Samnu waited before he translated the Chinese military title for Lieutenant General. He wasn’t sure how up to speed Abaddon was with current military structures, considering the Destroyer was responsible for global strategic operations, not tactical-level events like the ones Samnu ran in China’s Wuhan Province.
“Smart.” Abaddon put his own hand on Samnu’s shoulder in approval. “Not too high to gain the attention of the President, but high enough still to garner respect in most circles.”
“Yes, my Master.”
“Who is that he’s talking with, and what are they discussing?”
“Those men are the leadership of China’s burgeoning biological weapons program. The two on the left are Shaojiang and the one touching Covid is Yi ji jun shi zhang, senior enlisted for the bio-corps. Covid is their first global test. They’re preparing for a Russian and Iranian delegations’ arrival from Damascus to discuss propagation methods – natural ones.”
“Oh. Your plan?”
“Simple. These three nations offer the greatest reach to ninety percent of the more than seven billion people on Earth. They’ll think Covid attacks only the elderly and the weak, but that’s just phase one. Phase two makes ready for the Master’s arrival. We’ll be ready in six months.”
“Excellent. Shall we join them?”
“Yes, Colonel General Andropov. Let’s join them.”
---***---
“That’s right, doc, not blurry or anything. In fact,” he held his watch close to his face, “I can see better now than before. I don’t need reading glasses anymore.”
Gabriel stood in the corner of the room watching as each doctor discussed with Sean the sudden return of his vision. It was obvious from their demeanor that none of the three senior physicians had expected Sean’s sight to return this quickly. One doctor, a specialist in brain and nervous disorders, had postulated that the infection from Sean’s implants had damaged his optic nerves beyond repair, or at least that’s what the tests had shown. A miracle. That’s what they called it. Gabriel agreed.
When the doctors left and the room calmed down, Gabriel returned to his chair and smiled. “That’s a good name for it. A miracle.”
“Gabriel. Let me ask you a question.”
“Sure.”
“What would happen if I told you to stop working, take a couple of weeks off, and just relax, pray, and get deeper into the Word? Could you do it?”
Gabriel didn’t hesitate. “I’d have to find the right time to do that, but yes, I could.”
“And if I told you to start today?”
“What are you getting at, Sean?”
“Could you, start today?”
“No. I mean, maybe. I’d have to check with my boss. I do have some vacation coming but he has to be able to plan around my absence. And I have a couple projects I’d need to close out or at least get to a point where I can hand them off. So, no, not today, but I could probably start this week. Why?” Gabriel finished running through the reasons Sean already knew.
“Gabriel, my blindness was a blessing.”
He didn’t want to sound ignorant or like he didn’t believe, so Gabriel didn’t say anything. Instead he knew Sean would explain himself if he just sat and waited. But a blessing?
“You see, I’ve been battling demons for months. The ones you see, the ones you couldn’t see. I was exhausted, trying to do it all alone. God tried to get my attention, but I ignored Him. Until that night when you found me wallowing in my own blood and vomit.” He shifted to the side of the bed. “You see, God asked me to stop fighting, and I said I would – right after I shut down Lucifer’s attacks on my church. He reminded me I was incapable of doing anything that He hadn’t allowed. So, he told me since I though I had even the slightest authority on my own, remember I said ‘my church,’ He left me alone. That’s when they attacked, and I was so powerless to do anything about it. I couldn’t even see them. I knew Michael was there, and I knew the demons were attacking, but I was powerless against them and Michael didn’t intervene. That’s when I understood God’s challenge to me.”
“God’s challenge?”
“Yeah. My thorn is power, or more accurately, thinking I have power. I don’t. It’s all God.”
“And God…” Gabriel was trying to understand.
“…And God told me to take a break. Even in the middle of losing that battle, I rejected His guidance. So, He blinded me to force me to stop. I had to stop preaching, stop reading the Bible, stop visiting the people and praying with them. I had to learn that when God says ‘stop’ He means ‘STOP!’”
“So, you think God blinded you to force you to rest.”
“I think God allowed Lucifer to blind me because He knew I needed rest but was too stupid to do anything on my own.” He reached into his dresser and extracted two shiny, clean prosthetics and attached them to his implants. “And now look at me. I’m rested. I’ve been tested and – no thanks to my own strength – I’ve been renewed! I’m ready for whatever Satan plans for us because I finally realize I don’t have to do anything. God does it all!”
“Well, then you’d better get ready, because God’s going to have to bring back half your congregation.”
Sean sat back down on the bed. “What happened?”
“Covid-19. Everyone’s under quarantine and half the church won’t come.” Gabriel threw up his hands and shrugged his shoulders. “We agreed to keep the doors open until the State ordered us to shut down, but half the people don’t think that’s the responsible call. They just won’t come.”
Sean smiled and grasped Gabriel’s arm. “Hand me my pants, will you?”
“That’s your response?” Gabriel was surprised.
“Sure. It’s not my church. It’s God’s. I just feed the flock. He rings the dinner bell.”
From the author of B.O.R.N. for the Quest (now available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle https://www.amazon.com/B-R-N-Quest-Healing-Waters-ebook/dp/B0855N6WN4)