The Gospel of Simon by John Smelcer

Author:John Smelcer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Leapfrog Press
Published: 2016-08-14T04:00:00+00:00

Saturday

Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

There is no greater commandment.

(Mark 12:31)

I awoke in the morning to the feeling of something or someone crawling over me. When I opened my weary eyes I could not believe what they beheld.

It was Avigail!

“Good morning, father!” she exclaimed, and she hugged me around the neck and kissed me on the cheeks.

I nudged Rachel who was still asleep.

When my wife saw who was in our bed, she burst into tears and scooped up our little daughter and held her to her chest, kissing her head over and over.

“You are hugging me too tight!” Avigail cried, struggling to free herself.

I joined in, kissing both their heads and weeping.

We took a good look at our daughter. No longer did she look like she was at death’s door. Her flesh looked healthy, her hair lustrous, her eyes full of vitality, as it should be with a child of four. Even the fever was gone.

“I’m hungry,” said Avigail. She wriggled free of our embrace, crawled over me again, jumped out of our bed, and ran to the window to peer outside.

“It is a beautiful day. Can I play outside? Please!”

Rachel looked at me in disbelief and elation.

“It is a miracle!” she said. “How is this possible?”

Just then our sons awoke and saw their little sister standing before the window. They too couldn’t believe it.

Avigail ran to their bed and jumped onto her brothers. They tickled her until she pleaded for them to stop.

“Let us go outside!” she begged, catching her breath and brushing her hair from her eyes. “It is so beautiful.”

“After you eat something,” said Rachel.

“Can we eat outside? Please, Mother. I want to feel the sun.”

Rachel looked at me.

I nodded.

“Very well,” she said, with a cheerfulness in her voice that I had not heard in a long time. “Let us get dressed first.”

I sat up in bed, stretching my arms behind my head.

Rachel shrieked, startling me.

“What is it?” I asked, looking behind me, expecting to see a scorpion or a serpent.

“Your back! The welts are gone.”

Rachel ran her hands across my back, not believing what her eyes saw.

“They are gone,” she said again.

I reached around to feel where the lowest lash had been. I felt only smooth skin. I felt my calf. It too was healed.

My wife and I sat facing one another, dumbfounded.

“Avigail healed . . . My welts gone?” I said.

“How is this possible?” asked Rachel.

I shook my head.

“I do not know,” I replied slowly, though my first thought was of the man I had abandoned at the cross, and who had visited me in my dreams.

Who was he? I wondered.

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