The 17 by Clint Kelly

Author:Clint Kelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: christian Fiction
ISBN: 9781611168402
Publisher: Pelican Book Group
Published: 2016-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

11

It was Friday and not my finest hour. I was sick at heart and beaten thin by the Sovereign hammer.

I don’t know if I can get this out and wouldn’t even try if it weren’t for Bill. I’m sorry to make you cry, Ruth Anne, but I haven’t felt this empty since you slipped from me. This morning, I stayed in bed with blinds drawn and dared God to flush me out.

Once out of bed, I’d flipped between the soaps and the court shows and the daytime talk-meisters, anything to keep from forming the mental picture of mother and father and infant waiting last night in desperation for God’s reluctant provider to arrive with the milk. Their tear-stained faces. Their loud prayers of thanks for answered prayer. My promise to have Mike of Bread of Life Mission stop by with groceries. The mother kissing my hand; the father clapping me on the shoulder; the baby asleep at last, its world put right so easily by a bottle and a half of Bossie’s Best. Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus in full flight from the ghosts of Barstow, California, in search of a new beginning in Seattle.

The creeping suspicion that had held me prisoner beneath the covers was that the milk episode hadn’t been as much for that family’s benefit as it was for mine. I mean, God could have sent any one of a hundred or a thousand people to take them the milk. Or He could have materialized a cow next to their dump of a car and provided milk enough for the neighbors.

That He sent me with a single gallon and placed such an enormous emphasis on the timing of it proved my theory. I am but His messenger boy and it was the last thing I wanted. When I balk and start to exercise a little of that famous free will of His that everyone talks about, including you, Ruth, He reprimands by sending me out for milk. Undoubtedly, my discomfort with all this places a giant cement block right where God wants my breakthrough to occur.

I know it sounded arrogant, but I didn’t like being shoved around by forces I couldn’t see, no matter how divine.

Finally, around two in the afternoon, my phone call to Mike completed, I dug a sweatshirt and jeans out of the clothes hamper, downed some pickled cauliflower and sardines, and set off for the 17. Since I was now sent messages outside the bus, I figured to stay out of God’s way by going out when I good and well decided it was time to go out. Surely He wasn’t going to expend His energy much longer on a rebel like me. I’d wait Him out on my terms, ride the bus at my whim, and ignore any more signals from the sacred semaphore.

For a fleeting moment I entertained the idea of canceling dinner with Bill, and would have had I not been so concerned that Metro’s finest would take it personally.

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