The Book of Susan by Melanie K. Hutsell

Author:Melanie K. Hutsell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paraclete Press
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

At the height of summer, I inhabited a dark house. My son and Meredith rustled in some of the rooms by day.

But I was alone.

My pillow stank of sweat and staleness.

The pastor didn’t call me back. He didn’t call and didn’t call.

His absence of acknowledgment began to feel like shunning. Like abandonment. The nothing I received was inexplicable.

Since he had no time to help me sort out my health and my faith, I turned the thin, crinkly pages of my Bible, desperate for comfort and counsel.

The story of a man healed from demon possession encouraged me at first, but it ended with the man restored to his sanity, untouched by illness for all time.

That was not going to happen to me here.

I looked for a biblical figure I could learn from, whose story resonated with mine, who had successfully lived out a damaged existence while still in communion with God.

I couldn’t find one.

The type stuck to the page and did not enter me.

The drone of the fan fell over me, covered me like a blanket.

Maybe the pastor would return my calls if I were a member of his church. I wasn’t a real, true member, only some anonymous visitor.

The drone of the fan warmed my body.

But I didn’t see how I could fulfill any requirements of a membership process. I could not shower. I could not walk into my study.

My insides were ice.

If somehow I could enter my study, where I’d first seen the vision, then the remembrance would sustain me, and I would be in the presence of God.

I dragged the sheet over my face. If I could enter my study, where I’d first beheld the hope that I could declare new ways, I would experience an empty room with a gigantic hole in the air where my vision once was.

I began to think I was going to end like this, my head and limbs sinking with a weight greater than all the seas, my body all but motionless in a bed in a room in a house in a life in a marriage that once was joyously mine and freely welcomed me.

I was silent. I was screaming, and there was no one to hear.

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