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This work by Dave Herbster is displayed with permission from the author. This piece may be spoken, but not distributed, in a sponsor church’s worship service. If used please tell the author in what manner. |
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Dave Herbster |
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Infusion
A tap at his shoulder and consciousness returned him to his room. He was not vaulting through the clouds to meet God, but surrounded by restless night noises -- a ceiling fan out of balance and in need of grease, a snoring Labrador, a stirring baby son and his wife’s gentle murmur, You OK, Davey? Yeah. Was I loud? His whoop had wakened her. She asked what he had dreamt. I was walking north on the beach. Had on the wrong clothes – white shirt, tie, dress shoes. Wrong clothes for the weather, too. Up ahead, the sky was stormy, practically black. Undersides of the clouds seemed to boil. Rain had already got me once, and now there were more squalls ahead. Another soaking was coming my way with nowhere to duck for cover. Over the ocean, to the east, motion in the clouds grabbed my eye. The clouds began to part. It was almost like God reaching through from the other side to pull them back. At first they opened in some geometric shape that reminded me of Superman’s seal. Then they parted completely, all the way down to the sea like grand theater curtains. I got this feeling… consolation. It was definitely consolation. It was as if God was showing me even though my situation was grim, He was in power. Kinda like He winked at me. For a moment, the wink was enough -- at least until these big shafts of rain started hissing my way. End of reverie, you know? Just up the beach, raindrops big as grapes began to splat on the beach. I braced for the downpour. Then, suddenly, I was outta there, rocketing skyward, pulled from my chest (my heart?), as if in a swan dive that would never return to earth. For an instant, I recalled something about the rapture and I shouted, “Is this it Lord?” but I didn’t wait for an answer. The beach fell away beneath me and I was closing in on the clouds. What a ride. I shouted, “Whooooooo!!!” That was when you tapped me. She was silent for a moment, then said softly, Sorry I woke you. She seemed afraid God would take him away from her. Don’t go yet, she said. He lay in the blue darkness as his circumstances pressed in – his thickening midsection, thinning hair and weakening eyes. House in disrepair. Family growing. Need more space. How to pay for it? Yet still in his throat was the rocketing whoop of the dream. For an instant, circumstance fell away and he saw that everything in his sleepy room was infused with God. All this breathing life – beloved wife, long awaited son. Just down the hall, his sweet daughters. The place pulsed with God. He reached for his journal, hoping not to forget. |