and found her to be his only refuge from the bottle. When he is with her, he is happy with his life, he feels he can do anything, and be anything. He knows that he is in love with her, and in a way he feels she is in love with him. He is happy with these thoughts. Thoughts like one day marrying her, doing things together, always together.
“No!” He almost shouts, as he realizes what he was thinking.
`Yes, I love Christa, but I’m using her as an escape from the liquor!’ He shouts to himself within his head.
`What is it she said the other day? “Only he has the answers,” but who is “he.”’
“I need to call her.” He says as he reaches for the phone.
:3:42 p.m.
Christa walks into Tim’s room and looks at the dark- red-haired man, his hand bushing his light red mustache, as he lies upon the bed.
“Timothy, what’s wrong? You sounded depressed,” she says as she sits on the edge of the bed near his head.
“Christa, I’m an alcoholic, and I need your help,” he says as he looks up at her, his eyes red from crying. He sees the shocked expression on her face.
“I never noticed. How long have you been like this?”
“I think it began when I was twelve or thirteen.” Again an astounded look appears upon her face as she leans over to lay her head upon his back.
“Oh, Tim, what have you done to yourself?” she says with deep concern.
“I don’t know. All I do know is that I want it to stop. Please help me, Christa. I.... I love you,” he says as the tears return, and he hides his head within his folded arms.
“And I love you, Timothy, very much. I think I always have.”
“Who is ‘he.’” he asks, unexpectedly, as he raises his head again, surprising the young woman, as she wipes back her own tears.
“He?” She asks, as she lifts her head, from his back.
“Oh!” She adds, now aware of whom Tim is talking about, as the memory of the conversation she had with him the other day comes to mind. “He is God.” She slides off the bed to her knees, so she can look at him face to face, with a gentle smile upon her own.
His mind flashes back to a sunny day of a small boy as he looks up at the mountains. He remembers the church he had gone to in those two short years he had lived in Salt Lake City.
“The only times in the past eleven years that I have heard about God have been with the accompaniment of a curse,” he says, saddened by this fact.
“Haven’t your parents talked to you about God?” she asks as she wipes the tears from his cheeks.
“No, we hardly talk at all, unless it’s business with Dad or laundry with Mom,” he replies harshly.
“Tim, God loves you. He loves you more than I ever could.”
“But what good does that do me?” He asks, not knowing what she means.
“Jesus, is God’s only son. God sent him down to us, so that He could die in our place.” She starts to explain, but then sees the puzzlement in his face. “Every person on this planet is a sinner. We were born a sinner, because of what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden. Because they disobeyed God, they sinned; and when they sinned, every one of their off-spring, which all of us are, carry on that original sin within us. So humanity became aware of what was good, and what was evil, and by this we are able to choose what will please God, and what will hurt God. God also knew that there were to be good men and women, so He gave them a way to return to His favor. At first it was through the sacrificing of lambs or doves, but finally the ultimate sacrifice was God’s only Son. That was Jesus, and He grew to a man, but at the same time He was God.
He never sinned in any way, shape, or form. All He did was preach the love of God and warn humankind to stop their sinning against Him, but for the most part they didn’t listen. Finally one day there were these men that were in charge of the Jewish religion. They had grown tired of
Jesus and His teachings, and so they had Him arrested and then killed. Unknown to them though was the fact that He knew they were coming for Him. He could have run or not even gone to
Jerusalem, but He knew what He must do for His Father, and that was to die.
“Just before they arrested Him, He asked to be left alone. In that time God poured into Him every sin that every man and woman would commit. So when they whipped Him, they were also whipping the sins within Him. When they hung Him on the cross to die, they were also killing every sin that every person would commit, from cursing to murder.
“When He died, Timothy, He took your sin of drinking with Him. All you have to do is ask Jesus to come into your life, and He will purge you of your alcoholism. The blood that He shed for you shall be poured over you, and it will expel the sin from you.
“Come down here beside me, and we’ll pray together,” she requests of him, and he does so.
“Now follow what I say, okay?” He nods. “Jesus, the Son of God.”
“Jesus, the Son of God.”
“Please forgive me for my sin against Your Father.”
“Please forgive me for my sin against Your Father.”
“Come into my life, and free me from the bondage of Satan.”
“Come into my life, and free me from the bondage of Satan.”
“And particularly help me to be set free from alcohol.”
“And particularly help me to be set free from alcohol.”
“Thank you Lord, for the gift of Your Son for us. Amen.”
“Thank you Lord, for the gift of Your Son for us. Amen.”
She turns to look at Tim, and she sees that the pain has left him, and so she wraps her arms around him, and he does the same to her.
:11:45 p.m.
Timothy and Christa spend the rest of the day talking to each other. For the first time since she has re-entered his life, they have acted as they did when they had first met. There were many times in the past two years that they had talked, and had fun; most of them in the past few months. None though were an equal to that first summer they knew each other, but this day is different. It is as if a barrier that has been between them has been taken away. They talk mostly about his problems he had from the time of his early teens. They also find time to talk about their feelings for each other, and even a little more about the Bible.
Before she leaves for the night she asks him if he has a Bible. He tells her that he does not, so when he walks her out to the car, she reaches in and hands him one that she always keeps in the car. He takes the black covered book and begins to read the New Testament, as she had asked him to after he returns to his room. As he reads it, some of the words he remembers from his childhood days in Salt Lake City, but most are new and exciting to him. He reads without stopping for three hours, but finally he does stop as a sudden tiredness comes over him. As he lies in bed he remembers the walk he had taken those many years before as an eight-year-old boy. He remembers his thoughts of who was the man they were talking and reading about at church, and he feels a joy rise inside him. He now knows the answer as his eyes slowly close in a relaxed anticipation of a goodnight sleep.
He finds himself walking through a forest that is dark and foreboding, but in front of him he sees the sun light splintering through the leaves of the thick timberland. He walks into the clearing, which is where the light hits the forest floor. Immediately he notices a brick building sitting on the opposite side of the glade. It appears to him to be a school of some type, and so he begins to walk toward it.
He then observes that he is not alone. Only a few yards away on either side of him are two people, and beyond them are yet others. They wave to him, and he returns the wave in kind; a smile is on everyone’s faces, as they all emerge from the dark woodland behind them.
As they all converge toward the entrance of the structure, a man walks out of the double doors.
His white robes are in contrast to his shoulder-length dark hair and beard.
`Is this Jesus?’ Tim thinks to himself.
“Yes,
Timothy, I am Jesus,” He replies. “Come, follow me.” He turns and enters the building through the open doors, and everyone follows Him inside.
The hall is long with many doors on both sides of it, but Jesus does not stop until He reaches the far side of the extensive corridor. He gestures for them to enter a room on the right side of the hallway. Within it are thirteen long tables with twelve chairs around each of them, except for the one at the front of the large room.
Tim discerns as he and the other adults walk towards the head of the room, that every nationality is most likely represented by the one hundred forty four children sitting in the chairs. He looks closely at the children most with happy looks upon their faces; others though look tired or sick.
One child that Timothy sees almost makes him cry; his dark brown skin clings to his skeletal form as a white child lets the weaker one lie against her.
Once all the adults are standing at the front they hear the voice of Jesus.
“Feed, my children.” Then one by one the children pass in front of Tim and the others. As they do, the men and women take a can from the table that is at the front of the room and hands it to each child as he goes by. At first Timothy believes he is helping to feed the hungry, but soon notes that most of the children look well fed and cared for. So he begins to wonder what he is doing.
“You are feeding them the knowledge of God and of Me,” Tim hears the voice of Jesus softly say to him.
Time passes quickly as the young man continues to hand out the cans of