food, and then finally there are no longer any cans or children. He turns to look at the others with him and finds that they too have gone. Timothy begins to look around, in search of the others, soon finding himself in the hall again.
He hears a clanging sound, like that of glass hitting glass, coming from behind a door on the left side of the corridor. He walks over to it and listens. He hears no other sound come from behind it, so he begins to open the door slowly, to try to discover the cause of the earlier sound.
It is dark within the room, but he senses that there is something there, even though he begins to feel a strange sensation of loneliness growing within him. The door closes behind him, and lights within the small chamber begin to brighten, as an awareness of total isolation erupts within him.
His eyes widen in desire as he sees the large glass before him. He perceives a clear brownish liquid within it, as a familiar harsh smell reaches his nostrils. He reaches out to the table at the center of the small room and encircles the glass with both of his hands. He begins to drink. This time though, something is different; this time the sadness does not slip away. Instead it begins to increase, and he starts drinking more and more in search of the relief. He feels a great depression start to overwhelm him when the contentment fails to come.
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK. He hears at the door behind him. He turns and looks at the door and then at the glass within his hands.
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK. Comes the sound once again. He places the glass down upon the table and walks back to the door. He begins to reach for the door but suddenly feels as if he is drowning within the ever deepening sorrow of loneliness. His hand stops inches from the door knob.
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK. He hears once again and he opens the door. Before him stands
Jesus, who immediately causes Tim to realize that he has sinned. He falls to the ground and touches the sandaled feet of the Man he had so many years ago wished to hear and know more about.
“Forgive me Jesus!” He says as the guilt envelops him, hardly aware of the two hands gently grasping his shoulders. The feeling of the hands upon him causes him to look up; and as he does so, he looks into the face of the Son of God.
Timothy looks into his eyes, which produces an eruption of joy and at the same time a peacefulness rushing through his entire body. He knows even without a word being spoken between them that he has been forgiven.
“Come...,” Jesus says as He turns and starts to walk away from the doorway and down the long hallway “Follow Me” and Tim does so.
:August 21
:8:21 a.m.
Timothy suddenly awakens from his dream, totally aware of all that has transpired. Quickly he reaches over to the phone beside his bed, and dials out the phone number as hastily as he can.
The voice of a groggy woman answers.
“Mrs. Vonholt, this is Timothy Browning. I know it’s kind of early, but could I please speak to
Christa?” he asks, ashamed of himself for not thinking.
“Oh, Tim, of course, just a minute,” she says in a slightly cheerful tone as she places the phone down. Several minutes pass before he hears another line pick up.
“Timothy, what is it?” he hears the voice of Christa ask, in a slightly irritated tone.
“I have just had the most fantastic dream....”
“What?” she almost yells, interrupting him. “You woke me up to tell me you had a dream?”
“Yes, but....”
“Now look here, Tim...”
“Christa, wait!” The tone in his voice causes her to realize something is important in what he has to say.
“Timothy... I’ll be right over.” She says as she immediately hangs up the phone. Leaving the kitchen, she returns to her room shutting the door behind her.
“Christa?” comes the voice of her mother at the door.
“Yeah, Mom?” She replies, quickly dressing.
“What’s going on with Tim? What’s this about a dream?”
“Mom, were you listening?”
“Well, I was just starting to hang up the phone when I heard the two of you arguing, but why over a dream; and, for that matter. Why is he calling so early in the morning?”
Christa opens her bedroom door just as she finishes pulling her shirt down, over her still sleep-strewn hair. “Mom, don’t worry about it, okay? It’s no big deal.”
“Then why are you going over to his house?”
“I just have to. For some reason I just feel it might have something to do with Timothy’s asking
Jesus into his life last night.” She runs out the side door of the house that opens onto the driveway beside the house. She gets into her mother’s car and within a few minutes is pulling out onto the street.
As she drives down the streets heading towards Tim’s house, she begins to think back on something her grandmother Hill told her once.
She was about ten then, a small, thin girl. She was playing ball with her two brothers when she saw her two older sisters talking to a young man that had driven over to their grandmother’s house. Which is located on a side street off Getwell Road.
“Christa!” She heard the familiar voice of her grandmother. She threw the ball she had just caught to her older brother and then ran into the house.
“Yes, Grandma?” she almost shouted as she ran into the house.
“Come over here and sit by me,” her grandmother asked from the couch. Christa quickly went over to her and almost jumped onto the sofa.
“Honey, I want to talk to you a minute,” the elderly woman began to speak, her voice age-worn.
The young girl looked intently upon the year's drained face of someone she loved very much.
“You know how I have read to y’all, the Bible and such?”
“Yes, grandma.”
“Well, I feel it is important that I talk to ya, about what happened to me at church this mornin’.”
She places her arms around Christa’s little form and brings the child close to her. Christa places her head upon her grandma’s chest.
“I was sittin’ there singin’ the hymns when suddenly I heard this voice inside of me. It said, `Tell
the little ones about me,’ and so that is what I’m doin’.
“I’ve already talked with your sisters and Joey, and now I’m talkin’ to you, and then I’m going to talk with your little brother later; but first let’s just you and me talk a little, all right?”
“Okay, but who’s this voice?” Christa asks as she looks up into her grandmother's face.
“Well, it was Jesus’ voice I heard. You see He is the Son of God, like I told ya when I read to you. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be here today. Ya see when I was about your age, I became real sick. I had Polio, and it was so bad that I couldn’t move anything, but my head. I was startin’ to have problems breathin’ when the doctor told my Momma that I might die. She got real angry at the doctor, and threw him out of the house. It made me laugh even though it was hard to do so.
“Then she came over by my bedside and told me that I was goin’ to be all right. She knelt down then beside my bed and she began to pray. I don’t know how long she did this, but when my
Daddy came home from the fields, he couldn’t get her to move. I don’t remember too much after that, but I do remember that it was about a week after Momma threw out the doctor, that he came back. He was totally shocked when he saw me sittin’ up in bed, and eatin’ mush with my own hands.”
“You mean Jesus healed you like the blind man in the Bible?”
“Yes, child, he did,” her grandmother said with pride and joy.
“But I thought He lived a long time ago,” Christa said.
“He did, but what’s important is that He’s alive right now.”
“You mean right this minute? But how?”
“Because He’s God, but He was also a man. He came into this world a long time ago so He could learn what we as human bein’s feel, and how we think.
So that when the time came for Him to die for our sins, He could do so to make it possible for us to stand before His Father once again without shame. For every person on this earth stands useless before God, until they ask Jesus into their lives. Once that happens, then God can use them to help others to find His Son.”
Tears come to the young woman’s eyes as she turns down the street that Timothy lives on. Still she continues to remember the day she asked Jesus into her life. She thinks of her grandmother who died only a week later; but at the same time she is happy, for Christa knows that her grandmother is with God and Jesus, in heaven. So she wipes the tears from her eyes as she stops the car in the driveway.
She gets out of the car, after looking into the rear view mirror to make sure no evidence of the tears remain. She walks to the back door, located on the arbor-covered patio of the brick house and then knocks. Within a few moments the door opens quickly to reveal the rough, but handsome, face of the man she feels she has fallen in love with.
“What is it, Tim? What dream?” she asks as he steps outside to join her. He explains every thing that happened to him as she listens quietly.
He sits down in the swinging chair that is suspended from the arbor. Pain is written in the creases in his forehead as he recalls the part of the dream that dealt with his sin of alcoholism.
“That’s fantastic!” she comments as he finishes. She walks over to the chair and then sits beside
Timothy. She looks at his fiery hair in the early morning light and then into his watery hazel eyes.
“Tim, I love you, and we need each other,” she says as she