him, and he replied affirmatively, puzzled even more by these strange events as his name was called.
“Do you wish to change your name to avoid any legal action or for any monetary reasons?” The judge then asked, as total surprise entered Tim’s eyes. He looked at the beautifully rounded face of his spouse, suddenly aware of what was happening.
“No sir.” Timothy replied. “I’m just tired of not having a middle name.”
“Then let it here be known that `Timothy Browning,’ shall now be known as `Timothy Micah
Browning,’ from this day forward.”
The memory fades as the now Timothy Micah Browning is more resolute than ever to show that he has become a full Christian, with the sandals of a man prepared with the gospel of peace.
He parks his Pathfinder in one of the few parking places left in the packed parking lot of the huge Fundamental Church. He is dressed in his best suit, and has his pocket full of the fliers he has made about his book he has written, and how it can be obtained.
He begins placing the fliers on all the cars in his reach. Happily he smiles at a few of the last-minute church goers when suddenly a man stands in front of him.
“May I ask what you are doing?” the individual asks in an angry tone.
“I’m just placing these fliers on the cars so the people can have a chance to get the book that I wrote.” Timothy shows the man the fliers and one of the books he has brought with him for just such an event.
“Do you have the permission of the church to do this?” the person demands, his tone even worse than before.
“Well, not really,” Tim states.
“Then get the hell out of here!” the man shouts at him, which causes Timothy to look in shock at the man.
“But it’s Christian material. I mean I’m not doing anything wrong.”
“I don’t give a damn!!! Just get out of here!!” the man shouts once again, in a vicious way.
“But.....”
“Leave now!!!!”
So Tim turns around as the anger of being treated so badly by this man begins to boil within him.
He walks back to his car, followed by the man that yelled at him. He enters his truck, and backs out of the parking place, rolling his window down as he does so and shouting out.
“I feel sorry for you when you have to stand before God!”
“Get the Hell out of here!!!!!” the man replies with pure hatred in his face, and Timothy leaves.
“Within minutes he is home. Christa walks up to him as he enters the house. Immediately she sees the anguish written on his face.
“What happened?” she asks as she wraps her arms around him.
“They kicked me out of the parking lot,” he replies as he begins to cry, shattered by the events of the past few months.
THE FLICKERING
:Memphis
:1989, February 14
:7:38 p.m.
`I smelled it on his breath again,’ Christa thinks to herself as she cleans up the kitchen from the birthday party she has just given her husband.
`There must be something I can do? I can’t believe no one showed any interest in his dreams.
They’re so vivid and accurate in their detail, as well as scripturally sound.’
She looks into the living room and sees Tim sitting in one of the two recliners. She sees the sadness written all over his face and the pain within his eyes.
`Ten letters of rejection from nine publishers in the past year and a half. There must be something I can do.’
“Timothy, you look tired. Why don’t you go to bed?” she suggests again looking into the room where he sits watching the television. He looks up at her and stands leaving the room but not a word leaving his lips. She watches him as he walks away, again noticing his pot belly that was not there two years ago.
“Lord, God almighty, please hear my prayer,” She begins to pray as she sits down at the kitchen table. She wipes a tear from her cheek and then continues.
“Lord, please help Tim. I love him so much, and I know you love him too. He’s been drinking again, and it’s ripping this family apart. He yells at the boys, usually for no reason, and he makes them cry. Lord, I know he’s still a Christian, but how much longer until he falls from your arms?
I’ll stay with him, no matter what happens, Lord, but please don’t let what those people did to him kill him spiritually. Please, Lord, please help him.” As tears begin to flow quickly down her cheek she feels a small hand rest upon her shoulder. She looks up to see a blonde haired boy standing beside her.
“What’s wrong, Momma?” James asks her.
“Your Daddy’s hurting right now. I think he feels that he’s let God down in some way, and it’s causing him to act strange.” She is unable to keep it to herself any longer. The young boy wraps his arms around her, and she places her hand upon one of them.
“Why doesn’t he go to the church and talk to someone about it?”
“He did in a way, but they didn’t pay any attention.”
“Then why doesn’t he try another church?” Christa looks at her sons blue eyes. Quickly she stands up, and walks into her husband’s office, turning on his computer.
:March 3
:1:30 p.m.
DING DONG. The sound of the doorbell comes to Christa’s ears, and within a few moments she is opening the door. Standing there is a tall, thin black man, dressed in a dark blue suit.
“Mrs. Browning?”
“Yes, and you must be Mr. Washington.”
“Yes, but please, call me Gerald.”
“All right. Please come in.” She gestures him into the great room. They walk in and Christa sits in one of the recliners, while Gerald sits on the couch, on the opposite side of the room.
“I’m glad you called Gerald. You’re the only person from all the churches in Memphis that answered my letter.”
“I had a feeling that may be the case, Mrs.....”
“Please, call me Christa.”
“What a charming name,” he says as he continues. “When your letter came before the board of deacons, all of my fellows almost laughed it right into the garbage can, but I asked to have it, and they gave it to me.”
“Then you’re not a pastor?”
“No, I’m one of the deacons. You see the letter came to the pastor, but he did not know how to handle it, and so he presented it to the deacons, as I told you. When I read it I remembered the words of Martin Luther King, from his last speech. It’s a speech I cherish deeply, as do all blacks, if I may say, but with one major difference. They do not use those words as I believe he had meant for them to be used. I feel that he was saying that we as people of all colors shall reach the Promised Land together, but instead they twisted it to say that we shall see the promise, by over taking the whites.
“But that is not what I wanted to say to you, Christa. What I want to key in on is that Mr. King said he had a dream, and that’s what has brought me here today. For I believe in the verses found in Acts that say; `and it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams’
“So that is why I have come here today. I believe your husband is having these dreams, and I believe they are sent to him from Jesus.”
“Thank you, Gerald. I was starting to think I was wrong about his dreams also. I remember those verses, but I too was starting to lose hope.”
“That’s all right Christa. There are those times when we think the Lord has forgotten us, but we always come around, don’t we?” he asks her with a smile on his face.
“Yes, you’re right, but how can we help my husband?” she asks as her face reflects her concern to Gerald.
“What’s been happening?”
“Well, you see, Timothy was an alcoholic before he accepted Jesus, but once he had, he stopped drinking `cold turkey.’ But rece
ntly I’ve smelt liquor on his breath, and it scares me.”
“I see, well, first of all let’s pray, and then you can give me a copy of the book he wrote so I can look at it.”
:11:57 p.m.
Lightning flashes as the sound of the thunder explodes in Tim’s ears. He looks about him and sees the ruins of several buildings. Around him he observes people running about, their clothes torn and tattered.
Suddenly he sees a dark form upon a horse riding straight toward him, with a long lance in his hand. The rider lowers the point of the lance as his steed’s pace quickens. In less than a second
Timothy realizes his life is in danger and he leaps to one side of the charging rider.
Quickly he stands from where he landed and looks around. Before him, down the remains of a city’s street he preserves a light, and within the light he feels the presents of God. Hastily he begins to move towards the light as the joy of being with God begins to fill him. As he starts to run forward, he begins to see a faint image of Jesus standing in the light.
Then without warning he falls; and as he lands he feels as if he is in a field with the weeds brushing against him. He sits up and looks into the air where the light had been only seconds before, but now there is nothing, only a darkening gray sky. He looks around him and sees others about. Most he has never seen before, but others he does recognize. They are actors and politicians, for the most part; and others are people who call themselves Christians, whom he has seen on television once or twice.
He looks at the hill he has fallen onto and is shocked to notice that the weeds are not that at all.
Instead they look like