Irene saw the young version of herself as a wandering, needy, longing, searching person who only grew and matured into more of the same. She was reminded of conversations she'd had in elementary and junior high school with other girls who wanted only to talk about boys. And yet young Irene was already asking questions about life and truth and the big picture.
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Irene had not even remembered those days, let alone wondered what it was she had really been after. But now it was so clear. She was seeking God. Seeking love. Seeking belonging. Purpose. A sense of family. Boyfriends had not brought that. Moving had only exacerbated her problems. It was as if she'd had no choice but to fall for the handsome jock and would-be pilot who had fallen for her.
But what she was really looking for in a man she could find only in God. She had given the marriage and the kids everything she had, but she was still empty, still searching, still facing a void in her life nothing else could fill.
Her eyes downcast yet her body feeling the warmth of the fire, Irene cringed at the wood, hay, and stubble of wasted hours as they burned to ashes. She hadn't known; that was all. Her sin had been dealt with, but how she wished she could have back every day she had spent as a child of God. What she would do with every minute now!
Her time reading, studying, working out, learning, discussing important matters, thinking and caring and praying about people--these were clearly lauded. And all that time was not necessarily Christian or even religious. Wasted were the times she devoted to herself alone and not for rest and recuperation or recharging her batteries. Rather it was the trivia that had filled much of her life that she now bitterly regretted.
And yet what was this? Not much flame had been spent consuming her wasted time. She lifted her face to
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see a rainbow of colors emitted from the flame. There, before Irene's eyes, came scenes of a woman she barely recognized praying, reading her Bible, studying, volunteering at a food bank, sending clothes to charity, teaching Sunday school, attending church, going to Bible studies, praying to receive Christ, being discipled by Jackie, and finally, leading Raymie to Jesus.
The flame disappeared, and in its place lay the ash from the wasted days and gold and silver and precious stones from her good works. She knew they had contributed nothing to her salvation but were rather spawned by her gratitude for the gift she had received. But now Jesus stood before His throne, arms outstretched, beckoning her once again.
As the masses stood cheering and clapping, Irene felt loved and affirmed and whole.
Jesus gathered her into His arms and said, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Yours are the Crown of Righteousness for loving My appearing and the Crown of Rejoicing for having won your own son's soul for My Kingdom."
Buck was steered back toward the stairs by a flight attendant with "Hattie" on her nameplate. She slipped past him and took the steps two at a time.
Halfway up himself, Buck turned and surveyed the scene. It was the middle of the night, for heaven's sake, and as the cabin lights came on, he shuddered. All over
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the plane, people were holding up clothes and gasping or shrieking that someone was missing.
Buck felt the same terror he had endured awaiting his death in Israel a little more than a year before. What was he going to tell Harold's wife? "You're not the only one"? "Lots of people left their clothes in their seats"?
As he hurried back to his seat, he searched his memory banks for anything he had ever read, seen, or heard of any technology that could remove people from their clothes and make them disappear from a decidedly secure environment. Whoever did this, were they on the plane? Would they make demands? Would another wave of disappearances be next? Would he become a victim? Where would he find himself?
Raymie's time before the judgment and the throne was brief, befitting his short time as a believer. But he found it nonetheless fascinating and thrilling to be welcomed to eternity by Jesus Himself. And he had to agree with his mother that seeing a replay of his own life from God's point of view would change forever how he saw the person he had once been.
How fun it was to see Jeremy and his parents, Jackie and her husband, and especially Pastor Billings get their rewards. The pastor was especially lauded for his foresight in leaving behind a recording to be discovered by those left, explaining what had happened and telling them how they could still come to Christ.
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Fear seemed to pervade the cabin as Buck climbed over his sleeping seatmate again. He stood and leaned over the back of the chair ahead of him. "Apparently many people are missing," he told the old woman.
She looked as puzzled and fearful as Buck felt.
The first officer came rushing from the cockpit, hatless and flushed. He hurried down one aisle and up the other, gaze darting from seat to seat.
Buck's seatmate roused, drooling, when an attendant asked if anyone in his party was missing. "Missing? No. And there's nobody in this party but me." He curled up again and went back to sleep.
William Franklin Graham had likely been the best-known Christian of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. From the moment he became a true believer, Billy Graham had been a devout follower of Christ, earnest in sharing his faith with others.
Graham's tent crusade in Los Angeles in September of 1949 was intended to last three weeks, but the preaching of the dynamic young evangelist was so compelling that it continued for eight weeks and saw several famous and high-profile people come to faith.
From there Billy Graham began to conduct mass evangelistic campaigns throughout the United States and Europe, filling the largest of the great arenas and stadiums of the world. He was soon the confidant of heads
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of state around the globe, never hesitating to share his personal faith with anyone. In whatever media situation he found himself, whether on a TV talk show or even a variety show, Mr. Graham found a way to share the gospel.
Throughout his life and ministry, Mr. Graham faced opposition, often from within the church, and also suffered myriad physical disabilities, including Parkinson's disease, fluid on the brain, pneumonia, broken hips, and prostate cancer. Through it all he never compromised his message that Jesus was the only avenue to God and that men and women needed to repent of their sins and be saved.
Irene particularly enjoyed seeing episodes in Mr. Graham's life that reflected his passion for Christ. She "watched" as Mr. Graham lay suffering at home with a broken hip and his doctor arrived to give him an injection, directly into the affected bone. He told Mr. Graham, "This is going to be extremely painful. You need to imagine yourself anywhere else you'd rather be than right here, right now--some Shangri-la."
Irene assumed Billy Graham would transport himself to heaven in his mind, but he said, "No, there's nowhere I'd rather be than right here, right now."
"How can you say that?" his doctor said. "I told you, this is really going to hurt."
"Because I believe I am in the center of God's will, and if this is where He wants me, this is where I want to be."
Billy Graham's works left a store of precious metals and stones from which Jesus formed the Crown of Life
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for all the trials he had suffered, the Crown of Glory for having taught and discipled so many over the decades, the Crown of Righteousness for his frequent emphasis on the appearing of Christ, and of course the Crown of Rejoicing for winning more souls to the Kingdom than anyone else who had ever lived.
As Mr. Graham left the throne there approached a small band of men and women, and as their story began to unfold, Irene glanced at Raymie. Something told her that to him this would prove the most captivating of all.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
First Officer Christopher Smith had been gone only a few minutes when Rayford heard his key in the cockpit door and it banged open.
Chris flopped into his chair, ignored the seat belt, and sat with his head in his hands. "What's going
on, Ray? We got us more than a hundred people gone with nothing but their clothes left behind."
"That many?"
"Yeah, like it'd be better if it was only fifty? How the heck are we gonna explain landing with even one less passenger than we took off with?"
Rayford shook his head, still working the radio, trying to reach someone--anyone--in Greenland or an island in the middle of nowhere. But they were too remote even to pick up a radio station for news. Finally he connected
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with a French jet several miles away heading the other direction. He nodded to Christopher to put on his own earphones.
"You got enough fuel to get back to the States?" the pilot asked Rayford.
Christopher nodded and whispered, "We're halfway."
"I could turn around and make Kennedy," Rayford said.
"Forget it. Nothing's landing in New York. Two runways still open in Chicago. That's where we're going."
"We came from Chicago," Rayford said. "Can't I put down at Heathrow?"
"Negative. Closed."
"Paris?"
"Man, you've got to get back where you came from. We left Orly an hour ago, got the word what's happening, and were told to go straight to ORD."
"What is happening?"
"If you don't know, why'd you put out the Mayday?"
"I've got a situation here I don't even want to talk about," Rayford said.
"Hey, friend, it's all over the world, you know?"
"Negative, I don't know," Rayford said. "Talk to me."
"You're missing passengers, right?"
"Roger. More than a hundred."
"Whoa! We lost nearly fifty."
"What do you make of it? What are you going to tell your passengers?"
"No clue. You?"
"The truth," Rayford said.
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"Can't hurt now. But what's the truth? What do we know?"
"Not a blessed thing."
"Good choice of words, Pan Heavy. You know what some people are saying?"
"Roger," Rayford said. "Better it's people gone to heaven than some world power doing this with fancy rays."
Why twenty people approached the altar and throne together, Raymie had no idea, until their unique story began to unfold on the panoramic screen in the theater of his mind. It was as if he had been carried to another century, living and breathing and experiencing the sights, sounds, temperatures, hopes, and fears of people from another generation.
It soon became apparent to Raymie that these twenty people included five missionary men and their families at the time the men had been martyred. He--and he knew this was true of everyone else in God's house-- followed Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Pete Fleming, Ed McCully, and Roger Youderian to the jungles of Ecuador in January of 1956 as their small plane landed on a tiny strip of land in the midst of a violent tribe, the Waodani.
They were all aware of the danger. Jim Elliot told his wife, Elisabeth, that if it was what God wanted, he was ready to die for the salvation of the Waodani.
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The initial approaches seemed favorable. The missionaries were able to coax one of the first Waodani they met into their plane, and Nate flew him over his tribespeople, who waved and smiled as he waved down at them. When they landed, the man jumped out, clapping and smiling.
But then Nate's plane was discovered on the beach, stripped of its fabric. There was no sign of anyone, neither the men nor the Waodani. When the missionaries were reported missing to the American military, the news spread quickly around the world.
After a search, the bodies of the missionaries were found in the river, speared to death. A Life magazine photographer arrived just as the last body was being buried by the overland search party, and the massacre became the most celebrated missionary story of the 1900s.
Now as the five missionaries knelt before the altar and were then welcomed to the throne, Jesus praised them and their families, who had all continued in Christian work despite their grief and loss. The outcry from around the world had given voice to some who thought the men had died in vain. Yet their deaths created the biggest influx of new missionaries the world had ever seen.
After the missionaries' deaths, members of their families had moved in among the Waodani, and the children played with the children of the men who had killed their fathers.
First one, then another of the six murderers became
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believers in Christ. "Jesus' blood has washed my heart clean," one told Rachel, Nate's sister. "My heart is healed." The other five killers soon believed.
The five missionaries had not died in vain. Countless thousands who heard their story came to faith and dedicated their lives to mission work. God's house resounded as billions celebrated the awarding of martyrs' crowns to the missionaries.
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CHAPTER THIRTY
Christopher Smith saw himself as a good 'ol boy, and that was the way he liked to portray himself to colleagues and passengers. He was no Rayford Steele; he knew that. Steele seemed to have his whole life together. Wonderful wife, beautiful family.
Chris knew people saw him in much the same way, even though he frankly didn't think his wife was much to look at, and he didn't look the part either. He was slight and some might have said weak-looking. He didn't have that great bearing that the six-foot-four and darkly handsome Steele had. Chris got his share of action though, and that was the problem. That was his ugly secret. Part of it, anyway.
He'd grown up a nerd, had never been an athlete, not even close to being popular. So he buried himself in academics, had a scientific bent, and decided the shortest
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route to the kind of income and respect he wanted was in aviation. How could Chris know that with accomplishment and a uniform would come opportunities he had only dreamed of?
He had married another academic type and at least knew enough to never tell her that he assumed her romantic prospects were as limited as his. She had never been described as cute by anyone but her parents, and Christopher couldn't imagine even they had called her that since she was about nine years old. Her name fit. Jane. Plain Jane.
What made Chris feel so bad, though, was that despite her virtual invisibility and a shrill voice that could make him cringe even after sixteen years of marriage, Jane had actually turned out to be a good friend and a good wife. She was efficient and hardworking, and she seemed to care for and about him, even though he had quit trying years ago.
He had simply wanted more than he was capable of achieving, and it didn't help to have other than a trophy wife. Chris knew he had no business even dreaming of one, but once he found that certain flight attendants and even some lonely passengers were impressed by his station and uniform, his wedding vows had flown out the window.
A girl in every port? Sure. Any who really cared for him? Only one, from what he could tell, and he had treated her as shabbily as he had Jane. Chris had given up hoping that one of the attractive ones would really take to him for more than a salve to her own loneliness
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or the occasional gift he brought from faraway destinations. Those secret liaisons left him miserable and depressed, but not enough to get him to quit. In fact, he had made a huge mistake with the only one he thought really cared. He had married her too. Under a different name. Chris was living a double life.
What should have been complicated he had found easy. His second wife thought he was an international cargo pilot, gone for days and weeks at a time.
Since his sons had become teenagers and developed minds of their own, Chris's trysts--private and shortlived and with no futures--seemed all he was really living for. The bigamy was merely for convenience, and that hadn't amounted to much.
Now as he sat stunned in the cockpit with some sort of Twilight Zone cosmic phenomenon having affected not just Steele's and his plane but also apparently all planes and every country of the world, Christopher Smith was overcome with fear and dread. Overhearing his
captain discuss the possible religious aspects of all this didn't do much for him either. All that did was remind him of his sons.
Those boys had once been the joy of his life. Then in junior high school they had become troublemakers, both of them. He was constantly being called in to answer for them or to be informed of their latest mischief. On the one hand he liked that they had their own ideas, but he didn't like what was happening to their grades and their reputations. His reputation.
But what had happened with them lately was worse.
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They had found religion. One of their friends invited them to some sort of church activity, and while they got into trouble there too, they all of a sudden decided they wanted to go to summer camp the year before with that same bunch. That was all right with Chris and Jane, even though it cost them a little money. Maybe the kids would learn something. Maybe they wouldn't. But at least they would be out from underfoot for a couple of weeks.
Well, the worst happened. They came back Holy Rollers. There was no other way to put it. Now they were churchgoers, and not only that, they thought everybody else in the world--Chris and Jane included-- ought to go too. But Chris knew better. Thankfully, so did his wife. They'd both had enough religion as kids, and the best they could hope for was that the boys would grow out of this.
But they didn't. It had been nine months now, and the boys were worse than ever. Carried their Bibles to public school, no less. Became known as church kids. Their grades perked back up. That was all right. But the cost.