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Stories from the Verse
Con Verse Lea
Chapter 59: Hastings 247
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Beam 145
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.”
God had told her that He had already given her the words she needed to say, and she realized that she had memorized thousands of words from the Bible, but these seemed to be the best place to start. She continued.
“A man named John wrote those words for us, now thousands of years ago. He was writing about a man named Jesus, of Whom he says, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten child of the Father, full of grace and truth. The God who created all of us had become one of us, lived among us, taught us, and then delivered us.”
She paused. What should she say next?
“But to understand how He delivered us, you have to understand what had happened to us. We all had gone astray, failing to follow the ways God intended for us. We lived selfish lives, putting ourselves above anyone else, including God, when God had intended us to learn to love Him and each other. We failed to be what God created us to be. Like a clay pot or plate that fails to meet our expectations, we deserved to be destroyed, smashed, discarded.
“Jesus came not only to teach us how to live and love, but to deliver us from that destruction, to make it so that we would not be destroyed. He did this by dying in our place, and then returning to life, to open the way for us to live after we have died. All who trust Him can enter into this life, now and forever. The starting point is to pray, to ask Jesus to deliver you, and after that to follow where He leads you.”
At that moment she was interrupted by the arrival of a robot about the size of a pickup truck. It walked into the campsite on its six legs, and stopped just before reaching her position. “See what that is,” she said to Tommy, who scampered over and looked in the bed. There was a moment as she opened a carton.
“It’s Bibles!” she exclaimed. “There are several cartons of them. What do you want me to do with them?”
It didn’t take Lauren long to answer that. “Give them out. People,” she said, “this message I have given you is from a book that God gave us, and now God has given us copies of the book, so that you can read the message yourself. Please, everyone, take one, read it. Bring questions to me, and I will try to answer them.”
That was impressive, she thought. God not only gave her the words, He gave her the Word, and at the right time. Tommy was joined by the leaders, handing out the thick paperbacks to everyone.
Lauren sat and watched for a while, and soon the people were all reading their books. Tommy came over to her.
“I think,” she said, “this one is for you.”
It couldn’t more obviously be for her. It was a fine thin Bible with a leatherette cover on which was embossed her name, Lauren Elizabeth Meyers Hastings.
“Um--thank you?”
“I don’t know. I prayed. I said that you needed Bibles. Then my computer turned on, and offered to let me order a Bible, so I pushed a button and it shut off. That’s really all I did. I don’t know how this happened.”
Lauren nodded. Obviously Tommy did know how it happened. God had worked another miracle; this time it was an answer to Tommy’s prayer. There was probably nothing else to say about that.
At least, not at the moment.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with twenty other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #470: Verser Turnings. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
