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Gabriel’s trumpet has sounded.
In a flash, the wicked have been swept away and only the saved are left. All aches and pains and worries are gone, but this isn’t what those left were expecting. It’s not what they had been taught.
One by one, the saved are finding themselves drawn together; in praise, in worship, in Scripture. The children aren’t children and the elderly are no longer old. There is no more sorrow and no more death.
What comes next?
And where is the Lord?
Sample passage
Clarity woke up suddenly, thinking she had heard some incredibly loud sound, but sitting up in bed with her heart pounding she couldn’t remember what it was. A car back-firing? The city’s tornado sirens? She had no idea and, if a siren, it wasn’t blaring now.
Looking to her left, she was surprised to see that the bed was empty. Had he heard the sound, too, and jumped up to go see what made it? Had someone broken in? Had something fallen somewhere in the house?
It was only then that it registered on her just how light it was outside. As she rubbed her eyes, she mumbled, “Just how late is it?” She glanced over at the clock but it’s face was dark. No numbers, nothing. She glanced up and saw that the ceiling fan wasn’t turning.
“No power,” she muttered. As she got out of bed and put on her summer robe, she assumed then that the noise she had heard was probably what had knocked out the power. Maybe someone had plowed into that transformer on 44th. That seemed the most likely, for there were frequent crashes and fender-benders on that street. How long had it been since that motorcyclist had been hit and killed? Two months? Three?
Stretching, she then walked out into the house calling, “Tim? Are you up?
“Of course he’s up,” she chuckled to herself. “If he weren’t up, he’d still be in bed.” She knew that wasn’t true, for some nights he couldn’t sleep and went out to the living room to watch TV or read and then fell asleep in the recliner.
But no voice answered in return.
Clarity glanced into the guest bedroom as she passed it, for he sometimes slept there rather than come back to bed and wake her up, but no one was there. The home office was equally bereft of occupants. “Tim?” she called again, seeing that no one was in the living room. Neither did any sounds come from the kitchen. The back deck, pleasant at that time of year, was empty as well.
It was coming on to summer, so maybe—she reasoned—he took off early for his daily walk. When she glanced out the window and saw that both cars were there, she nodded, thinking that had to be it. He just went out on his morning walk and would be back at any time. He had done that before. And while he was usually really careful about closing the front door as he left, she was betting the wind had jerked it out of his hand and that was the loud noise she had heard.
Stretching again, yawning, she went to the fridge and pulled out the milk for her cereal. Even knowing that the power was out, she was still surprised when the fridge was dark inside. She laughed at herself for that.
As she sat down to eat her bowl of frosted wheats, she noticed that Tim’s phone was still on the counter. She frowned, but not really with worry. She was always reminding him to take his phone with him when he went on walks. He had never, in all their years of marriage, needed to call her from a walk, but she always wanted him to be able to, should he need to. The truth was, she admitted, that she had always wanted the ability to call him, though that need had rarely arisen. (And the times of “need” were a loose definition of the word.)
“Oh well,” she said with a chuckle and a shrug. He would be back in a bit and she’d give him a light-hearted scolding and he would say, “I’m fine, see?” and they would both laugh at her worry.
Breakfast came and went, though, without his return. She rinsed her dishes and then headed to the bathroom. She left the bathroom door open so she wouldn’t have to shower in the dark, but she still hastened through the ablutions for some reason. “Who am I expecting to walk in?” she asked aloud, with a chuckle. The kids would all be at work by that time, so she need not worry about one of them dropping in—not that they had ever dropped in that early anyway, even when they had lived in town.
When she was dressed and he still hadn’t come back, though, she thought she ought to go look for him. Surely nothing had happened, but if something had, he had no way of calling her. She was betting he had been outside when whoever had plowed into the transformer and, like a little boy, was over there watching the police and firemen and people from the electric company take care of the business at hand.
“But there haven’t been any sirens,” she mumbled aloud. In fact, she thought to herself, I’m not hearing any traffic. The house had new, double-pane windows—put in just last year—and while they had cut down on outside noises considerably, they hadn’t eliminated them entirely. She wasn’t hearing anything, though. Normally, there would be the sound of at least one hopped-up ride on the main street a block away, or just the dull hum of traffic in general.
And it was Tuesday. Shouldn’t she have heard the trash trucks by now? And all the dogs barking at the trash trucks? Even her wonderful windows couldn’t completely eliminate that!
She decided, then, to make up the bed and, if Tim weren’t back by the time she was done, she’d go for a walk herself. She’d head for that transformer first, she determined with a smile, sure to catch all the grown-up men of the neighborhood watching the heavy machinery like little boys. Some of them with their little boys in hand.
She picked up Tim’s pillow and, beneath it, there lay his wedding ring. She picked it up curiously, noting within herself that there were no thoughts of panic or approbation. Just curiosity.
With the ring still in her hand, she pulled back the covers so as to straighten the sheets—how Tim could wrinkle the sheets for a guy who rarely ever moved once asleep!—and there were his boxer shorts. She started to reach for them, then realized they were right where they would be if—
And the ring. He often slept on his stomach—as the shorts would indicate—with his hands under the pillow. The ring was right where it would be if—
Slipping the ring into her pocket and her feet into her shoes, she rushed from the bedroom and out of the front door. Down the steps and into the yard, she looked around and …
Didn’t see another soul.
No one. That the neighborhood would contain empty front yards was not strange, for hadn’t she and Tim both remarked over the years that people just didn’t hang out on front porches anymore? Some even had furniture on their front porches—nice little matching chair and table sets—but she could count on one hand the number of times she had seen people sitting thusly. People came out of their houses just long enough to get to their cars, or go from their cars to their houses. If no one were mowing, no one was in their yard. There were lots of times when she had gone out herself and seen no one else.
But there were no cars moving along 44th, one of the city’s major arteries. And there were no sounds of cars in the distance, or airplanes. Or much of anything else. No machinery at all. No air conditioners spinning. The only sounds she was hearing were that of a few birds, maybe one distant dog barking, and the sound of a sprinkler three houses to the north.
She looked at the sprinkler and watched it spin for a moment. Just a simple, old-fashioned sprinkler on a hose. But it, the wind, the birds and that one dog were the only sounds she could hear. Now there were two dogs barking, but neither seemed frantic. Just the normal greeting of dog to dog.
And yet, she wasn’t afraid. She thought maybe she should be, but she wasn’t.
“Tim!” she called loudly, and then again.
There was no answer, from anyone.
“Maybe I’m dead,” she said, in a normal, casual voice. The thought didn’t scare her.
She was curious, though. What was going on? Where was everyone?
“Surely I’m still asleep,” she said with a laugh. “Yeah. I have to be.” She took a few steps out onto the grass of her front lawn and said, “Yeah. That’s got to be it. Doesn’t feel like a dream—feels too real—but it’s got to be a dream. If this were real, there would be stickers,” she added with a chuckle.
“What else could it be?”
She dropped to her knees and began to pray, but didn’t know what to pray for. She realized, though, that she knew what had happened and where Tim was. With perfect clarity of mind, Clarity still found herself weeping, wondering what she could have done differently, while still praising God for his sovereignty.
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