Such a Violent Storm

Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. (Jonah 1:4, NIV)

There's a storm coming.

In me.

Unlike the hurricane raging this way, I didn't have any warning. None at least that I wanted to admit. None I could deny. The first wind I heard, like a train soon to derail was tonight while watching John Q.

"I'll be with you always, Son," Denzel said, then fisted the boy's chest. "Right here."In that moment, in that second, I saw--felt--a fresh image of Jesus. Of sacrifice. Of love. Something else stabbed my mind. A memory. The intangible smell, the horrid funk of fear. Of death.

There it was again. That squeezing. I closed my eyes. It wasn't like I could see my toes anyway. My belly had devoured them months ago. Even with the bedrest, the stillness, the praying, it kept coming, that squeezing. My husband's breath fell in heavy layers on my necks, sheets of overtime breath. His deepest sleep in a long time, I knew. A sweaty little boy was beside him, finally sleeping after being scared out of bed by what he'd felt. That one is sensitive. Even more than me. He'd smelled something, he said. Now, I smelled it too.

In the spirit.

Something in the air. Something foul.

They're going to die, the thing whispered, curving around me. Around them. You cannot have them.

It had scared me the first time. For all my charasmatic memories, I'd always been brighter than darkness. My Bible verses had always swept such scents, such hauntings away. But this time, these babies, two instead of one--sons of thunder, men of God--this time was different. I'd long since stopped talking to the pitch, rebuking, wailing. Save that for televangelists. It's exhausting. I turned to Him instead. I am afraid. Please. Help me.

Trust me.

The pressure flared to pain. I rocked slowly, flipping onto my side. My husband's breath paused, then whistled low. I could wake him, get someone from church over to watch the kids...but he'd miss work. Miss money. I had to be strong. Fight.

"You okay?"

It's hurting now. Bad. "No."

We stare at each other then, in the darkness. Even in the dark, I can see his face tighten, his forehead pinch. It's been this way other times. They'll give me a shot. It'll take enough of the night to leave him asleep at the wheel tomorrow. He'll come, I know that, but he doesn't have to. Not tonight. I shuffle up, grab the keys.

"I'll call you when I get there."

When I called, it wasn't the usual news. The shot didn't work. Nothing did. The funk of fear grew, multiplied. The thing mocked me behind the doctor's eyes. "You'll have to stay here until you deliver."

I stare at him, counting the days, weeks, months. Impossible. "I can't stay. I have other children. My husband he has to work."He rolls his eyes, brown like mine. I know what he is thinking, but he's wrong. We have been working, always. I kept three jobs before and even now still tutor on the side, but he has been working, doing things no one should do. Things his mind is too sharp for. But they don't want his mind. They want his back. This man though, who kills babies as well as saves them, would know nothing about that. About us. We are the faceless poor. The nameless nothing.

A nurse comes. The worship channel is playing. I cannot take preaching right now. Just this. The music. I can't even take the lyrics. Everyone who will help me has less and yet more than me. The others, I would never ask. Though their eyes aren't brown like the doctor's, their hearts match. No matter how I figure it, it won't add up. I drift off and she is there, the nurse. A solid woman, someone's grandmother. Someone who would definitely know how to quiet a baby or make cookies without refrigerated dough.

"You are a Christian," she says, more statement than question. Her fat hangs over the rail. That comforts me, reminds me of my grandmother's arms, flabby and capable.

"I am." Does my doubt show? Is my voice trembling? I don't feel like I believe in anything.

I believe in you.

Something happens then, a hazy honeysuckled something. The funk is gone and though her lips are still, her belly still embedded in the rail, the nurse is talking, moving. It's a humming noise and I'm fading away, into sleep, away from the flashing lights, growing closer and closer together, despite the medicine.

"Rest," she says as I disappear. "The road is long."

Where her hand was, plump and strong on my arm, there is something cold. A scream shatters my sleep.

"What is going on?" There are people moving around me in a hospital-green blur. I hear, try to understand. The IV has been only draining saline all night. I've dilated another centimeter. How come nobody knew? How come nobody did anything? Now she'll have to stay for sure, one says. Maybe even be turned upside down. She can't even go to the bathroom. They're still shouting, wondering why nobody did anything.

I'm wondering too. Not about them, but about Him. This is no name-it-claim-it faith, no level one thing. I offered Him my body when He asked me whose it was. That womb, I knew without looking was tired of growing fruit, but never tasting. He restored. Gave back. Now if He wanted to take away--me, them--what couldI say? Do? I'm too tired. I fade. He does too.

Brown Eyes is hovering over me. His stethoscope bangs my nose. He doesn't apologize. His kind never do. I think of the others, the bald twitchy one, the funny woman, the sun-kissed midwife who the state says can't help me now. It's been a long winding circle, one that brought me back to the painful beginning. Back to this brown, wiry man who has saved and taken many lives. He musters a fake smile, one believed years ago when I saw it the first time. The smile is an offering, but he doesn't go as far as to feign enthusiasm.

"You're in luck. We're sending you home."

The nurse drops something, but recovers nicely.

I don't speak, just look at him. Hard. I'm searching. There it is, in his left pupil. Just a glint, but it's there. I can't smell it, but I see it plain. He's weighed the money and I don't add up. I have enough children. What are two more? He's doing me a favor. That's what the thing told him. That's what he believes.

But that's okay. I have my own flinty eyes, set in wait for rescue, for salvation, though my once ironclad faith seems flimsy now. This battlefield is different from the others. Still, I wait. Beg. Plead. Only silence answers.

Silence and the sound of rickety wheels come to transport me to uncertainty, a hand drawn carriage to the tempest, an escort to the eye of the storm.

"Make money, son. Make lots of it. Even if it means selling out a little. Don't be a fool like me." Though Denzel was acting, it wrecked me. I remembered that feeling, in the wheelchair. Wishing I'd been better, done more, had money and a silk robe like the other woman who looked away as I rolled past her bed. There wasn't much I was good at, unless reading counted for something. There was the math, of course. I'd tried it all, but this was what He asked of me.

The serpent's question, so long silent, echoed. "Has God truly said?"

I shrugged, my cocky arrogance scraped clean, my Jesus flag blown away. Only one baby was moving now. I told them, but they just pushed faster. I did too, inside myself, running grabbing. If I lived through this, I'd have to do something. Be something. Maybe I'd write again... Words were free, weren't they? There was a storm coming, I'd have to figure it out later.

Next month, the twins will be four years old. I'd forgotten the storm, the stink, but it remembered me. This past week He held me silent in preparation, boarding up my soul.

There's a storm coming, one that threatens to blow my doors off. Oh yeah, and there's that hurricane headed this way, too.

I don't know which one scares me more.