He stood in the shallows of the river’s edge and took in the affection and the romance of the messages had had just written in the sand of the shore with today’s little writing stick. One read, “Lisa
Tresses—Whoa!” One read, “Lisa—Oo la la!” And one read, “Gravel—The Fox.” This Lisa “Gravel”
Tresses was his girlfriend-in-the-Lord. And she was quite the fox both in female’s wily charms and in feminine allure and in beauty of visage and in slenderness of physique. He never met another woman as beautiful as Gravel. Then he turned his gaze from the little beach and out onto the big river. And he waded out deeper into this broad river. Today was a hot summer day in Wisconsin, and as he was wont to do in hot summer days he was again wading about in the river in all of his regular clothes—his shirt and pants and all within and bare feet. Behind him here where he stood in the river were the landscaped rocks of the northernmost point of Voyageur Park. To his right was that little shore of sand with the messages; this little beach was not part of the park. Who knew who owned this little shoreline? To his left was the rest of the wide river in its great breadth out toward its other shore. And,
Page 1
looking out ahead downriver, he saw the Highway 172 bridge some distance away toward the north. He then waded downriver and deeper until the waters were up to his knees. He felt wondrously close to God here under the sun of wide waters everywhere about him. He then said, “Thank You, God, for having saved my soul.” This wader of a fellow was a born-again Christian. And it was indeed his Gravel whom the Lord had used to lead him to so great salvation. And as born-again believer, this young man loved to pray and to read his Bible and to go to church. But even praying and Bible-reading and going to church did not make him feel so close to God as did wading out into this river. These times in the river alone with God was almost like being in Heaven. And here now once again, his soul felt free and peaceful and rested to the uttermost. He then waded out in all of his clothes up to his waist. He praised God again and then splashed his arms about in this river in most happy and blissful fun and games. Then he espied up ahead a family of wild brown ducks making their way upriver toward him. He stopped splashing with his hands and watched in great admiration of God’s little creation here. They drew closer to him where he was standing. Their feet were hidden below the surface of the water. He made himself still and silent. They drew up to him, each of the ten ducks—a mom duck and a dad duck and eight little ducks—and they looked up at him, and they each gave forth a single “Quack!” Then they all swam past him where he stood, five on one side of him and five on the other side of him. He quietly turned to watch them. They all made it to shore and climbed out onto the little beach. He could see their webbed feet now. They all ten stopped to look upon something in the sand. He said to God, “Could they be reading my three little testimonies of Lisa?” Then he said, “I pray that they not walk all over those words, O Lord.” Then the ducks turned back to look at him and each gave forth another sole “Quack!” and it looked to this guy that they all backed away to not mess up his writings in the sand. And then they climbed up the large flat rocks of the landscaping of the park and walked out onto the park’s nice green grass. And this guy said, “Thank You, Lord, for brown ducks.” Then he looked back to the west and to the north. This was where to look for a wader and a
Page 2
dreamer like himself in this part of the river to feel as if he were alone in a world of water everywhere.
And this brought the giddiness of the peace of Heaven fully into his spirit. He recited a Bible verse that he knew most well, “’For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.’ I Chronicles 29:15.” Truly for the Christians of this world, this world of Earth was not their home; they were just pilgrims passing through this world of Earth. Home for believers like this man was Heaven to come in the life to come. This Christian man prayed again in the river: “Lord, I love to read my King James Bible at my table, but my table is not my home. I love to pray on my bed, but my bed is not my home. I love to sit in the back chair at church, but that back chair is not my home. With You Up in Heaven—that is my home, O Lord. And I cannot wait to get there by way of the rapture. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! Maranatha! Let me hear You say, ‘Come up hither!’ Rapture me now, if You would!” He waited with hope, but the time was not right yet for God to rapture the Christians. But this river was the next best thing to Heaven. And in great contentment, this wading man spun in place in the water once, twice, thrice; then plopped himself down on his bottom on purpose in the midst of this river. He had sat right about here before on hot summer days, and he was doing so again right now. It took a little moment for his torso to get used to the water that previously covered only his legs. The river was now up to his neck as he sat, and he again looked off toward the big bridge farther north. Daydreaming in the Lord he again reflected upon an idea of what might be awaiting him in Heaven in his fantasies of the eternal: He pondered now upon sitting up against a building, at the intersection of two streets of gold, in the celestial city of New Jerusalem, and playing a hymn on the musical instrument called “the recorder.” He did not wish to play instruments in this temporal world right now. But he did like much the music of recorders. And in Heaven he would have the time to learn how to play one.
Just then a melodious and husky feminine voice called out to him from behind, “Flanders, the water is dirty. Get out of the Fox River.” And this same voice right after said, “Ha ha ha!”
Page 3
“Ha ha ha, Gravel,” he laughed right back. And he stood up and turned around. There was his beloved, dressed once again in the way in which she was most comfortable as a young woman and in the way that most excited him as a young man enamored of her. She had on once again her sexy Sears one-piece swimsuit. It was a black maillot with narrow bright colored chevron stripes down the shoulder straps and across the cups.
She spoke in flirt to him, “Lisa ‘Gravel’ Tresses is dressed to impress today.”
“Lisa,” he replied in flirt himself, “Do you refer to yourself in the third person point of view a lot?”
“It is quite a trick for a girl to refer to herself in the third person when there are only two people in the conversation, Flanders,” teased Gravel coyly.
“That at least makes more sense than for one of us two to speak to oneself in the second person point of view,” said Flanders.
“Gravel, you are a regular outhouse in your one-piece swimsuit,” said Lisa purposefully referring to herself in the second person.
“What do you have to say about yourself now, woman?” he asked in this merry coquetry.
“I’m a fox,” said Gravel.
“That’s more like it. A woman talking to me in the first person point of view,” said Flanders.
She then held up her King James Bible, and she said, “I brought it, Flanders.”
“Now you look like the Christian girlfriend that I know and love,” he said.
“Your girlfriend-in-the-Lord has come for Bible study with her man,” said Lisa Tresses.
“You look great, Lisa!” said Flanders. And he waded back to shore to be with his Gravel.
And when he got there, there she was, looking down upon his three writings in the sand. “You’ve been writing about me again,” she said, her heart and tone very flattered this time again, too.
“Not every Christian man gets to date a dream girl,” he said. “Especially a dream girl that
Page 4
knows God.”
Her eyes of brown shone with the vivacity of the spirit and soul of life. Her dark brown tresses blew in the wind in their long straight shoulder-length wisps. Her wisps across her forehead accentuated the beauty of her face in their perfect brown bangs. And she was slender, her form curving
delightfully along her sides with the curves of her maillot. And her complexion was most a most healthy white with no stain of tan anywhere.
Then in a female’s curtsy in her black maillot with the colored chevron stripes along the top, Gravel asked him, “Flanders, do you remember our first day together—before we were officially boyfriend-and-girlfriend—when I first showed this one-piece swimsuit to you?”
“It was your great secret stashed in a green bin on the other side of that room, Lisa,” he said.
“I remember. I shall never forget.”
“When I took it out and showed you, I could tell that you fell in love with it at first sight,” she said.
“I did not even fall in love with you till my second or third sight,” he said.
“You approved of my one-piece swimsuit right away,” she said.
“It was stunning then in your hands, Gravel. But you look even more stunning still with it on you right now, girl,” he said.
“And then I told you what great thing happened to me one day when I had it on,” she said.
“The best thing to happen to any young woman,” he said. “The best thing that could happen to any maillot woman happened to you dressed in that.”
“I got saved in this,” she said. “I found Christ as Saviour one day when I had this on.”
“And when you told me that you were wearing that when you became a born-again Christian,
I thought that maybe I needed to become a born-again Christian, too, for myself,” said Flanders Nickels.
Page 5
“And you heard me out when I told you all about Jesus, and you said, ‘Yes,’ to Jesus, and you allowed me to lead you through the sinners’ prayer. And you got born again in my apartment,” she said.
“I remember how that one-piece swimsuit looked on the table all through that whole while you were talking to me about the Saviour,” said Flanders. “But when it came time for the prayer, I shut my eyes and did not look upon that maillot.”
“I can see that in the day of my salvation this maillot was an attraction, but in the day of your salvation this maillot was a distraction,” said Lisa Tresses.
“I loved it then, and I love it now, Gravel,” he said.
“I did then and do now, too, Flanders,” she said, rubbing her belly covered in black spandex.
“You and I will be boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-the-Lord for forever, my foxy woman,” praised Flanders “his Fox.”
Suddenly the beautiful young woman turned away from his gaze and looked down upon the ground. She said, “I do want to be your girlfriend-in-the-Lord for forever, Flanders.” Stricken self-conscious all of a sudden and so uncharacteristically, she then turned to look out onto the big broad river. A most scary silence came upon Flanders in this most constrained while.
“Do tell me the secret of your words, O my beloved,” he said in grave earnest and great cares.
“Flanders,” said Lisa Tresses, “would you read to me Psalm 42:7?”
He read this Bible verse to her out loud, his voice unsure, “Deep calleth upon deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.”
Gravel then implored him “Flanders, would you read to me Jeremiah 23:19?”
And Flanders went on and read this verse out loud for her as well, his voice still uncertain: “Behold, a whirlwind of the Lord is gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirlwind: it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked.”
Page 6
She said in humbleness, “And upon the head of the righteous.” Then Lisa asked him, “Flanders, would you read before me Jeremiah 30:23?”
And he read this verse out loud before them both also, his voice confused: “Behold, the whirlwind of the Lord goeth forth with fury, a continuing whirlwind: it shall fall with pain upon the head of the wicked.”
“And upon the head of your girlfriend-in-the-Lord,” she said in sorrow. Then he asked, “Flanders, would you read to us three—myself and yourself and the Good Lord—Jeremiah 25:32?”
And he read to the three of them out loud this verse: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth.”
And she said, “A great evil will come upon us, and a great whirlwind shall descend from the firmament of the sky.”
“Are you talking about tornadoes, Lisa?” he asked.
“What do all four Bible verses have in common, O Flanders?” asked Lisa Tresses.
“They all talk about tornadoes,” he said.
“I am indeed talking about tornadoes,” she said.
He looked around the skies and saw the sun being shut out by strange black clouds now. He asked, “Is there a tornado coming here today, Gravel?”
“The Holy Spirit told me that I was going to come Home today in a tornado,” she said. “I am afraid, Flanders.”
“No, Gravel. This cannot be,” he said in stubborn denial.
“Yes, Flanders. This can be,” she said. “It must be. So be the will of our Good Lord.”
“How come God wills that?” he asked.
“My time on earth to serve my God down here is finishing up, Flanders,” she said, “I must now
Page 7
come Home and start serving my God Up There in Heaven.”
“What does God wish of me then?” he asked.
“He wishes that you continue to serve him for the rest of your life down here until He calls you home as well, O Flanders,” said his girlfriend-in-Christ.
“Well, do you know what I say about that?” asked Flanders, upset at God for his first time since having become a Christian.
“I know that you will say about that, ‘But I love you, Lisa.’” she said.
“I do love you, Lisa. And that is what I have to say about that to the Lord,” said Flanders.
“And I do love you, too, O beloved Flanders,” said Lisa Tresses, trembling and looking at the coming storm clouds.
“As Ruth had said to Naomi her ode so say I now to you, O Gravel,” proclaimed Flanders. This was Ruth 1:16-17. And he said the love ode of Scripture to Lisa—The Fox: “Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.”
“I don’t know what it is like to die,” she said.
“I will die with you in the tornado, Lisa,” he promised her with the steadfastness and the sincerity of his heart.
“No, Flanders. You must live on,” she said.
“You shall not die alone,” he said.
“I shall be with you when I die, but my death must not be also your death, O Flanders,” she said.
He said, “I will be the first one to step into the tornado, my Gravel.”
“You do not wish to live on after my departure, my love?” she asked.
Page 8
“There shall never again be a woman like you in my life, Lisa,” he said.
“And you are homesick for Heaven?” she asked.
“Heaven is where I wish to be, Gravel,” he said.
“Some silly people sometimes say about us, Flanders, ‘That we are so Heavenly-minded that we are no Earthly good,’” said Lisa Tresses.
“That’s better to be said about us believers than that saying that we have about those unbelievers,” said Flanders.
“That the lost ‘are so Earthly-minded that they are no Heavenly good,’ O Flanders,” said Lisa.
Boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-the-Lord laughed in this dire hour. Then Flanders Nickels declared, “God does not make mistakes,”
And she said, “Pastor always says that death for us believers is like going to sleep and waking up in Heaven.”
“I believe that it was a tornado that God had used to take out Job’s ten children in that house,” said Flanders Nickels.
“Winds even greater than any hurricane’s winds,” said Gravel, shuddering. Flanders put his arm around her shoulders to comfort her, and her trembling stopped in his arm. And they each fell upon staid silence of much thoughts. Lisa Tresses had always been afraid of tornadoes. She had scary dreams about tornadoes most of her life. And she was soon going to see for herself her first real tornado with her real eyes. Gravel remembered her first tornado dream in her childhood. The reason for that first tornado dream was truly a paradox. She had started dreaming about tornadoes after they had moved from Menasha to Pembine and Mom showed her a great metal lid in the cement of the driveway which covered a little storm shelter of a pit inside the ground; Mom told her little daughter Lisa that if a tornado came to Pembine, they could all climb down into this subterranean shelter and be safe from the tornado. That must have gotten the girl Lisa thinking about tornadoes. And in the night
Page 9
in the countryside of Pembine she dreamed about a tornado in the city of Menasha: Here she and her big brother were playing in the attached garage with the garage door down. The sky outside of the little garage door windows was dark and gray. And just when she looked out to the front through these windows, lo, a tornado right across the street! Next, in her dream, she was out in the backyard right behind the garage in a clear sunny day. All the neighbors and her family were busy digging a big pit in the backyard in which they could descend and be safe from the tornado across the street. Some were cooking hot dogs on the grill in case anybody were to get hungry in the pit as they waited for the tornado to go away. Then little Lisa woke up. After that first tornado dream came, other tornado dreams came after. One of the main genre of such tornado dreams were culvert dreams. That is, she and Dad would be in the car riding in the countryside, and, behold, a tornado would appear some distance away to the side. And Dad would act quickly and find a nice safe culvert into which he and she could climb and be safe from the tornado. And they would find one and climb into it for refuge.
But all of a sudden, this culvert, underground, would suddenly be instead now resting upon the ground.
And the tornado began to come toward them. Then she woke up. And the other genre of her traditional tornado dreams were basement dreams. She would be outside and see most fearful black clouds. Then down came the tornado. And with the wisdom of people in the Midwest, she quickly went down the basement as a refuge from the coming tornado. But, lo, suddenly instead of being underground, this basement was now on the first floor. And the tornado was coming. Then she woke up.
“You’re probably thinking about your tornado dreams right now. Aren’t you, Lisa?” asked Flanders Nickels who knew her so well.
“Yeah. I was,” she said.
“You are not going to find a culvert or a basement to escape the tornado this time in your waking life. Are you, Gravel?” he asked.
“I am frightened, Flanders,” she said.
Page 10
“I’m scared, too,” he said.
“Did you ever have a tornado dream?” she asked.
“No. I never did,” he said. “Before I got born again, though, I used to have discouragement dreams. They all stopped right after you led me to Christ, Gravel.”
“What kind of dreams are ‘discouragement dreams,’ Flanders?” she asked.
“Like my baseball dreams, Lisa,” he said. “In those dreams, I would be playing baseball with the neighborhood kids and grown-ups. I was up at bat, excited about hitting the ball with the bat. The pitcher pitched a few times, and I did not swing at the pitch, because it was not quite the right pitch for me to hit. I was so eager. Suddenly I woke up. And I never got my chance to hit the ball. Those baseball dreams happened a lot. What a discouraging way to wake up for the day, Lisa.”
“What were other types of your discouragement dreams before you got saved, Flanders?” asked his girlfriend-in-the-Lord.
“My dreams of big lakes and other waters upon the land,” he said. “I would dream that I was floating upon a big warm lake in a world of surrealistic peace. I was on top of the water and could not sink. The sun was shining down upon me and my lake. I was safe. I was warm. I was happy. But then my heavenly lake began to recede. Slowly and without stopping the lake began to become increasingly shallow. And in the end, my beautiful lake was all emptied, and I was standing in a little cold puddle in the cold mud of a cold land in a gray day. Then I woke up. This was my life.”
“What other discouraging dreams did you used to have, Flanders?” asked Gravel the Fox.
“Dreams of candy stores and grocery stores that supernaturally emptied out,” he said. “I would be in a beautiful candy store or a delightful little grocery story near Mom and Dad’s cabin up north.
The candy store’s shelves were all full of wonderful candy; but every time I turned around there was less and less candy on the shelves. And then the candy was all gone. And then I woke up. And, in like manner, the little grocery store had full shelves; and every time I turned around the shelves had less
Page 11
groceries on them. And then my beautiful grocery store had no more food to buy. And then I woke up.”
“Was there one dream that stood out, Flanders, as your most discouraging of such dreams?” asked Lisa Tresses.
“Yes, Lisa. That most discouraging baseball dream that had showed to me clearly what my whole life was,” he said.
“What your whole life without Christ had been?” she asked.
“Yes. But I did not know that until you led me to salvation,” he said.
“It must have happened not long before you came over and got saved, Flanders,” she said.
“Yeah! Yeah!” he said.
“Tell me about your worst baseball dream,” said his girlfriend-in-Christ.
“All I knew was that when I woke up in that dream before I had a chance to hit the ball, I could suddenly see my whole life for what it really was. I felt as if my whole life were like sand falling through between my fingers. This falling sand was my happiness slipping away from me again. My whole life had been like a big dream and like I had never woken up. Nothing in my life that I did or that I had or that I wanted had any substance or reality or value. I felt like I had never really lived my only chance at life. Something was missing in my life.”
“The life of an unsaved man,” summed up his girlfriend-in-Christ. “My own unsaved life was like that, too,”
“Now that I am a born-again believer, everything is different, Gravel. My dreams are no longer discouraging. My life has value and purpose and meaning. And I have Heaven to come Home too in my time to come,” he said.
“I, too, found joy when I got born again, too, in my one-piece swimsuit, Flanders,” she said.
He thought for a moment of her imminent death. And he spoke after a while, “Do you have
Page 12
joy now, Gravel?”
“I do not know if this is joy that I am feeling right now, Flanders,” she said. “But I am ready now to go to Heaven. And going to Heaven really is what every good believer really wants deep down inside.”
“You’re not trembling anymore in my arms, Lisa,” he said.
“I think that God has taken away my fear of death,” she said.
“Has he taken away your fear of tornadoes, Gravel?” he asked her a hard question.
“Maybe not those quite yet, Flanders,” she confessed. “But I know that this tornado will take me right to my Saviour Up in Heaven.”
The wind started to pick up. Black clouds filled the sky from horizon to horizon. And both strained their ears to hear if they could hear a tornado siren from anyplace far away.
“Do you have any words of wisdom for me that you as a woman can tell me, Lisa?” he asked.
“Yes. I have, Flanders,” she said.
“What are they, Gravel?” he asked.
“Go back to your Lady Gretchen, O my beloved,” said his girlfriend-in-the-Lord.
“Lady Gretchen Rourke,” he said, cocking his head to the side in surprise.
“Your Society for Creative Anachronism woman,” said Gravel.
“I remember her,” he said.
“You had forgotten your beautiful Medieval woman, Flanders?” asked Lisa Tresses.
“I had forgotten the Middle Ages when I had fallen in love with you, Gravel,” he said.
“Go back to them now and find that girl,” urged his girlfriend-in-the-Lord. “She has a soul that Jesus died for.”
“I will never seek another girlfriend after I lose you, my Gravel,” he promised in the passion of these last moments with his Fox.
Page 13
“Last night, Flanders, I prayed that you and she become boyfriend-and-girlfriend after my passing away,” confided Lisa Tresses.
“I shall never date another woman,” he vowed. “You are the only woman I have ever dated.”
“Do consider. Rescind that promise. Seek fair Lady Gretchen,” urged Lisa.
“No. No. No,” he said to the three imperatives.
“God wills it,” said Gravel most inexplicably to her boyfriend-in-the-Lord.
This three word utterance stifled his most vocal objections. And a tear rolled down the cheek of Gravel the Fox in sadness for him. He gently reached his hand and wiped the tear from her face with his index finger. She must truly wish this God’s will for him. Lisa wanted him to be happy after her death. He thought now upon his great fondness he had once had for that Lady Gretchen. He remembered her blond looping coils of hair that descended down the sides and back of her head—that most idyllic hairstyle of the aristocracy of the Medieval Times young women. He remembered her so beautiful face almost as beautiful as Lisa’s face. He remembered how she and he had used to write to each other in Gothic English with all of those “thee’s” and “thou’s” and “thy’s” and “thine’s” and “ye’s” for second person pronouns of the Middle Ages. He remembered those pictures that she had mailed to him of herself dressed in those enthralling Medieval dresses so full and so abundant of much fancy fabric that he loved so much about her. He remembered how he was her “Lord Flanders” or “Sir Flanders”; and how she was his “Lady Gretchen.” And he remembered that fateful day when fair Lady Gretchen finally came into his life in her real person, and not just in a letter from far away. And her real person was most ravishingly Medieval to the uttermost. But he was already with foxy Gravel being led to salvation at her living room table. He had not come into Lisa’s apartment for a date, nor had he come into Lisa’s apartment to renounce Lady Gretchen. But when it was time for him to make his decision for or against Christ, he had to suddenly make his decision between Gretchen and Gravel.
And Flanders Nickels said, “Yes” to God and to Gravel, and he said “No” to Gretchen. Good Lady
Page 14
Gretchen, his Society For Creative Anachronism friend understood. And she graciously deferred to the beautiful young woman who needed to lead Sir Flanders to salvation. And Lady Gretchen left Lord Flanders’s life. And he was only Gravel’s and Gravel was only his ever since in these few years after that day.
“God wills it?” asked Flanders, still hesitant.
“Seek the woman,” said Lisa Tresses. She did say just a moment ago that she had prayed for them both to get together again.
“Then I must will it, too,” said Flanders, not at all as ready to lose his girlfriend-in-the-Lord as his girlfriend-in-the-Lord was ready to come home to Heaven.
Just then across the river on the opposite shore, a dark black cloud descended from an eerie dark green cloud in the shape of a funnel. These two witnesses of this event saw this happen in the west side of town from here on the east side of town. Flanders Nickels jumped up and yelled, “Tornado!”
Herself calm in the Holy Spirit, Gravel stood up beside him and she said, “I am not afraid of this tornado now, Flanders.” Her tone mighty in faith proved her statement.
Boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-the-Lord stared upon this tornado as it danced its way toward the Fox River in a straight line toward them from this couple of miles away.
“You must go now before it gets here, Flanders,” said Gravel.
“I will not go now, Lisa,” he said. “Remember I wanted to die with you. And I still want to.”
“God wills you to live. Live for Gretchen for now on,” said Lisa Tresses.
“I would rather be with you and Jesus in Heaven right now than to be with Gretchen and Jesus in Earth later,” said Flanders in avowal.
“Live the rest of your life down here in serving God until He chooses to take you Home,” said Gravel. “Do not kill yourself because of love and Heavenly comfort to come.”
He hesitated. Now the tornado reached the river. And it was still dancing its way in a straight
Page 15
route right to where they were standing.
Lisa “Gravel” Nickels sang a refrain from a great hymn, “O Lamb of God, I come. I come.” And she looked upon the waterspout as if she were seeing God and Jesus standing at His right hand side. This roaring storm of tornado was now halfway across the river. This waterspout was sucking water out of the river with the great work of God. He could hardly hear himself talk. Her words were barely audible.
His girlfriend-in-the-Lord beseeched him “Flee now and live, O Flanders!”
She stood there, with the faith of the Bible’s Ruth and of the Bible’s Esther, herself ready to die for her Jesus. Her Holy Bible she did clutch in both arms against her breasts. Her long brown straight wisps blew about wildly in this waterspout storm closing in upon her. Sand from that little beach blew about in a great sandstorm. And the river was tempestuous like the Apostle Paul’s storm euroclydon in his shipwreck in the Mediterranean Sea. Flanders wondered whether even these great rocks of shore would not stay in place in this great mighty gale.
And this baneful waterspout was now close to shore. “Run to Jesus!” cried out Lisa Tresses.
“Get away and live!”
“I am not ready to lose you, my love!” he called forth.
“We shall both meet again in Heaven!” she cried out to him familiar Bible truth.
“I do not will it yet!” he said.
“Make God’s will your will, O beloved,” she said.
“I cannot,” he said.
“O God, help my boyfriend-in-You obey Your will,” prayed Lisa Tresses.
“Help me!” prayed Flanders Nickels. He held his King James Bible in both arms tightly against his chest. He turned back to not look at the tornado for just a moment.
Just then a fair young woman stepped out before them and stood up at the top of the bank in the
Page 16
green grass of this edge of the park. It was a Medieval-garbed lady with looping coils of hair all about her pretty Middle Ages face. Her life also was in peril here where the waterspout was. This was truly beautiful Lady Gretchen Rourke. She reached out her hand toward Flanders from the top of the bank.
At the bottom of the bank, Flanders turned back to Lisa to reach his hand out to her. The tornado was now right here upon the little inlet. He saw Gravel the Fox now running into the baleful tornado. He cried out, “I will it! Lord, forgive me! But I will it!” He was losing the love of his life. He quickly turned away so as to not see his most beloved ascending to Heaven in the fell waterspout. And he forced his legs to climb up the bank to be with Lady Gretchen. He proffered his hand toward her hand.
Hand held hand. Behold, suddenly the tornado ascended back up to the sky. And all was suddenly eerily serene. And no storm remained anywhere at all. He had made his decision in the Lord. And the Lord was pleased with him.
With a curtsy in her Medieval dress, this alluring young woman said, “Lady Gretchen Rourke at your service, Sir Flanders.”
And with a bow, he said, “Lord Flanders Nickels at your service, Lady Gretchen.”
“I prithee speak unto thy Middle Ages lady a little about Jesus,” she asked.
“Such great honor falleth upon me most pleasingly,” he said.
And he led fair Gretchen to Jesus. And he began his new life with fair Gretchen. And God blessed him and fair Gretchen both with joy in the Lord.
Page 17
