At an abandoned lone silo in the countryside Flanders Nickels finds pretty Jenny Lourdes come back into his life. He is a born-again Christian, and to his delight he finds out that so, too, is Jenny now. Lo, fair Jenny has to tell him that the notorious WidowerMaker is coming after her in his war against Christ and Christian wives. Behold he appears before them now where they stand by the forgotten silo. The WidowerMaker, his saber in his hand, wants to slay Jenny. But Flanders stands between him and Miss Lourdes.
CROWN OF LIFE
Mr. Morgan P. McCarthy
He sat there, upon the top of the silo, and looked out upon fair Jenny’s once-upon-a-time countryside yard. It was a little breezy up here, but where he sat was sure and steady. Underneath where he sat was the cement roof just above an open window-way upon the silo’s top. His legs hung over and he swung them back and forth in and out of the open space in that window-way. And he took in with his God some gladness and some sadness as he admired the girl’s yard of ago. He remembered how she had once told him, “I do my ninth grade science homework up here sometimes. Don’t tell my mom. I told Grandma.” Her name was Jenny Lourdes, and she could have been his girlfriend. But God told him about her, “No, my son. Do not go and ask your Jenny out on a date,” and he obeyed God in the fear of the Lord. His name was “Flanders Nickels,” and he was a born-again believer in Christ. Why did not God say, “Yes,” to him about this extra special young woman? It is written in the Bible, “’Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness
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with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell with them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.’ II Corinthians 6;14-16.” This Scripture verse told Flanders that a saved man must not date an unsaved woman. Flanders was saved; comely Jenny was unsaved. And Flanders would not cheat on his Saviour and have a girlfriend who was lost in her sins. Disobeying this prime commandment would surely tempt him to backslide on the God Whom he loved most of all. This “thou shalt not” was for his own good, and he knew it in strong faith. He would be lonesome without Miss Lourdes in life for and because of and with his Jesus, for he loved the Good Lord more than he liked alluring Jenny.
Why had he come here to Jenny’s former homestead of long ago? The house was gone. The barn was gone. The family was gone. This lone silo was the last thing left of this home in the country.
He had come here to remember the girl and to talk to God about the girl. Her gilded much curls of hair all about her beautiful head were as “the gold of Ophir” in the Bible. Her tall and slender frame inspired him to call her “the ultimate woman.” Her black apron strings as cashier that descended down her back side, because they were hers, were in themselves prettier than most other women in their entirety. It was as if, when God was handing out beauty to women, that adorable Jenny stole some of this beauty away from other women just to keep for herself. Even her name badge was a hallmark in Flanders’s heart; it read “Jenny L.” And, himself a bag boy, he was happy at work on days when she worked, as he bagged the customers’ groceries that Jenny Lourdes rang up. And when she graduated high school and went away to college some place far away, a fellow worker graciously said to him, “Your girlfriend’s gone.” What a sweet thing for a colleague to say about “his” Jenny whom he adored.
Here upon the top of the silo, thinking himself to be all alone with the Lord, he said out loud for his reminiscing heart and ears, “Jennifer Joy Lourdes, my girlfriend.”
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Suddenly he heard down upon the ground below a pretty feminine voice call up to him, saying a smart, “You only wish!”
Why, this sounded just like Jenny! What was she doing here? Could it be? He quickly leaned forward and looked down upon the ground way below. There she was. “Jenny! Jenny Lourdes!” he exclaimed. He could get down to her at once were he to jump. He would go down to her more safely by way of the steps of rungs inside this silo.
The gal called up to him, “Flanders! Flanders Nickels!”
“It is I!” he said.
“And it is I, too,” she said. At once he went back into this silo and began to quickly descend these metal rungs to the silo floor. Even before he could get out of this silo down here, she ran up to him and put her arms around him where he stood. He did in like for her with his arms. Then they drew apart and went outside.
“Jenny, you are still my classy girl,” he told her. Today, Miss Lourdes had on a most classic outfit that accentuated her own feminine beauty. She had on a Jiffy hat and a brown plaid long-sleeved cotton blouse and a blue denim ladies’ vest with metal buttons buttoned up and a blue denim skirt with a black belt and with a yoke and with knife pleats reaching nearly to her knees. Her shoes—brown penny loafers with pennies in them she did hold in her hands. And her feet outside here in the country were bare feet.
“Maybe now you can become my guy, Flanders,” she said.
But had she gotten saved yet?
And Miss Lourdes then pulled out a little red book from her shirt pocket, searched for a moment, and began to read from it, “It is written, Flanders, ‘Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.’ II Corinthians
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6:17-18.” This little red Book was her very own Bible. This passage of Scripture that she read came immediately after the passage of Scripture that he had shared with the Lord in prayer back up on the silo, and her two verses completed his three verses as one message: A born-again Christian can date only another born-again Christian. And his Jenny knew this in her Bible.
The woman had gotten saved since last he knew her!
And he asked her, “Would you become my girl, Jenny?”
“Yes! I am honored that you asked that,” she said.
“What brought you here like this today, girl?” he asked.
“I kind of wanted to come back home again, Flanders,” she said. “I never thought to be able to see you again. And there you were, on my silo, of all places. I can see that you have not forgotten your
cashier ‘girlfriend.’”
“Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me: thy hair is as a flock of goats that appear from Gilead.” he recited poetry to his old “girlfriend.”
“That’s beautiful,” she said. “Is that all about me?”
“It is, Jenny,” he said. “Song of Solomon 6:5.”
“That is from the Bible?” she asked. He nodded. “I have much to learn about the Good Book.”
“How did you become born-again, O Jenny?” he asked.
“Would you come out with me to the big field by the creek, Flanders?” she asked. “I want to tell you my true tale in the meadow by the water.”
He nodded again and said, “Yes,” and she led him down a hill and across a field and up to the bank of a little flowing creek not far from her old silo. She sat down upon the long green grass, stretched her bare legs over the bank, set her shoes down at her side, and rested her bare feet in the flowing waters. Sitting down beside her, Flanders Nickels took off his shoes, put his bare feet in the flowing waters, and got the bottom of his blue jean pants legs wet in the creek where he sat.
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And Jenny Lourdes began to tell Flanders Nickels the testimony of her salvation: “It happened for me less than a week ago. Not far from my house where I live now is a little church with great singing inside. I knew it to be a Baptist church. And I wanted to get closer to that good singing. The songs were hymns, of course. And I wanted to be where those hymns were. And I went there last Sunday. I opened up a hymnbook there for my first time. And I discovered ‘Rescue the Perishing.’
And before the flock of God there finished this hymn, I knew that I was perishing in my soul without
Christ, and I knew that I needed Christ to rescue me from Hell. Then the good Pastor began his sermon. Why, Flanders, Pastor, for forty-five minutes, preached hellfire and brimstone right at me. The good minister was not afraid that I might be offended. He could not tell if I were offended. He preached only to please God and not man. And I was convicted of my sins. I needed to get right with God. And I then knew that I needed to get born-again—like you, Flanders—in order to get to Heaven and not end up in Hell. And after the church service was over, and the rest of the flock was gone, I came up to Pastor and his wife and said, ‘I think that I am afraid that I am going to Hell.’
Pastor then shared with me the simple plan of salvation. He asked with gentleness, ‘Jenny, are you a sinner on your way to Hell?’ I nodded and said nothing. He then said in compassion, ‘Christ died on the cross to pay for your sins, and He arose the third day.’ I nodded again and said nothing. He then said, ‘By placing your faith in Christ’s shed blood, you will be forgiven for all of your sins, and you can have a home in Heaven.’ I nodded a third time and again said nothing before this wise man.
He then opened his King James Bible to the book of Romans, and he began to share certain verses from this book to me one-by-one, and he explained to me what each of these verses said.” Ah, the Romans’ Road. “Then the good Baptist pastor told me that all I needed to do to be a perishing person rescued was to pray a prayer, thus accepting Christ’s free give of eternal life.
I nodded my head to this, too, and I said, ‘I believe.’ Then he had me repeat a prayer for salvation, line-by-line, first he saying the sentence, then I saying that sentence after him.” Ah, the
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sinners’ prayer. “And when he had me say in the end, ‘Amen,’ and I said, ‘Amen,’ Flanders, he then told me, ‘Congratulations, Jenny. You have just been born again into the family of God. Once you get born again, you cannot become unborn. You now have Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour. And no matter what happens to you, you will end up in Heaven. Now you will never go to Hell.’” Ah, so great salvation.
“So, Flanders, how did you get born again?” she asked.
“Well, Jenny, this fellow with you now got born again on a visit to the town dump,” he told her.
She laughed. He laughed. Miss Lourdes said, “But that is true, though, isn’t it?”
“Uh huh,” he said. “I was just barely thirteen years old then.”
“How does a teenager find Christ on a visit to the dump?” she asked.
“An eighteen-year-old cheerleader was there,” he said, “and she told me about Jesus.”
“A cheerleader woman just happened to be there, and she just happened to be already saved,” said Jenny Lourdes.
“Uh huh,” he said again. “She was a varsity cheerleader dressed in a dark green and white cheerleader’s uniform. She was a senior at her high school. In fact she told me that she was the head varsity football cheerleader.”
“Oh, the head varsity football cheerleader started talking to a younger boy about God,” said Jenny Lourdes.
“She was not one of those silent believers, praise God. Silent believers do not win any souls for Christ,” he said.
“What were you there at the dump for?” asked Miss Lourdes.
“You know that witty proverb–’One man’s junk is another man’s treasure,’” said Flanders. “I went to the dump lots to scavenge for myself real neat things. I found nice things like two tiny little glass bottles with metal caps, fifty-year-old Readers’ Digests, large print playing cards for the visually
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impaired, which I was not, just to name a few of my discoveries there at the dump.”
“What was the head cheerleader doing there at the dump?” asked Miss Lourdes.
“She was telling the attendant of the dump all about Jesus,” said Flanders. “When I got there that one day, I saw her giving a little booklet to the man and telling him, ‘Jesus loves you, kind sir.’ That booklet, of course, was a salvation tract. I wanted one for myself, so I came up to her and asked if I could have a booklet, too. And she pulled out one for me from her purse. And I took it. She then said to me, ‘Jesus loves you, young man.’”
“Was she pretty?” asked Jenny, tempted into jealousy over her man.
“I don’t know,” said Flanders. “I was too young then to know if a girl were pretty to me or not.”
“What was her name?” asked Jenny, intrigued by this mysterious older woman who led her boyfriend to Christ long ago.
“I don’t know that, either,” he said. “I never asked. And she never told me.”
“What did she tell you that convinced you to get saved as you did?” asked Jenny.
“Two Bible verses,” he said. “Right away she pulled out a pocket King James Version Bible from her purse so full of tracts, and she turned toward the back of the Holy Bible, and she read two verses to me and told me all about what they mean.” He continued the testimony of his salvation, “The
first verse was I John 2:25, and that says this: ‘And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.’ She told me that this was God’s ‘promise of promises.’ She said that eternal life meant a forever after in Heaven with perfect peace and joy and love. And the second verse was I John 3:23 which says this, Jenny: ‘And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.’ She told me that this was the Lord’s ‘commandment of commandments.’ She said that this was like an abridged Ten Commandments. And she said that this was the greatest two commandments of the New Testament.”
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“What did you say to the cheerleader believer then, Flanders?” asked Jenny.
“I told her that I did not really know God’s Son Jesus Christ like she did,” said Flanders.
And she said, ‘Oh, that’s bad. That’s real bad.’
I then said, ‘Oh, but I heard about Him a lot.’
Yet she then said, ‘Oh, that’s not good enough.’
‘How come?’ I asked the cheerleader in green and white.
And she said, ‘It sounds like you only have head knowledge of the Saviour. If you were saved, you would have a heart knowledge of Him instead. You need to have a personal relationship in your heart with Jesus Christ as evidence of your salvation.’
‘How does a boy go and do that, cheerleader?’ I asked her.
And the Christian cheerleader woman said, ‘You do that with a prayer. With that prayer, you take what you know in your head about Christ and move it down one foot into your heart.’
‘What kind of prayer can do that for a kid like myself?’ I asked her.
And the wise high school cheerleader went ahead to lead me through the same kind of prayer that you got led through when you got saved yourself, Jenny. That is how your boyfriend got born again many years ago.”
“Were you as glad when you got saved as I was when I got saved?” asked Miss Lourdes.
“Yes! Yes!” he said, still excited about the Saviour now as he was when it was still brand new to him. “And all of Heaven was just as glad for me when I got saved as It was for you when you got saved, girl.” he said.
“Heaven knows when you got saved and when I got saved?” asked Jenny. “And they were all glad for us when it happened?”
“It is written, ‘I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth,
more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.’ Luke 15;7, O Jenny Lourdes.
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The very instant that we had become Christians, all of the Christians already Up in Heaven found out, and they rejoiced in joy over the salvation of our eternal souls.”
“Everybody up There found out about me and what happened at church for me last Sunday then,” said Miss Lourdes, glad over the saints’ Heavenly wisdom There.
“And, Jenny…,” he said, “…the Devil and his demons also found out about your salvation.”
“They are not rejoicing with me, are they, Flanders?” she asked.
He shook his head in a “nay.” “The Devil is us Christians’ greatest enemy,” said Flanders. “He wants us dead, or maybe worse than that, backslid from God.”
“Flanders, I am afraid,” said the young woman new convert.
Seeking to exhort the babe in Christ, Flanders Nickels said, “Be encouraged, Jenny. Our God is bigger than the Devil. In James 4:7, God says for us about Satan, ‘Submit yourselves therefore to God.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.’”
Yet the pretty features of this girl’s pretty countenance instead grew pale with great cares. Something was wrong. Jenny Lourdes was worried sick.
“Jenny, what’s wrong?” asked Flanders in worries himself now for her all of a sudden.
“I know a devil, Flanders, and he will not flee from me, and I am afraid for my life,” Seeking comfort, she leaned her head against his head and put her arm around him where they both sat, and she did tremble against him.
“Who is this devil who will not flee from you, O Jenny?” he cried out to her and to God.
“He is coming after me, Flanders,” said Miss Lourdes.
“Who is this man of Belial who is coming after you?” asked Flanders Nickels in anger at her mysterious bane.
“He has a name…a kind of title…a real bad man,” said Jenny. “He is in the papers and on the news and in the magazines. But nobody can stop him. And I seem to be next for him.”
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“Jenny, Jenny, what do they call this man in the news?” Flanders asked in consternation.
“The ‘Widower-Maker,’” she told him.
“The killer!” gasped Flanders in shock “Him!”
“The mass murderer who goes around, murdering Christian married women. He slays born again wives and turns their husbands into widowers,” said the frightened young woman.”
“And you have to fear the Widower-Maker?” asked Flanders. She nodded. Suddenly Flanders understood her marital status of which she had not disclosed to him on this whole date. “Then you are a married woman, Jenny,” he said.
“I have a husband, Flanders,” she said.
“You already have a husband, Jenny, and here you are, propositioning me to become your boyfriend,” he said, his heart for her and her plight vanquished upon this revelation of her unfaithfulness as a wife on this date with himself.
“Am I a cheater?” she asked Flanders.
“You are a cheater,” he said in wrath and indignation and hurt feelings. “Your first obligation in life of pursuit of romance and companionship and love must be to your lawfully wedded husband.”
In her defense, she sought to placate the righteous Flanders Nickels, and she said, “When I came here today, I never knew that you were going to be here, too. When I saw you up there, on the roof of my old silo, I suddenly came to forget about the widower-maker’s vendetta, and I found the peace of God inside filling me up with the Holy Spirit. It was so good to see my old flame at my old place, that I forgot about that Widower-maker. I forgot about my fears. I forgot about my husband. I remembered the good Christian man who had always been so kind to me in old days, even when I in my lost life was unkind to him.”
In apology, Flanders said, “I am sorry for having called you a cheater, O Jenny. I judged unrighteous judgment. And I was wrong. You are not a cheater. I was acting holier-than-thou, and
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I was wrong.”
“And what were you doing here at my old place, Flanders?” she confronted him.
“I did not see the beam in my own eye,” he confessed, having judged Jenny for the mote that was in her eye.
“You’re forgiven,” she said. “And I am forgiven.”
A moment of silence passed between them now as they thought about Miss Lourdes’ grave peril. “The Widower-maker still lives,” said Flanders. In comparing him to the Devil, Flanders said, “He goes to and fro in the Earth, and he walks up and down in it.”
“He finds his victims, and yet no one finds him,” she said.
“Did you tell your husband?” asked Flanders.
“My husband is not saved. We were both lost when we got married,” she said.
“Did you tell him how you got saved last week?” asked Flanders. “Did you get to witness to him yet? Maybe you can lead him to Christ.”
“No! No! A woman dare not tell my husband that he needs Jesus!” exclaimed Jenny.
“I’m sure that he loves you. And you love him, I hope,” said Flanders.
“No. No. Flanders, please don’t make things worse,” said Jenny. “My husband has nothing to do with the Lord. Not him. No, not him.”
Flanders Nickels turned back to look at her old home. Indeed not much was left intact. To think that his adorable woman friend once lived here happy and safe in her older childhood years. He said, “I’m sorry about your mom and dad, Jenny.”
“I miss them. It has been five years now since the fire,” she said.
“You’ve got the Holy Spirit now indwelling you, now that you are a Christian, Jenny. He will comfort you in your grief as the Comforter,” said Flanders.
“Funny how safe I had felt back then as a teenage girl with Mom and Dad still living,” she
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said in remembrances. “I would come home from school and get off the bus and see Mom waiting for me on the porch. Not long later Dad would come home from work. We kids would then keep asking
Mom, ‘When do we get to eat?’ And Mom always had dinner ready right on time. It was always a hot home-cooked meal. And after dinner, Mom always had a dessert for us. We kids fought over this dessert—Dad, too. But there was always lots of dessert to go around.” She paused and thought upon her new-found Jesus of a week ago, and she said, “Flanders, in those good old days, I was lost in my sins, and I did not even know that. I did not know that I was going to Hell without Christ back then.
The Devil blinded my eyes of understanding, and I felt safe in my young life. The most wicked Devil sure does a good job in his works of great deceits. But now, I know. I got born again, and now I am with Christ and on my way to Heaven.” Then she said, “But as for Mom and as for Dad, well, I never got a chance to tell them. They left before I knew about Jesus. I cannot share the love of Jesus with them now.”
“What about your brothers and your sisters, Jenny?” asked the Christian man. “Did you tell them about the Saviour of the world yet?”
“I started to, but they shut me out and shut Jesus out,” she said.
“Do tell them again, Jenny,” he said.
“I may not have time to tell them again, Flanders,” said Jenny Lourdes.
That murderous Widower-maker.
Then she lifted her head up from beside his, and her joints stiffened, and she jumped up upon her feet. “What’s wrong?” asked Flanders, quickly getting to his feet as well.
She began to turn her body around, her countenance looking for something out there that neither she nor Flanders could see, and her face turned pale. “He is coming for me now, from far away. I hear his footsteps.”
That most diabolical Widower-maker!
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In search for encouragement, Flanders asked her, “How did you and your husband first meet?”
For some reason, she gave forth a groan.
Pursuing this attempt, he asked her this question in a different way, “Did you have any crushes in high school other than myself as the older guy of the grocery store?”
This time she smiled and said, “We were both in high school when we first saw each other—my future husband and myself.” She went on to tell Flanders, “When I was a high school girl, I used to play tackle football with all the guys and gals at the park down the road. Well, there was this…guy…
there. He was on the opposite team. He was a hunk, I tell you. And he was so cute. Everybody including himself called him ‘Stalker.’ He had chains going to his pockets everywhere he went all the time. One chain was a fob to his pocket watch. The other chain was for his black leather wallet. And he had a black leather motorcycle jacket full of zippers everywhere left and right and up and down and front and back. And he always stopped to pull a comb out of his pocket to comb his beard and mustache. Well it happened in one of those football games. The quarterback handed him the ball as running back, and he ran an end run, and I caught him, and I tried to tackle him, and I got all busted up.
He ran me right down into the ground, and he ran all the way for a touchdown. I lay there, all spread out. My right arm was broken. My right leg was broken. And he ran right back up to where I lay. Everybody else was there, looking down at me, too. And Stalker said a hundred times, ‘I’m sorry, Jenny.’ I said, ‘ I forgive you, Stalker.’ But I did not really know where I was and what happened.
An ambulance soon came. And I went to the hospital. And in my room, I got a big yellow envelope
from Stalker. When I opened it, I saw a thousand little paper notes that all said, ‘I’m sorry, Jenny,’ all written out individually in pencil. I so forgave him. And I so liked him. And I so wanted him to be my boyfriend. And when I got better, we began to go out together—Stalker and I. And then we got married. And now we are husband and wife. As you know, Flanders, I found Christ as Saviour last week. And now suddenly Stalker does not love me anymore.”
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“Sorry to hear about that,” said Flanders. “Glad for your decision for Christ, though.”
“Stalker is an antichrist,” she said most sincerely to Flanders.
“What you say, O Jenny Lourdes!” he rebuked her.
“He is!” she exclaimed. “Trust me, Flanders.”
Humbled by her certitude, Flanders said to her, “Then I believe it.”
“Of all things that Stalker least likes, Jesus Christ is his most hated Person,” confided Jenny.
“God help your new unhappy home,” said Flanders. “Does Stalker know about this threat from
the Widower-maker?”
She shut her lips together tightly and spoke no reply. Flanders did not ask her again.
She then began to walk around this big valley. Flanders walked with her in silence. After a while, she said, “This field was prettier then and not so wild.”
Then she looked off into the woods, and she said, “I can hear his wicked heart beating. The Widower-maker is getting nearer.”
The divine yellow of sun shone down upon this wild valley. The song of the crickets filled the air with nature’s pastoral melody. The tall grass swayed back and forth in the breezes. Grasshoppers leaped out from before the Christians’ feet. And the creek behind them gave forth its song of flowing waters. Everything here in this countryside belied the dire grimness of this while.
Then Jenny Lourdes said, “I can hear his breathing.”
Behold, a wild man like unto a demon!
He was dressed as a soldier of wars of a hundred years ago. In his left hand was a skull and crossbones flag. His right hand was upon the haft of a straight sword in a sheath along his left hip.
His mustache was full, and his beard was long. And his eyes were red like unto a dragon’s eyes.
Flanders spoke and asked, “Who are you?” But Flanders knew. He could tell. Jenny knew.
She could tell.
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Then this notorious Widower-maker spoke with an eerie and deep voice, saying, “Mrs. Jennifer
Joy Savage, I have come to reap.” And he drew his saber out of his scabbard and stood there in defiance of God and man and woman.
The woman dared not speak to this man of the Devil. Flanders spoke, though, and he said to him, “Widower-maker, if you want to get to Jenny, you have to get past me first.” And the man of God
stepped out in front of the woman of God, putting himself between the Widower-maker and Jenny.
“Man of God, do step off to the side,” said the fell Widower-maker.
“I shall not step off to the side, Widower-maker.” challenged Flanders, mighty in the Holy Spirit.
“I came not for you, man of God, but for the lady of God,” said the Widower-maker.
“Go away!” cried out Jenny Lourdes in great troubles. “I don’t want to see you.”
Flanders spoke again and said, “Put down the sword, Widower-maker.”
Instead, the Widower-maker took a step forward.
Not knowing what to say right now in her vexations of spirit, Jenny went and said to the Widower-maker, “At least put the flag down!”
The Widower-maker found it cumbersome for him to pursue his work with one hand holding up his flagpole. And he lay his flag down upon the ground. And he took a second step forward in his stalking of the born-again married woman.
“In the name of Jesus, do not take another step forward,” said Flanders, ready for a fight unto death barehanded and all.
The Widower-maker did not yet take a third step forward right now. He paused and contemplated Flanders Nickels’s bold words unto himself. Thinking upon the Lord of hosts—his Almighty God—Flanders dared to take one step forward toward the wild man with the sword. Lo, the Widower-maker took one step backwards away from the man of God!
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Calling upon the name of the Lord, Flanders took a second step forward. The Widower-maker stood his ground and stepped not back a step this time.
The Widower-maker said to Flanders, “Man of God, keep not yourself between me and the woman of God.”
“You will not harm my Jenny!” declared Flanders.
“This woman is my Jenny!” proclaimed the Widower-maker.
“This lady belongs to God,” said Flanders.
“Young man, for your sake flee, or else I will have to slay a man for my first time,” uttered the Widower-maker.
“I am willing to die for God and for Jenny,” said Flanders. And Flanders took a third step toward the man of vengeance with the sword. This man of revenge responded himself by now taking a step closer to Flanders in confrontation and challenge.
“Then die for God and for Jenny,” said the Widower-maker. And he thrust his sword out in a fatal jab toward Flanders’s heart where he stood.
“No! Stalker! No!” cried out Jenny, and she stepped out in front of Flanders and shielded his body with hers.
And the saber struck pretty Jenny through her breast and into her heart in a fatal jab. The Widower-maker then pulled out his sword, full of the young woman’s blood. And fair Jenny slumped to the ground. And she lay dying on the earth.
The Widower-maker cried out and said, “My wife, my wife, why did you leave me for Jesus?”
In torment of grief, he cried out again and said, “Alas, I have made myself a widower!” And he at once fell upon his own sword in suicide, and he died immediately.
Flanders fell upon his knees beside the supine Jenny whom he adored. Gasping, she said, “Flanders, I did that for you, and I did that for God.”
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“Jenny,” said Flanders, understanding now, “the Widower-maker was your husband Stalker Savage.”
“Yes, Flanders,” she said, “It was he.”
“I am so sorry,” he said in great mourning.
“I’m dying,” she said. “I’m really dying. Aren’t I?”
“I promise that we will be together again, Jenny,” he said. “And we will be with Jesus.”
“You and I and Jesus Up in Heaven, Flanders,” she said.
“Will you be waiting for me when you get There, Jenny?” he asked.
“When I get There, I shall wait for you, Flanders,” she said.
“God is good,” he said.
“God is great,” she said. “Hold me, Flanders!” He held her in his arms. Then Jenny sat up; she
looked Upward; and she prayed, “Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit!” And there she died and went home in Flanders’s arms.
“Good-bye, dear Jenny,” said Flanders, letting her lie back upon the ground, and he wiped tears from his eyes.
In his grieving, the Holy Comforter told him in a still small voice, “Flanders Nickels, look up James 1:12 right now. Your fair Jenny died not in vain.”
In obedience to the Holy Spirit, Flanders searched the Scriptures for this mysterious verse, and he read this to himself in this eerie silence: “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.”
The still small voice of God then spoke to him again, saying, “Likewise blessed is the woman that endureth temptation: for when she is tried, she shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.”
Flanders Nickels now understood today’s great loss as God saw it in eternal perspective.
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Comely Jenny was now in Heaven with a crown on her head for having endured the ultimate testing of dying for Christ. This Bible verse called it “the crown of life.” And faithful Jenny earned it in her last moment of life.
Then the Holy Ghost further comforted this Christian man and told him in his heart, “Now look up Revelation 2:10, My son.”
And in obeisance, Flanders looked up this verse, too, and did read this: “Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”
And Flanders found Holy Ghost wisdom of the meaning of this verse as well. That crown of life was the Christian martyrs’ crown. His cherished Jenny died at the hands of the Widower-maker as a martyr for Christ. She gave her life for the cause of Jesus, and now Up in Glory, He was rewarding her with her very own crown of life. She had it on her head right now, and she was about to kneel in worship before Jesus on His throne and give it back to Him.
For it is written, “His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” Matthew 25:21.
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