Flanders Nickels, on a walk in his neighborhood, comes upon a true Easter girl. She sings hymns about Easter; she was born on an Easter; she was born again on an Easter; she loves the Easter miracle, and tomorrow was Easter. Her name is ‘Heidi Nay Brede,’ and she is a Christian, and her first love in her worship life is commemorating the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. God needs her to tell Flanders Nickels about what Easter is really all about and to lead him to Christ as his personal Saviour.
THE EASTER GIRL
By Mr. Morgan P. McCarthy
He was in the little shop “F.R.V., Incorporated” in De Pere, Wisconsin, less than half a block from home. This little store was on South Broadway Street, and his home was an upper apartment on North Broadway Street, this busy street running north and south. Between South Broadway and North Broadway was George Street, another busy street, this one running east. Opening the exit door of this little shop, he stepped out onto the sidewalk and began to walk home, only three buildings away. Passing the lamp shade shop at the corner, he was now at the intersection of Broadway Street and George Street. Once across this street, his apartment was the second building on his block, right after the dime store. The traffic clear, he began to cross the intersection. Lo, suddenly he was in a tornado! The sudden winds were as the winds of death. Tornadoes were even more scary to him than death itself. Suddenly the basement to his apartment building was too far away and too late for him. And out here in the outdoors was the most dangerous place for him to be right now. And this place close to home was now the most frightening place for him to have ever been.
Page 1
This was his tornado dream this morning in bed.
His name was Flanders Nickels, and he had numerous tornado dreams throughout his life, even now in his adulthood. He had never been in a real tornado of waking life. He saw the tornado in the movie “The Wizard of Oz,” lots of times. And he saw tornadoes on the news. And he watched tornado videos on You Tube on the computer. But he never saw a real tornado in his area. One time, in talking to a friend whose first love was firefighting, this friend told him, “I’m going to go in a fire.” And Flanders told this friend, “I’m going to go in a tornado.” Flanders feared tornadoes greatly. In many of his tornado dreams, he found himself seeking refuge in a basement, only to find that suddenly, instead of the basement being underground, now it was above ground on the first floor. In other tornado dreams, he found himself seeing refuge in one of those culverts one sees in the countryside, only to find that this culvert, instead of being underground, it was now resting above ground, lying upon the open earth. In some of his tornado dreams, he would run and take his bundle of stories that he had written and take them with him to a safe place. When did his tornado dreams first come into his life? In fourth grade in Pembine. It was there where his mom showed him an underground pit with a wooden cover and told him that if a tornado were to come, all the family could climb down into this and be safe. And his first tornado dream came upon him at this home in Pembine not long later. In this first such dream, he and his big brother were playing in the attached garage in Menasha, Flanders’s previous house in real life. It was a gray cloudy day, and Flanders looked through the four garage door windows and saw a tornado that was right across the street out front! At once the family took action. In fact the whole neighborhood at once took action. And in Flanders’s parents’ backyard everybody got to work with shovels to dig a great big pit out back for a refuge from the tornado for all on this block. (This despite the sizable basement that came with this house in Menasha, and all the basements that all had in this block). And as the diggers dug, other neighbors were making hot dogs on the grill in this backyard. These were for food were any of the people to get hungry when in the finished pit and waiting for the
Page 2
tornado to go away. And in the midst of all of these preparations in the backyard, the sky was clear and sunny. This nonsensical tornado dream was the first tornado dream in his life of tornado dreams. But the most of the tornado dreams that had come upon him since involved ominous dark clouds and fear of death and seeking safety inside or outside.
He had a friend in Oklahoma who told him that tornadoes down there were often a mile wide! From the internet, Flanders learned the reason why so many tornadoes came up in that section of the country. It was a somewhat puzzling four-fold explanation: the mountains to the west and the flat land to the east and the cold air from the north and the warm air from the south. This was why Oklahoma had so many tornadoes. One day on the local news, a weatherman talked about a phenomenon called a “rain-wrapped tornado.” This phenomenon was not a forecast of the area, but rather a reference to weather oddities out there. According to the meteorologist, a “rain-wrapped tornado” was a tornado that had so very much rain coming down that one could not even see the tornado. And also the meteorologist one day talked about something called “straight line winds,” which were winds that were powerful like tornadoes, but which went straight instead of circular. Flanders also learned about how a hurricane itself could spawn many tornadoes in its midst. And Flanders saw pictures of plastic straws that were driven into trees like a nail when a tornado passed through an area. And he also found out that one of the worst places to be in a tornado was to be underneath a highway overpass. And he found out from a fellow worker that a tornado chaser needed to know much about mathematics. And nothing was more intimidatingly ghastly than a tornado siren. In his upper apartment one day on Elm Street some years ago, as the tornado siren was going off, he was struggling for fifteen minutes outside to get the key to work and to unlock the door to the basement. And one day in the sunny morning of a workday in his life on Michigan Street in another upper apartment, the tornado siren came on. And he had to choose between staying home and getting to work late or ignoring the tornado siren and arriving to work on time. Of many things about working, being late for work was not something that he would
Page 3
think to do. And he chose to walk to work and risk a tornado on a sunny day. Of course, he found out later that that tornado siren had been a mistake. It was not supposed to go off. One night, asleep in bed on Lewis Street, he woke up to the sound of a tornado siren, and he knew that this was not the Wednesday noon whistle. And when a tornado siren got everybody out of bed in his current apartment building, the Falk Building, and the basement door was locked, he directed his group to the Steckardt Building right next door, where he had lived two places prior and whose basement door he had remembered to be always unlocked. And they shared a refuge from the tornado with these neighbors down there. But no tornado had ever come to Flanders for real, even though the sound of the tornado siren was as of a “death phantom.”
Flanders was on a leisurely walk here in east De Pere. To him a whole walk was one hour. And he was now walking down North Erie Street right off of George Street. He saw where the old Pizza Hut was for forever at an earlier time. He loved their pizza. He even had spaghetti and meatballs there one time long ago. He walked past the Citgo gas station that was still there. He passed a vacant lot. And then he came to a house from where he could hear a woman singing. It was summer now in town and windows were open in the neighborhood. He stopped and looked upon this house. It was white with dark green wooden shutters and with three arbor vitae trees across its facade that reached to its roof. There was a little lamppost in the front yard for the nights. The number “121” was just above the front door. And he saw two mailboxes by its front door. He understood this building not to be a single-family house, but rather to be a duplex of an upper apartment and a lower apartment. Himself being a tenant, Flanders could tell that this number “121” was the address of the lower apartment, and that the number of the address of the upper apartment was likely to be something like “121 ½.” The singing was coming from the upper apartment—maybe from the first of its three windows up there. The singer sounded like a woman and not like a girl. It was peaceful and good and pleasant. It sounded like one of those songs a church flock might sing. Maybe it was a hymn. Its words sounded like they were
Page 4
all about Easter, as Christians would see that holiday. These were the lyrics:
“1. Christ the Lord is ris’n today, Alleluia!
Sons of men and angels say: Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heav’ns, and earth reply: Alleluia!
2. Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Dying once He all doth save, Alleluia!
Where thy victory, O grave? Alleluia!
3. Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids Him rise, Alleluia!
Christ has opened Paradise, Alleluia!
4. Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia!
Foll’wing our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like Him, like Him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!”
Then the song and the singing was done. That was nice. Flanders was happy. God was good.
He then turned away from the little apartment building and began to resume his walk on North Erie Street. Just as he got to the next house, a woman with that same voice as the singer called out to him from behind, “I saw you enjoy my hymn, sir.”
He turned back and saw a tall young woman now standing upon the top of the four cement steps that served as the porch. She was really quite pretty. And she had on a pretty outfit. And her hair was long and straight and quite brown. At first he could not think of a clever reply to say in this situation.
She spoke again and said, “I saw you down there, listening.”
He came up with a reply, saying, “You sing pretty, young woman.”
“Why, thank you, sir,” said the young lady.
He came back to her place to find out more about her. She was a tall gal, taller than himself. And she was nice and slim. And her face had the kind of face that a girlfriend should have, according to his ideals. She had on a long-sleeved white cotton shirt and a dark blue sleeveless shaker sweater
Page 5
vest and a dark blue pleated skirt with six box pleats reaching nearly to her knees and dark blue tights and black and white saddle shoes.
She called forth, “Christ the Lord is risen!”
“He has?” asked Flanders, taken aback with a moment of confusion. Then he sought to make it right and said, “He has.”
“No. No. You’re supposed to say, ‘Christ the Lord is risen indeed!’”
“Oh,” he said. And he made it right, saying, “Christ the Lord is risen indeed.”
“Tomorrow is Easter,” said the girl. This was the Easter girl.
“I heard you singing about Easter just now,” he confessed, not sure what to say.
“Happy Easter tomorrow, sir,” she said.
“Happy Easter indeed,” he replied.
This Easter woman, though somewhat too excited about the resurrection in his mind, was a pretty girl in a pretty outfit. And he enjoyed talking to this stranger. The Easter girl was quite a brunette bombshell. A pretty girl like this was not one for a guy to let slip away.
“What’s your name?” he asked her.
“My name is ‘Heidi,’” she said. She gave forth a feminine curtsy.
“The name ‘Heidi’ is one of my favorite names for women,” he spoke personal truth.
“My full name is ‘Heidi Nay Brede,’” said the Easter girl.
“My name is ‘Flanders,’” he said. “Flanders Arckery Nickels.”
“That is a great name for a guy,” said Heidi. With her okay, he now sat beside her.
“Are you an academy girl?” he asked. “Your uniform is that of a St. Joseph Academy girl.”
“That’s the high school that I go to, Flanders,” said Miss Brede. “And my outfit is definitely an academy girl uniform.”
“I like it,” he said.
Page 6
“I like it, too,” said the Easter woman. “I wear it all the time—at school and away from school.”
“What’s it like going to a school where there are no boys?” he asked.
“There’s nobody there for me to ask out for a date,” she said.
“I heard that the St. Joseph Academy girls are tough,” he said.
“We have our share of wild young women,” said Miss Brede. “But hopefully I’m not one of them.”
“Are you a Catholic?” he asked, knowing that this all-girl academy was a Catholic high school.
“Not this girl,” said the Easter girl right off. “I’m a born-again Christian instead.”
In ignorance he asked the Easter woman, “You are not Catholic, and you are born again?”
“Yes, Flanders,” said Heidi.
“I thought that Catholics were Christians and that Christians were Catholics,” he went on to say.
“Not so,” said this young woman. “The two are opposites. Catholics believe in salvation by works and sacraments and baptism. But Christians understand salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.”
“You know a lot about religion,” said Flanders, liking this Easter girl all the more.
“No one who believes what the Catholic church says about salvation is going to Heaven,” boldly proclaimed this faithful young believer.
“They are all going to Hell?” he asked.
“Uh huh,” said the Easter girl in sorrow. “The Roman Catholic church is the world’s biggest cult.”
“Then why do you go around dressed as a Catholic academy girl like you do?” he asked.
“I dress like this because I just love the skirt,” she said. “And I go to the academy, so that I can give out the true plan of salvation to the other girls there. They need to hear God’s Word. And I know
Page 7
much about the Word of God. What the teachers there say to us young women is false doctrine. What I say is what the King James Bible says, and that is truth.”
“What makes you smarter than your teachers?” asked Flanders.
“The Holy Spirit of God that indwells me as He does all true born-again Christians like myself,” said the Easter woman. “He teaches me what the King James Bible says every time I sit down and read it.”
“You know things about God that no Catholic I ever met does, O Heidi,” said Flanders.
“Flanders, do you know God?” she asked.
“Maybe more than do Catholics. I’m not sure, But definitely not as much as you do, Heidi,” he said to her.
“Are you a born-again believer, Flanders?” asked Miss Heidi Brede.
“I know for sure that I am not a born-again believer,” confessed Flanders.
“Maybe I can get you to become a born-again Christian like myself,” said the Easter girl.
“Is that good—getting born again?” he asked.
“For me it was the greatest decision in my life,” she said.
“Would it be my greatest decision in my life?” he asked.
“Yeah!” she said. “That decision is the eternal difference between Heaven and Hell, O Flanders,” said Heidi Brede.
“Whoa!” he said in exclamation.
“The Saviour Jesus Christ is the difference between salvation forever and damnation for ever,” said the Easter girl.
“Woe!” said Flanders in interjection.
“He died on the cross for us sinners and rose again the third day,” said the Easter girl the Gospel.
Page 8
“I can see why Easter is so special to you. All Christians must love the Resurrection,” said Flanders.
“Did you know that the word ‘Easter’ is in the Holy Bible, Flanders?” asked Heidi Brede.
“I believe that,” he said. “Probably in lots of places.”
“Only one place,” said the Easter lady.
“You mean in only one Bible verse?” he asked.
“Uh huh,” she said. “It is in Acts 12:4. Do you want me to recite it?”
“Tell it to me,” he requested.
And the Easter girl told him this verse by memory, “And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.”
“What does that verse say?” asked Flanders.
“It was all about how wicked king Herod put the Apostle Peter in jail. But Peter had other believers who were praying for him. And in the middle of the night the angel of the Lord came and miraculously freed Peter from this prison. Herod was outfoxed by the prayer-answering God,” preached the Easter woman. “That’s the story of Acts chapter twelve.”
“No man can keep God from doing His miracles,” said Flanders, his understanding edified.
“The Easter miracle was His greatest of them all,” said Heidi Nay Brede.
“I did not know anything about this reason for Easter when I was a little boy in Menasha,” said Flanders. “To our whole family it was only about Easter baskets and Easter bunny and Easter eggs.”
He went on to tell of how his big brother got all four of them children up first thing on Easter Sunday so very early that it was not even light out yet. And they would all go downstairs to their special Easter baskets and eat chocolates. These four Easter baskets were full with green Easter grass and mounds of M&M’s and lots of other chocolates with which they gorged themselves. Mom knew that none of the
Page 9
children liked jelly beans, so there were no jelly beans in these Easter baskets ever. The boys also got kites and marbles in their Easter baskets. And their big sister got in her Easter basket also the game “Jacks,” with those little metal spiked toys and its little super ball. Sometimes the big sister carelessly left those spiked toys lying around in the carpet, and Mom would accidentally step on them with her bare foot. Ouch! Also in celebration of Easter, Mom and the kids would dye Easter eggs together. And then Mom hid the Easter eggs throughout the house, and the kids would go on an Easter egg hunt.
In his later years, Flanders had two Easter egg jokes that he told the family. In the one such joke, he asked, “Guess what my favorite color is for an Easter egg?” And after hearing many wrong and logical answers, he would answer his question, saying, “White!” In the other such joke, he asked, “Why can a kid dye Easter eggs with his dad, but he cannot dye Easter eggs with his mom?” After no good answers, he then gave his answer, “Because it is Paas Easter Egg Dye kit, and not Ma’s Easter egg dye kit.” After all of this talk about what Easter meant to himself, Flanders then went on to ask the Easter girl, “But what does Easter mean to you, Heidi, as a born-again Christian? What is it all about with this resurrection from the dead that you told me about just now?”
And she went on to reach into her purse and pull out a pocket New Testament and to read out loud from it a passage of Scripture all about this resurrection: “Flanders, it is written, ‘Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.’ I Corinthians 15:12-20, Flanders.” And the woman of God
Page 10
shut the Good Book.
Flanders said, “That’s the good Easter. Mine was the bad Easter.”
“Truth is good. Falsehood is bad,” said the Easter woman.
“What do all those verses say?” asked Flanders.
And Heidi Brede preached I Corinthians 15:12-20 to this fellow: “If the Lord Jesus had not risen from the grave, He would still be a dead God. A dead God can save no soul from Hell. But He lives. And a living God still saves souls, even today, two thousand years later. If the Saviour had not been raised from the dead, all of the sermons of all of the pastors of all of the churches of God would be but vanity. Further, were it not for this resurrection, all faith in the Saviour and His so great salvation would be utterly hopeless. In addition, were it not for that first Easter on that third day, all people everywhere would forever be in their sins. And that means that we all would have to someday die and go down to the fires of Hell and burn.”
“Truly this resurrection of Christ Jesus is the Easter miracle,” proclaimed Flanders. “He died, but came back alive.”
“What blasphemy does mankind today make out of Easter with its contemporary Easter traditions,” said Heidi.
“He lives,” said Flanders the glory of traditional Easter.
“He lives indeed,” praised the Easter girl the resurrected Christ.
“You are a true Easter girl,” praised Flanders Miss Brede.
“I was born on Easter, and I was born again on Easter,” declared Heidi Brede.
“Both,” he said, impressed.
“Easter is both my physical birthday and my spiritual birthday, Flanders,” said the academy girl.
“How did you get born again, Heidi?” he asked.
“First a snowman had to fall on me, Flanders,” she said with a grin and a sparkle of humor in
Page 11
her pretty eyes.
“Snowmen don’t just go and fall on people,” he said.
“Well, my snowman fell on me,” said Miss Brede the truth.
“Ha ha ha,” he said.
“Ho ho ho,” she said.
“Tell me about it, Heidi,” he said to her.
And the Easter girl gave the testimony of her salvation to him: “I was a little girl whom Mom and Dad made go to Old Rugged Cross Baptist Church. Unsaved people don’t usually like to go to spiritual churches like Baptist churches. And unsaved children like myself at the time found going to church especially boring. But there was one thing that our little church did that I always loved—it was a winter carnival. Every year our Baptist church had a winter carnival to celebrate Easter and the risen Saviour. This was in Dunbar, Wisconsin. And winters in Dunbar were long and cold and snowy. And the whole flock came out for fellowship and food and fun. And Easter was early that year—March it was that day.” She continued, “I kind of had a crush on a boy in our church then. And I thought that he may have a crush on me. His name was ‘Proffery,’ and he was Pastor’s best teen Sunday school class student. And I came up to him in our winter carnival and saw him rolling a big ball of snow that reached to his waist. I could see that he could push this big snowball no farther and that it could get no bigger than it was right then. I said to him, ‘Proffery, could I help?’
And he said, ‘Sure, Heidi. Four arms are better than two for a thing like this.’
And we both began to roll this big snowball, and it became even bigger. And when we both together could roll this snowball no farther, we quit and leaned against it and got our breath back.
‘It’s a big snowball, Heidi,’ he said to me.
‘The biggest snowball of this whole winter carnival, Proffery,’ I said.
‘It’s up to my shoulders,’ he said to me.
Page 12
‘It’s up to my head,’ I said to him.
I tell you, Flanders. It must have been a good five feet in diameter.
‘There,’ said Proffery. ‘Now we two will get the award for the biggest snowball of the winter carnival, Heidi.’
‘The award for the biggest snowball is a Whopper at Burger King. Isn’t it, Proffery?’ I asked him.
‘Uh huh, Heidi,’ he said to me. ‘We can each have a Whopper together as the church’s champion snowball makers.’
‘What did Pastor say is the reward for making the biggest snowman of our little winter carnival, Proffery?’ I asked him.
‘The winner for biggest snowman gets a Big Mac at McDonald’s,’ he told me.
‘I thought so,’ I told him. ‘Let’s go ahead and make a snowman out of our snowball, so that you and I can have a date together at McDonald’s and have Big Macs.’
‘I know you, Heidi,’ he said. ‘All of our church know how you love Big Macs.’
Proffery then took a good hard look at the snowball he and I just finished. I was thinking how good a base that this would make for our award-winning snowman that I planned on making with Proffery. But Proffery had doubt in his eyes.
‘What’s wrong, Proffery?’ I asked him.
And he said, ‘We two are not enough together to go ahead and add two more snowballs to this one and make a snowman, Heidi.’
‘With God all things are possible, Proffery,’ I told him. I was not saved then. I had heard that promise of God from Pastor in his sermons, and I sought to use that on Proffery to make him to do what I wished.
But Proffery was not fooled. He said to me, ‘”A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth
Page 13
himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.” Proverbs 22:3.’
But I said to him, ‘What can possibly happen to two teenagers building a snowman?’ I could only think of eating Big Macs with my favorite boy of church.
Then he said to me, ‘Heidi, do you want to get saved today?’ I heard that before from him. And now I heard it again.
And I said to him with a sigh, ‘Don’t say that to me.’
He then said, ‘Either way, I don’t have rest about this new idea of yours, Heidi. One of us could get hurt doing that.’
‘Proffery, we will not have an accident if we make this winter carnival’s biggest snowman,’ I told him.
‘Let me have a word of prayer for the Lord’s protection,’ he said to me.
‘No. Now is no time for prayer, Proffery,’ I said to him in a huff. ‘Could the two of us do something together without getting prayer involved again?’ And Proffery did not get his prayer in upon my rejection. But he still, nonetheless, hesitated, standing there not committing himself to my plans. So I started rolling my future snowman’s second ball of snow. Soon I could roll it no more. And then Proffery finally gave in and helped me to finish rolling this ball of snow. Behold, this snow ball must have been a good four feet in diameter. And with Proffery and myself working together, we lifted up this giant snowball and set it upon the more giant snowball.
He then asked again, ‘Heidi, would you like to get saved today?’
‘Proffery Coins,’ I said to him in a little snap. Then I said, ‘Enough with all of that already!’
Giving in and leaving me in the hands of God Almighty, he then began making my third ball of snow for my great snowman of the winter carnival. And I joined in at once. We rolled this top snowball for the snowman until it was three feet in diameter. ‘There,’ he said. ‘The last ball of snow is done.’
Page 14
‘Proffery, help me to lift it and to set it upon the other two right now,’ I demanded of him.
‘Heidi, would you like to get saved today?’ he asked me for my umpteenth time.
‘Never!’ I snapped at him. ‘I shall never like to get saved!’
And we both together sought to finish making my ‘champion snowman.’ Two teenagers—a boy and a girl—had to set a three-foot diameter snowball on top of a four-foot diameter snowball that was resting upon a five-foot diameter snowball. As you can tell, Flanders, I was tempting God,” said the Easter girl telling of her story of how she got saved.
“You had an accident making a giant snowman,” said Flanders.
“All of a sudden, everything fell,” said the Easter woman. “Proffery fell. I fell. The top snowball fell. Proffery managed to fall on his feet. He was okay. I fell upon my back. I was not okay. And the three-foot-diameter snowball fell. It fell upon my chest. It pinned me hard to the ground. It stayed whole and intact. And some of my ribs were broken. At first I thought that I had died. After that I knew that I lived, but thought that I was not going to make it. After that I could tell that I would be all right, but thought that I was going to pass out. All I knew for sure was that everything around me was in a daze.
Then I saw Proffery kneeling beside me where I lay supine. He asked me, ‘Heidi Brede, would you like to get saved today?’
And this time I said, ‘I would like to get saved today.’
He then gently rolled my snowball off of me. And I groaned and cried out in pain. And he sat down in the snow next to where I was lying in the snow. And he led me line-by-line through the sinners’ prayer. And when I was done praying for salvation, I was quite very saved. That, Flanders, is all about how I became a born-again Christian.”
“God has most surprising ways to Him,” said Flanders.
“My snowman was never completed; I did not win the contest; and I did not get my Big Mac,”
Page 15
said the Easter woman in remembrance. “But I found Christ.”
“It sounds like a story with a happy ending,” said Flanders.
“Would you like your story to have a happy ending?” asked the Easter girl.
“You mean for me to pray the prayer and get saved?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Heidi. “Just believe the Gospel and ask God to save you.”
“I believe the Gospel,” he said. “What does the Gospel say?”
“It says that Christ died for our sins and arose from the dead the third day,” she told him.
“I believe the first part of the Gospel, but I kind of doubt the second part of the Gospel, if you need to know,” said Flanders. “I should have told you earlier.”
“You believe that Christ died for your sins. That’s good. But you doubt the resurrection after all. That’s not good, Flanders,” said Miss Brede.
“I can see how a living man can die. But I cannot see how a dead man can live again,” said Flanders.
“Is the resurrection impossible for God Almighty?” asked the Easter girl. “It is written in Jesus’s own words, ‘I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen;…’ Revelation 1:18.”
“I’m sure that whatever I really think about this rising again thing that it is not a life or death issue for myself,” said Flanders, telling more about what he really believed.
“Flanders, it is an eternal life or second death thing,” said the Easter girl.
“Eternal life? Second death?” he asked.
“Heaven or Hell, to put it more simply,” said Miss Brede.
“You mean my forever after,” he said. “You say that it depends on what I believe about this resurrection that you love as an Easter girl.”
“No one can get saved without believing and confessing the whole Gospel,” said Heidi.
Page 16
“How can an unbeliever like myself believe?” he asked.
“By hearing the Word of God,” she said. “And with help from the Holy Spirit.”
“Are you saying that the Bible says much about this resurrection of Jesus?” asked Flanders.
“The four Gospels of the New Testament are full with Words about the resurrection of the Lord,” said the Easter girl. “Those four books all end with a historical account of Jesus in His forty days He walked about the holy land after being risen again.”
“Where in those books is this resurrection proved, Heidi?” he asked.
“Why, that would be Matthew chapter 28 and Mark chapter 16 and Luke chapter 24 and John chapter 20 and chapter 21,” said the Easter woman.
“If you convince me that this resurrection miracle of God is for real, then I will pray the prayer with you and become born-again like yourself,” promised Flanders Nickels.
“God be with you and with me, Flanders,” said Heidi Brede, taking on the task. “I will let God talk to you, instead of myself.”
“How do you expect to do that?” asked Flanders.
“I will read God’s Word to you in these five resurrection chapters and see if His Word can change your mind about Christ’s resurrection,” said the Easter girl.
“I’m all ears, Heidi,” he said.
And she opened up her Bible and read all of Matthew chapter 28 out loud to him. After this, she asked him, “What does God say in this chapter, Flanders?”
Having listened well, he summed up what he heard in Matthew 28: “Mary Magdalene and another Mary went to Jesus’s tomb in the cave. There they saw an angel, who said to them, ‘He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.’ This angel then told them them to go and tell Jesus’s Apostles the news. The two women obeyed and began to run to go and tell them. But on their way, Jesus Himself met them. He said, ‘All hail.’ He was hardly dead now. Yea,
Page 17
instead He was very living now. In adoration the women fell down and held Him by the feet. The Lord then said to them to tell His Apostles that He would meet them in Galilee, and that they would see Him, as well. And Jesus presented His resurrected self to His eleven Disciples in Galilee in a mountain.”
After this, the Easter girl turned to Mark chapter 16 and went on to read this chapter out loud, too, to him. When she was done reading this to him, she asked him, “What did you get out of this chapter about the resurrection, Flanders?”
And, having listened attentively, he summed up Mark 16, saying, “The very first person who saw Him after He arose from the grave was Mary Magdalene. She was the one out of whom He had cast seven demons some time before. This Mary and the other Mary came to His tomb to take care of His dead body with things maybe for embalming. And when they got to the cave, they saw that the great big stone that had covered this entrance was now rolled off to the side. The two women went in, and they saw an angel inside; and this angel said to them, ‘He is risen; He is not here: behold the place where they laid Him.’ Later on the resurrected Christ of the empty tomb showed Himself to the eleven Apostles as they were eating meat at the dinner table. He went on to scold them for not believing those who had said to them, ‘Christ arose!’”
After this, Miss Brede turned to Luke chapter 24, and she read out loud this whole chapter to him now. Flanders listened with his ears and with his heart. When she finished reading this chapter, she asked him, “What did you learn from this, Flanders?”
And he summarized Luke 24 in his own words: “Two men were walking together toward a village called ‘Emmaus.’ Jesus came up to them, but He made sure that they could not recognize Him. He asked them, ‘Why are you both sad right now?’ One of the two men said to Him, ‘Didn’t you hear?
The mighty prophet Jesus, Who was going to deliver our nation Israel from Rome, was executed the other day. And there are two women going around and saying that He came back to life.’ Then this Jesus walking with them asked them, ‘Fools, don’t you know what the Scriptures say about Him?’
Page 18
Christ then told them what the Scriptures said about Him. Then the walkers arrived at Emmaus. There they sat down to eat. Jesus took bread and blessed it and gave it to them. Just like that the two knew that this was Jesus. And just like that Jesus disappeared. Later on, He also manifested Himself to His eleven Apostles. First they feared. Then they doubted. Then they believed. Jesus said to them, ‘Look at My hands and My feet. If I were a Spirit and not a physical body, I would not have the bones and the flesh that you see Me to have.’ Jesus then asked them if they had any food for Him. They had a piece of broiled fish and a honeycomb. And Jesus sat down to eat with them.”
After this, the Easter woman turned to John chapters 20 and 21, and she read out loud these two chapters to her captive audience here with her on her front stoop. And after a while, she was done reading to him. Then she asked, “What do you believe about these two chapters, Flanders?”
“All,” he said. And he summarized these two chapters as best as he could remember: “On that very first Easter Sunday, Mary Magdalene told Peter and John, ‘The Lord is not in the sepulchre anymore; and we do not know what has become of Him.’ Peter and John immediately ran to the cave. John got there first, but did not go in. Peter got there second and went right in. In here were grave clothes, all neatly folded up, but there was no corpse to be seen anywhere. Mary stayed there, alone and crying. Behold, Jesus came to her. But once again He sealed with blindness a witness’s understanding—this time Mary—and she did not recognize Him as she looked upon Him. In compassion, Christ asked her, ‘Why are you crying?’ And she said to Him, ‘You must be the gardener. Please tell me where you have put Him, if it were you who has taken Him away.’ Jesus called forth her name in gentleness. And her understanding was unsealed, and she knew this to be Jesus. ‘Master!’ she cried forth in joy. And she ran and told the Disciples what happened. Not long later, in the evening, Jesus visited His Apostles, Thomas not with them at the time. And when the ten told doubting Thomas that they saw the Lord, he said to them, ‘I doubt that.’ Later, Jesus came back, and this time Thomas was there. Jesus showed him His nail prints in His hands and His spear wound in His side. Then Thomas
Page 19
believed in the resurrected Jesus, and he said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Still later, the risen Christ showed Himself to His Disciples when they were fishing on the Sea of Tiberias. He was standing on the shore, and they could not recognize Him there. He said to them, ‘Fish on the starboard side of the boat, not on the port side of the boat.’ They obeyed. And when they cast out their net on the starboard side, they immediately caught one hundred fifty-three fish in their net. And John’s understanding was opened, and he said, ‘It is the Lord!’ And Peter jumped right into the water and began to swim toward Jesus on the shore. And the risen Lord again ate with His Apostles.”
“Do you believe now, Flanders?” asked the Easter girl with bated breath.
“I do believe, Heidi,” he said.
“What do you believe?” she asked for affirmation.
“I believe about myself that as you are an Easter girl, that I am now an Easter guy,” he said. “I do now believe with all of my heart in the resurrection of Christ.”
“Christ the Lord is risen!” she said in test.
“Christ the Lord is risen indeed!” he said, passing the test.
“Amen! Amen!” said the Easter girl.
“I am ready for you to lead me to salvation, girl,” said Flanders.
“Amen! Amen!” she said.
“I am ready to pray the prayer,” he said.
“Amen! Amen!” she said again.
The Devil looked down from the atmosphere and saw that he was on the verge of losing Flanders to God. Nothing made the Devil more unhappy than seeing a lost person get saved. And the wily Devil came down in evil spirit form and began to wreak havoc upon the Easter girl and her guy right now just as their sinners’ prayer was about to start. First he would smite the lady. Then he would scare the man half to death. That should keep the man from becoming Christ’s for sure.
Page 20
Satan went ahead now and struck the Easter girl in the head with a malady. She sat there beside Flanders on the front stoop and said nothing and did nothing for a while. Flanders spoke up and asked her, “How come you’re not leading me through my prayer, Heidi?”
She said, “I’m dizzy.”
“You’re dizzy?” he asked. “How come?”
“I don’t know. I just know that suddenly my head is dizzy,” said Miss Brede.
“Is it real bad?” he asked. “Should we call an ambulance?”
“No! No! No ambulance right now. We’ve got to take care of your soul and your eternal destiny first, Flanders,” said the Easter woman.
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
“My head does not hurt. But everything is moving around even though nothing is moving around,” said Heidi Brede.
“Can you stand up?” he asked her.
“I can hardly stay sitting up right now,” said the Easter girl. “What’s happening to me all of a sudden?”
“I can hold you up where you sit, and you can lead me through my salvation prayer, maybe,” he said.
“My Mom used to get these spells when I was a little girl,” she said. “But nothing like what I feel now.”
In a moment of comic relief he asked, “I bet that she could predict rain with those dizzy spells.”
“You mean like when arthritic people get pain in their knees that they can predict rain coming,” asked the Easter girl.
“Yeah,” he said with a laugh.
“It wasn’t rain in Mom’s case, Flanders, when her dizzy spells overcame her,” said Heidi.
Page 21
“What could your mom predict with her dizzy spells, Heidi?” asked Flanders.
“Tornadoes,” said the Easter girl.
Flanders quaked with trembling for fear of death of tornadoes.
And the Easter girl went on to say, “I must now have inherited that same ability from Mom.”
“Tornadoes?” asked Flanders. “Tornadoes!”
“The sky seems to be turning green, Flanders. Do you see that?” she asked.
He looked up and saw the sky turning green now. “I’m a goner!” he cried out.
“Let’s go down my basement where we can be safe and lead you to Christ down there,” said the Easter girl.
“Yes! We need that,” he said. “How do we get down there from out here in front?”
“Just through this front door, down the short hallway to the left of my stairs, and through the little door in the wall to the right, and down the stairs,” she said.
“Can I help you up?” he asked.
“I cannot get up right now the way my head is,” she said.
“Can I carry you down there?” he asked.
“That would be quicker,” said Heidi. “Yes, Flanders. Carry me out of this coming storm.”
The wind began to roar now. He heard a sound like a train off in the distance. He said, “I hear a train.”
She said, “No trains run in this east side of De Pere,” she said. “Trains do run in the west side of De Pere.”
He knew what they both just said. He said, “That sound is not a train. Is it, Heidi?”
Just then, as if to answer his question for Miss Brede, the tornado siren went off. In this moment of exigency, Flanders quickly picked up Heidi Brede to carry her and himself down to the basement. But his terror in his heart for tornadoes caused his knees to buckle from underneath himself,
Page 22
and he and Heidi both fell down hard upon the cement sidewalk just before the cement steps. Just then a bolt of lightning struck one of the big box elder trees that was between the sidewalk and the street. And the tree fell down upon the house—indeed right into the front door and the top of the front stoop. If Flanders had not fallen where he had, he and Heidi would have been crushed up there at the top of the steps of the stoop. They were both spared by a miracle of God. At first, horror of the tornado and what just happened paralyzed Flanders’s legs where he was sprawled. But he overcame his fears and got back up to his feet. “Pray for us, Heidi,” he said. And tending to needful matters, he left her side to try to get the front door open that would enable them to get down to the basement. Alas, the whole tree was wedged into the broken-down doorway of this front door. He tried to move the heavy trunk, but, of course, it would not budge. He tried to break branches off along the sides of the trunk, but, unfortunately they were all too big to break off with his physical strength. He also tried to see if he could force himself through in between branches, hoping to be able to get her through first, then himself second. But he could not pass through into the front hall. He came back to the dizzy and ill Easter girl there on the cement steps, her head not at all aware and steady where she was. She was struggling now to try to crawl on her hands and knees to seek refuge inside the house. He told her the bad news, “We cannot get into the house, Heidi. We have to stay out here.”
“Well then, Flanders. We shall stay out here. I can lead you to salvation out here. tornado or no tornado,” said the faithful Easter girl.
The tornado had left the west side of De Pere, passed across the Fox River, and now began to cross over this east side of De Pere. This Erie Street was only several blocks away from the river and due east. It was getting so loud out here that it was hard to hear anything other than great devastating wind.
And they looked up. And they saw it. There it was. It was a doomsday funnel cloud, dark and malevolent and redoubtable. And it was coming right toward where they were. Flanders almost passed
Page 23
out with morbid fear of tornado’s fury. Heidi almost passed out with sickening disorientation in her head.
“Heidi! Heidi!” cried out Flanders in maybe his life’s last moments on Earth, “What do I say to God in the prayer?”
“What did you say?” yelled out Heidi Brede with this roaring tornado now only a block away and coming toward them. “I can’t hear you, Flanders.” Then she began to try to lead him to salvation in what might be her last soul to win for Christ in this life. She began the first line of the sinners’ prayer unto salvation, saying, “Dear God in Heaven:”
In this din of all-powerful wind, Flanders said, “I didn’t get that. What did you say, Heidi?
How does the sinners’ prayer go?”
“What, Flanders?” yelled out the Easter girl.
“What, Heidi?” yelled out Flanders.
Not able to save himself from tornado or Satan, Flanders called upon the mercy and grace and salvation of God Almighty, and he got down upon his knees, beat upon his chest with his fists, dared not to look up at Heaven, and prayed a seven-word prayer from his soul and from his spirit, saying, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner!”
And God heard his prayer. It was a brief and powerful sinners’ prayer more fervent than any more complete sinners’ prayer. And God saved his soul to the uttermost. It is written in Hebrews 7:25 about Jesus the Saviour of the world, “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” And the Devil lost this soul to the Lord. And Flanders Nickels, the man who had discovered a love for Easter and the risen Lord through the words of the Easter woman, was now born again into the family of God.
God then told Satan, “Take away the tornado.”
And the tornado at once lifted back up into the sky from where it had descended.
Page 24
Then the Lord told the Devil, “Take away the disorientation.”
And the dizziness left Heidi’s head and ears.
The Lord then said to Lucifer, “Go away from them now.”
And Lucifer fled from the two children of God on 121 ½ North Erie Street.
All was well outside around them. All was well inside within them. All was well with Flanders’s soul.
“Thank you for your part in leading me to the Saviour, Heidi,” said Flanders.
“It was all you who said it,” said Heidi. “I could read your lips when you said the sinners’ prayer.”
“Is your Baptist church having an Easter service tomorrow?” asked Flanders.
“Yeah, Flanders. A nice long one, Would you like to come along?” asked the Easter girl.
“Yes. I would, Heidi,” he said.
“Is it a date, Flanders,” asked Miss Brede, “at my Grant Street Baptist Church?”
“A date it is,” he said. “You and I at your Baptist church in west De Pere.”
“I wonder what my landlord will say when he sees this tree that has fallen into the apartment building,” said the Easter woman.
“Not to worry, Heidi,” said Flanders. “I have some great friends who love to do repairs to buildings that have been damaged by water and wind and fire.”
“Maybe my landlord can hire them,” said Miss Heidi Brede.
“These men do this kind of thing volunteer,” said Flanders.
“I can tell my landlord about them then, Flanders,” said the Easter woman.
“They will be glad to help,” said Flanders.
“My landlord would be glad to work with them,” said Heidi. “If that’s okay with them.”
“They would be glad to have his help,” said Flanders.
Page 25
“What will I do tonight?” asked the Easter girl. “I have no way to turn into my apartment for the night. Where will I sleep?”
“Let’s stay up all night together out here and celebrate Easter until the morning,” he said.
“I never stayed up all night before,” said Heidi.
“I would love to have an all-night fellowship with you on my first day as a Christian,” said Flanders.
“I think that Christ would like us to do that,” said the Easter girl.
“I could read the Holy Bible with you. I could pray with you. I could sing hymns with you. I could talk about Jesus with you. I could find out what having a girlfriend-in-the-Lord is like with you,” said Flanders in discovering new fun things to do now that he was a believer.
“It would be fun for you, and it would be fun for me,” said Miss Brede.
“And when Easter Sunday comes around after our wild date this night, then we can finish it off with that Easter Service that we both want to go to,” said Flanders.
“I’m sure that I can get the landlord to open up my blocked door tomorrow while you and I are at Grant Street Baptist Church at Sunday Morning Worship,” said the Easter girl.
“Then you can get into your apartment,” said Flanders. “My friends can come over to your apartment first thing Monday to begin the repairs,” he said.
“God uses good people for good works,” said Miss Brede, content with God.
“Heidi Brede,” said Flanders Nickels, “would you sing me another of your favorite Easter hymns?”
“Like ‘Christ Arose?’” she asked.
“That sounds like a good one,” he said.
And the Easter girl began to sing this Easter hymn by memory for him:
“1. Low in the grave He lay—Jesus, my Saviour!
Page 26
Waiting the coming day—Jesus, my Lord!
Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes;
He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
And He lives forever with His saints to reign:
He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!
2. Vainly they watch His bed—Jesus, my Saviour!
Vainly they seal the dead—Jesus, my Lord!
Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes;
He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
And He lives forever with His saints to reign:
He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!
3. Death cannot keep his prey—Jesus, my Saviour!
He tore the bars away—Jesus, my Lord!
Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes;
He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
And He lives forever with His saints to reign:
He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!”
“I am happy being with you and hearing you sing about Easter, Heidi,” said Flanders.
“That’s what you have to put up with if I get to become your girlfriend, Flanders,” said the Easter woman.
Succinctly he replied most affirmatively, “You get to become my girlfriend, Heidi,”
“And I get to sing about Easter,” she said coyly.
With the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, Flanders went on to say, “Jesus is not like the others out there who founded a religion, Heidi. All of the other founders of all of the other religions are dead and buried and rotted away. But Jesus, the focus of Christianity, is not dead and buried and rotted away. He is alive forever. That is proof that Christianity is truth and religion is false.”
“Most well said, Flanders,” said Miss Brede.
Also he went on to say in the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, “The Saviour Jesus Christ, Who is God, is the greatest Person in the history of the world. And yet none of the secular history books say a
Page 27
thing about Him anywhere in their pages.”
“What does that tell you now that you are a child of God, Flanders?” asked the Easter woman.
“That tells me that though He made this world, this world still does not know Him,” said Flanders good spiritual wisdom.
“Hearts of men and women and children are hard in this Earth,” said Heidi Brede about this truth that Flanders had just said.
Flanders then went on to say, “And hardly anybody besides us, Heidi, knows that the Easter miracle is the greatest event of all of history.”
And the Easter woman said, “What do you think about that?”
“I think that all the world is blinded by the Devil, except us believers,” said Flanders Nickels.
“And I think something else, too,”
“What is it?” she asked.
“That the salvation of my soul this day and the salvation of your soul in your day—and the salvation of any other’s soul any other day—are all the greatest miracles of God since the miracle of the resurrection of Christ,” he told her.
“Jesus said exactly that in the Gospels, Flanders,” said Heidi Brede.
“And now I’ve got something to say to you, O Easter girl,” said Flanders.
“What is it that you have to say to me, Flanders?” asked the Easter woman.
“”Christ the Lord is risen!” he said in ready cue.
“Christ the Lord is risen indeed!” replied the Easter girl in love with Easter all year round.
And she went ahead to sing the Easter hymn “He Lives” to his most avid and eager ears.
It is written by the Apostle Paul to the Pastor Timothy in II Timothy 2:8, “Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel:”
Page 28
