“Miss Mackenzie McKassey,” a prodigal daughter of God, comes back to Flanders Nickels, a mighty man of God, in hopes that he can bring her back to the Lord. In old days they used to be boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-Christ, and they used to fellowship together in the Lord all the time. But she backslid, and he grew in the Lord; and they had to break up. She is back now, but now she is dressed in a red, white, and blue stars and stripes women’s gymnastics leotard. It was because of this gymnastics leotard that she had backslidden and discovered immorality. Will she choose her leotard or the Lord Jesus on this rendezvous with Flanders?”
THE FELLOWSHIPPER—A SEQUEL
Mr. Morgan P. McCarthy
In mighty Scriptural rebuke, the born-again Christian man said to the young woman: “Thus saith the Lord in Jeremiah 2:19, ‘Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts.’”
Her tempting form dressed in her favorite gymnastics leotard, this young woman had just propositioned this young man of God. And he chose to have nothing of this and of her. An old girlfriend-in-the-Lord had backslidden into much abundant immorality in her life. And the moral born-again believer man was repulsed with this woman once alive for Christ in times past. And he was sorry that he had agreed for one last date with her, after many years of separation, even to try to get her back to Jesus in her life, as she had come here for.
“Oh, I am sorry for having asked that of you, Flanders,” said the indecent girl.
“I had never thought that all of your backsliding would have come to this, Mackenzie,” he said.
Mackenzie’s women’s gymnastics leotard was identical to that of the American women
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gymnasts of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics: The long right sleeve was all white from shoulder to wrist; the long-left sleeve was a series of red stripes and white stripes from shoulder to wrist; along the right side of her torso was a field of blue with white stars running below a diagonal and covering her nether regions; along the left side of her torso was a series of red stripes and white stripes running above a diagonal. America’s famous Mary Lou Retton, the winner of the all-around gold medal, stole everybody’s heart with herself dressed in this same patterned leotard in the Olympics. And Julianne McNamara, America’s number two woman gymnast, had also worn this same kind of leotard in the Olympics. And this Mackenzie had backslidden on God some years ago because of her same type of women’s gymnastics leotard.
Mackenzie and Flanders were sitting upon the top or the red carpeted stairs here in the hallway outside of his apartment. It was night. The forty-watt light bulb gave light to them from the ceiling.
Out back here where they were facing were twenty-four steps down. She was sitting to the right; he was sitting to the left. Along his side was his apartment door with the number “5” on it. It was shut. She was not welcome into his apartment as long as she desired things of the flesh this night. It had been right here at the top of these stairs that first date together when he had led her to the Lord long ago. And this girl was still the prettiest girl of girls that he had known. Her shoulder-length straight red hair and her full red bangs across all of her forehead still sang to his heart. Her brown eyes were still radiant with young womanhood. And her feminine overbite still captivated him as a happy reminder of his own male overbite. And this girl was still slim and lithe. And, in truth and in secret, he did greatly admire her current gymnastics leotard of today’s date even more than he had her symbolic wedding dress of that first date up here of a most especial day long ago.
“Miss McKassey,” Flanders said to her, “we used to fellowship together.”
“We were fellow shippers,” she confessed in sweet remembrances.
“We used to be perfect for each other,” said Flanders Nickels.
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“Oh, what a crush you had on me. Oh, what a crush I had on you,” she said.
“And though we really liked each other a lot, it was Jesus Whom we both loved the most,” he said.
“After you led me to the Lord, you taught me the joys of worship of the Lord, Flanders,” said Mackenzie.
“You loved to pray. You loved to read your Bible. You loved to go to church. You loved to give out the Word. You loved to sing hymns,” reminisced Flanders with Mackenzie.
“Then I discovered the false joys of immorality,” confessed Miss McKassey. “And I fell in love with a guy named Wanton Lewd.”
“I know,” said the Christian man sorrowfully.
“You had to break up with me, because of how bad I turned out as a Christian woman,” she said.
“My Jesus wanted it to be so, that I break up with you,” he said.
“And you were right in doing so, Flanders,” she said. “Otherwise you would have been unequally yoked together with me as your prodigal girlfriend-in-Christ. If you had not separated from me when you had, I might have tempted you to start living in the same immorality that I had slid back into with Wanton. ‘Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.’ I Corinthians 15:33.”
“You remember,” he said in ardor upon hearing her recite a Scripture verse
“Pastor and you taught me that verse, Flanders,” she said.
“You still remember things from our days of fellowship and dates, Mackenzie,” he said.
“I can only recite them. But you live them,” she said.
“This sliding back,” he said in cares for her. “It did not start with that Wanton. Did it?”
“It had not started with Wanton,” she said. “It had to lead up to Wanton and get worse after
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that.”
“Where had your downfall begun, Mackenzie?” he asked.
“My life of license?” she asked. He nodded. And she said, “It had begun with this.” And she raised her left cuff of her leotard and touched it with her right hand in indication.
“A women’s gymnastics leotard brought about immorality into your life, Mackenzie?” he asked. She nodded. “You seemed different inside that first day you came on our date with that on.”
“That was before I had met Wanton,” she said, ‘”But it all started when I had put it on for my first time.”
“Does a women’s gymnastics leotard make a woman feel aroused?: he asked.
“Not with any other woman gymnast, Flanders,” she said. “But with me…yes… very much so.”
“A woman gymnast who makes her gymnastics leotard a most unwholesome fetish indeed,” said Flanders.
“And I was never even a real gymnast, either,” she said.
“You never did gymnastics. You just dressed like a gymnast,” he said, knowing her well.
“I like the stimulation of wearing this,” she said, and she said no more.
“Most odd.” he said.
“I started with myself and then with Wanton and then with all the men,” she summarized her backsliding with her gymnastics leotard.
“That’s more than I had expected to hear,” he said. Why, Mackenzie was a real whore now!
And then she said it, “I am a common whore now, Flanders.”
“I remember that first date we had where you declined a prayer meeting with me,” he said.
“I remember,” said Mackenzie. “I had this on that night, and I confessed to you that I did not feel holy enough wearing what I was wearing to pray with you right then.”
“And I said that God wants to hear His believers pray to him no matter what they are wearing.”
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said Flanders.
“And all I could say was, ‘You don’t understand, Flanders,’” she said in recollection.
“At that time I did not know,” he said. “But I came to know later.”
“At that early time I did not understand, either. But I definitely did not feel clean enough in my heart dressed as I was to pray with my devout Christian boyfriend,” said Mackenzie McKassey.
“I remember that one day on a later date when you told me more bad news,” said Flanders.
“I know what that bad news was,” she said. “You just got done telling me your good news that you discovered Hebrews chapter eleven, that great faith chapter just the day before.”
“And you told me the bad news that you had not opened your Bible one time that same day before,” he said.
“My first day in my walk with Christ where I had skipped out on my Bible study,” she said.
“I remember that you told me that you had fallen into some mud and had to do your laundry and had forgotten to read your Holy Bible that night,” he said. “You had never done anything like that before, Mackenzie– forgotten the Bible all day before. What made doing your laundry more important than reading God’s Word all of a sudden?”
“I had fallen into the mud wearing my gymnastics leotard,” she said.
“Of course. I should have known,” he said.
“I apologize also for that first day that I had not gone to Sunday Morning Worship with you, too, Flanders,” said Mackenzie McKassey.
“You told me that you had some important matters to take care of that only God knew about,” he said.
“Those important matters were my rendezvous with Wanton Lewd,” she said.
“You skipped out on church for a first date with him?” asked Flanders.
“That was our second date that day I did not go to church with you, Flanders,” she said. “Our
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first date was the day he and I had first met on the Ferris Wheel. But our second date, we, ah, he and I, well, he and I just kind of consummated our union as boyfriend-and-girlfriend, Flanders.”
“You skipped out on church for sex,” he said, liking her less and less now that he was finding out about her more and more.
“He said sexy things about my gymnastics leotard and about me in my gymnastics leotard,” said Mackenzie McKassey.
“You have turned out to be quite the prodigal daughter, Mackenzie,” he said, getting back to his feet in this hallway and looking upon his number “5” on his door. “You brag so on your conquests,” he then said to her.
“I used to conquer souls; now I conquer guys,” she said in shame and in conviction. “I ask you to stay and not leave me alone in this hallway, Flanders,”
“I remember how faithful a soul-winner you used to be,” he said. “You and Pastor’s wife Emmy never missed out on Thursday Evening Visitation.” He sat down beside her again.
“You guys went knocking on doors in two’s on one side of the street, and we ladies went knocking on doors in two’s on the other side of the street,” said the fellow shipper.
“I remember that first day that Emmy had to go alone,” said Flanders. “You called in sick that night.”
“I was sick that night,” she said. “But I got better.”
“What were you sick with?” he asked.
“It was… transmitted,” she said.
“You mean…,” he said.
“You guys call it a ‘case,’” she said.
“A case. Of course. A case,” said Flanders. Then he said, “And I never saw you out on visitation with Emmy and the other women again.”
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“I’ve still got my hymnbook,” she said. “It is in my desk drawer in my bedroom.”
“Did you sing a hymn lately?” he asked with last hopes. She shook her head. “You quit the hymns, too.” he said. She nodded her head. “Oh,” he said.
“Wanton made me to quit singing about God when we were on our dates, because that kind of music offended him,
”Did you still sing hymns anyway when you were not with him?” asked Flanders.
“No. Not anymore,” she did say. “Wanton told me to quit singing those kinds of songs for forever, whether I were with him or not with him.”
“He cannot tell you to just quit singing from your hymnbook just like that for forever, Mackenzie,” said Flanders.
“I know. But I did not mind. I could do that for my fun boyfriend. Besides, those hymns of God began to bother me as they had Wanton,” said Miss McKassey.
“I can only think now about Hebrews 10:29-31, Mackenzie,” said Flanders.
“How does it go?” asked the loose young woman.
“Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an
unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
“Is that saying that I am in trouble with God?” she asked, fear of God suddenly in her tone in addition to her sincere remorse.
“You are tempting God with sins unto death,” he told her.
“Woe. I got God mad at me,” she said. Her hands and her feet trembled where she sat.
“Did you mean real business with the real God and with the real me when you had come here
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looking for help?” he asked her.
“Uh huh, Flanders. Yes. Yes,” she said with a vigorous nod of her red head.
“And how do you feel now that you have come?” he asked less judgmentally and more compassionately.
“You are not mad at me anymore all of a sudden, Flanders,” said Miss McKassey.
“You are a beautiful girl,” he said. “And we had beautiful times together in the Lord—you and I.”
“How I wish those days to be back again,” she said in truth.
“I bet that you are unhappy in your life with Wanton and the others,” he said.
“I thought that my new free life with my leotard and with my Wanton would be a lot of fun—the kind of fun that I could not have with you, Flanders. You are a good man who does not do bad things with women. Yet the more fun I have with men, the less happy I end up being. I can see that fun does not necessarily bring happiness.”
“That kind of fun brings pleasure only for a season, Mackenzie. But after that you have to reap the most unhappy harvest,” Flanders said to her.
“Sin is still called ‘sin.’ Isn’t it, Flanders?” she asked. “And God hates all sin. Doesn’t He?”
“Above all things, God is most of all holy,” he said. “The holy God hates sin.”
“Yet even unholy women can still get right with God if they really want to in the power of the Holy Spirit. Can’t I, Flanders?” asked the fellow shipper.
“Even with Christ as my Best Friend, I have missed you these past long years, Mackenzie,” said Flanders Nickels.
“A backslidden believer—the kind of Christian like myself—I can come back to Jesus and find joy in the Lord again. I can. Can’t I?” she asked.
“My God and your God is the God of second chances,” he said. “When I sin, I apologize
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to the Lord, and He forgives me, and He restores me to fellowship.”
“So with my sins, I can apologize to God, and He will forgive me, and He will restore me to fellowship,” said Miss McKassey.
“It is written, ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ I John 1:9, pretty Mackenzie,” said Flanders.
“With the little sins you do, that’s easy for God. But with all the big sins that I do, that is not easy for God,” she said.
“All sin is bad in the eyes of God. There is no such thing with Him as a little sin,” said Flanders. “Yet our God can forgive all sins.”
“You make yourself sound like a bad man,” she said.
“I once again blamed God for my having dropped something the other day. I good man does not murmur or complain. I murmur and complain,” confessed Flanders.
“Bur then you confessed your sin and repented to God of that sin and were purified by God from that sin,” she said.
“Our God is a most forgiving God,” he said.
“There is no sin that the Good Lord cannot forgive,” said Mackenzie in understanding.
“And there is no joy like unto quiet time with one’s Heavenly Father,” said Flanders. “Come back, fair. Mackenzie. Come back.”
She was wistfully silent in fervid thoughts for a while.
Then he said, “What are you thinking about, Mackenzie?”
“I was remembering what rejoicing I had felt every night in prayer to my Heavenly Father in my bedroom back in my good old days, O Flanders,” she said.
“It was fun for you. Wasn’t it?” he asked, knowing what she would say.
And she said it, “It was fun, and it was a kind of fun that satisfied me.”
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“It is written about prayer, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ Matthew 11:28-30,” he said.
Caught up in the spirit of prayer, Mackenzie McKassey went on to sing a hymn all about prayer,
a hymn that she had sung so many times in old days that she could well remember all the lyrics even
this day long after:
“1. Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer,
That calls me from a world of care
And bids me at my Father’s throne
Make all my wants and wishes known!
In seasons of distress and grief
My soul has often found relief,
And oft escaped the tempter’s snare
By thy return, sweet hour of prayer.
- Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer,
Thy wings shall my petition bear
To Him whose truth and faithfulness
Engage the waiting soul to bless;
And since He bids me seek His face,
Believe His Word and trust His grace,
I’ll cast on Him my ev’ry care,
And wait for thee, sweet hour of prayer.
- Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer,
May I thy consolation share,
Till from Mount Pisgah’s lofty height
I view my home and take my flight;
This robe of flesh I’ll drop, and rise
To seize the everlasting prize,
And shout, while passing through the air,
‘Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer!’”
“Mackenzie, Mackenzie, it is good to hear you sing again,” he said.
“Soon I may pray as fervently as I can now sing about praying,” she said. “That hymn felt really, really good to sing, Flanders,”
“I had forgotten about your beautiful singing voice,” said Flanders.
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“Someday soon again hopefully, O Flanders, you can hear my voice in a prayer meeting just
between you and me and God,” said Mackenzie McKassey.
“You had a beautiful prayer voice,” Flanders said to her.
“I had a good listening God,” she said.
“Do you remember all of your old Bible studies as pensively as you remember your old prayer life?” asked Flanders.
“I do right now, Flanders,” she said. “It is all coming back to me.”
“It is written in the book of Jeremiah about reading the Bible, ‘Thy words were found; and I did eat them;–’” he said.
“’–and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts.’ Jeremiah 15:16,” said the fellow shipper.
“It’s all coming back to you,” said Flanders.
”The Bible was full of wonderful Words of life,” she said.
Another silent moment passed between the two. “What are you thinking about right now, Mackenzie?” he asked.
And she sang a hymn again where they sat:
“1. Sing them over again to me—Wonderful words of life;
Let me more of their beauty see—Wonderful words of life.
Words of life and beauty, Teach me faith and duty:
Beautiful words, wonderful words, Wonderful words of life;
Beautiful words, wonderful words, Wonderful words of life.
- Christ, the blessed One, gives to all Wonderful words of life;
Sinner, list to the loving call—Wonderful words of life.
All so freely given, Wooing us to heaven:
Beautiful words, wonderful words, Wonderful words of life;
Beautiful words, wonderful words, Wonderful words of life.
- Sweetly echo the gospel call—Wonderful words of life;
Offer pardon and peace to all—Wonderful words of life.
Jesus only Saviour, Sanctify forever:
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Beautiful words, wonderful words, Wonderful words of life;
Beautiful words, wonderful words, Wonderful words of life.”
“Amen, girl,” he praised her and God. “That great hymn about Bible-reading.”
“Back in those good old days every time that I did read the Good Book, it was like God Himself was speaking to me down from Heaven,” she said.
“God’s written Words are the only perfect Words in all of history’s literature,” he said. “And the King James Bible is the only perfect Book in all the world.”
“It is the book that God wrote,” said Mackenzie. “Studying the Bible was even better than eating and drinking.”
“…; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food,” recited Flanders. “Job 23:12.”
“Pastor had taught me so much from the Bible from the pulpit,” said Miss McKassey.
“You and I were always in the front row of seats every time we went to church together,” said Flanders.
“And I was there with you in every service throughout the week, all the time, Flanders,” she said.
“Not every church usher out there was blessed by God to have his comely girlfriend-in-the-Lord sit next to him in a good Baptist church and hear the good preaching of a good pastor,” said Flanders.
“I was there,” she said. “Every Sunday School. Every Sunday Morning Worship. Every Sunday Evening Worship. Every Wednesday Night Bible Study and Prayer Meeting. I was there. And I was happy to be there.”
“We even went to church on all the Super Bowl nights instead of stay home and watch the big game—you and I, Mackenzie,” he said.
“And you were glad, and I was glad,” she said.
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“It is written about a good church, ‘One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple.’ Psalm 27:4,” said Flanders.
“Blessed Hope Baptist Church was good to me, O Flanders,” said Mackenzie. “Nay, more like grand!”
“We would love to have you come back,” said Flanders. “I have not been the only one who has been praying that you come back to God.”
“Do you mean that others have been praying for me, too, Flanders?” asked the fellow shipper.
“Everybody at church has been praying that you come back, O Mackenzie,” said Flanders.
“How much I miss my brothers-and-sisters-in-Christ,” said Miss McKassey.
“Pastor and Emmy especially miss you,” said Flanders.
“I especially miss Pastor and Emmy, too,” said Mackenzie.
“Fellowship with other believers is a need and a joy and a commandment for all believers,” said Flanders.
“Tonight with you is the first fellowship I have found in years, Flanders. Fellowship is a sweet savor of rejoicing unlike anything I have found in Wanton or any of the other men that I have chased after,” said the young woman. “How I want to have it all back again.”
“’For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.’ Matthew 18:20,” said Flanders.
“Jesus said those words,” said the fellow shipper this night.
“Jesus is in our little Baptist church,” said Flanders.
“Do all the people still go out knocking on doors for an hour on Thursday Evening Visitation, Flanders?” asked Mackenzie.
“Now, instead, we all go out knocking on doors for two hours on Saturday Morning Visitation,”
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said Flanders.
“That’s for twice as long now,” she said.
“We started having problems spreading the Word on Thursday evenings when it got dark out early and people would not come to the doors and time became a problem,” said Flanders.
“That makes sense. On Saturday mornings it is daylight then. And people are not afraid to open their doors then. And there is more time to work with on Saturdays,” said the fellow shipper here in the hallway.
“I remember how the men and the women came back to the church building after our work for God winning souls that one Thursday night, and you were so excited because your witness partner Emmy had won a teenage girl to Christ,” said Flanders. “Do you remember that day, Mackenzie?”
“I so remember that, O Flanders,” said Miss McKassey. “That was the very first time that I actually saw a real person get saved. I had seen a miracle of conversion wrought by God with Emmy as His spokeswoman. Emmy asked her if she knew where she was going after she died. And right after that, everything began to go just right. And in the end, Emmy led her line-by-line through the prayer. And then the teenage girl was born again. Now she is on the road to Heaven instead of on the road to Hell. And God had used Emmy to win her soul just like that.”
“You were never so excited in all your life before that happened, Mackenzie,” he said.
“Until I got to lead a soul to Christ myself for my first time, Flanders.” she said.
“When that happened you were even more excited still,” said Flanders.
“My first soul won for Christ was also a teenage girl, as I was,” she said. “I also asked her the eternal question–’Do you know where you are going after you die?’ And she said that she was going to Hell. I then told her that she could go to Heaven instead. And, just as in Emmy’s situation, for me in this time, everything began to happen at once. I asked her questions, and she answered them sincerely. I shared the plan of salvation, and she listened and agreed. And when I asked her if she wanted to pray
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and get saved right now, she said a very definite, ‘Yes. I do.’ And all of a sudden I was leading my first soul through the sinners’ prayer line-by-line. And when we both said ‘Amen’ at the end of that prayer, I knew that I had just led a girl my age to so very great salvation, because of Jesus. I was never so happy before that day nor since that day. That was the day that the Lord had performed a miracle on the soul of a girl my own age. He won her soul, and He used me as His messenger to help that to happen. And when I got back to the church that Thursday night, where we shared what happened for the men and what happened for the women, you were there for me in my great elation, and we hugged over and over again.”
“I was as happy for you as you were for the converted teenager,” said Flanders.
“I was nineteen; she was seventeen,” said Mackenzie.
“And she was your first soul won for Jesus of over a dozen souls that you won for Jesus,” said Flanders.
“I truly felt, after each soul I led to salvation over my years of witnessing, that I had taken a step of growth in my walk with Christ each time,” said the fellow shipper this night in the hallway.
“God says in His Word, ‘And how shall they preach, except they be sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!’ Romans 10:15,” shared Flanders most unique Scripture.
“Why, even my feet were beautiful to the Good Lord!” exclaimed Mackenzie McKassey.
“It is written in John 15:8, ‘Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.’” recited Flanders Nickels this great soul-winning verse spoken by Jesus.
“All of that and more so do I now promise to go back to!” vowed Mackenzie.
“Do you mean that for now, but maybe not for later?” asked Flanders.
“I will go back to my old life as a witness-warrior, O Flanders,” she said most fervently. “I will go with you on visitation this very Saturday. And I mean those words both for now and for later,
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good boyfriend.”
“How about your former nightly prayer life?” he asked.
“I promise to go back to that and pray every night once again as I had used to,” vowed Mackenzie.
“And your own daily Bible study?” he asked.
“I promise to once again live my life with Christ by reading the Bible every day for now on just as I had used to,” she said.
“Will you come back to church with me?” asked Flanders.
“I promise to be at your side at Blessed Hope Baptist Church every time the doors are open, and this time I shall never leave you alone there,” she said.
“And you will start coming out on Saturday Morning Visitation just as you had Thursday Evening Visitation?” he asked.
“I promise to try to win souls with God’s help and get a dozen more people saved and then keep on in my work for the Lord after that,” she vowed.
“And your hymns that you once sang?” he asked.
“You already heard me sing two hymns tonight already, Flanders,” she said. “Well, I will get back to the hundreds of other hymns in our hymnbook that Pastor had taught me. As the Bible says, Flanders, I must ‘make a joyful noise unto God.’”
“Mackenzie, it sounds to me that you are ready,” he said.
“I must now do my business with God and pray and repent and start over,” she said.
“You already told me of your repentance; now you need to tell God,” he said. She looked at his apartment door. He looked at his apartment door. “Mackenzie, would you like to come into my home of God and get right with the Lord?” Flanders Nickels now asked, inviting this girl into his place of God.
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She nodded her head. He stood up. She stood up. He put his hand to his doorknob. She said, “Praise Jesus!”
Just then a lascivious voice called up from below, “Baby doll!”
“Dear God, no,” whispered Miss McKassey. She would not turn toward that voice.
Flanders turned toward that voice and saw a veritable lecher down there at the bottom of the stairs. “Angel baby!” this man called up toward her. This man was shirtless; his hair was disheveled; and he was drooling.
“Wanton, go away!” cried out Mackenzie.
“Sex nymph!” he called up to her a third time with a third epithet.
“I ask you to go away, sir,” said Flanders in ire.
“Wanton, you’re not welcome here,” she said, looking down upon him now.
“No girl of mine says that to me,” he said. And he began to walk up the stairs toward them with threat in his dark eyes.
“Help me, Flanders,” she said.
Wanton Lewd said, “I want you. I need you. I’ll get you. And I will have you.”
“Quick, Mackenzie,” said Flanders. “Come into my apartment where you will be safe.” Flanders took her hand in his hand and pulled her into his apartment a refuge from the Devil. He quickly locked the door. And they were safe inside.
“What do we do now, Flanders?” asked Mackenzie.
“I shall pray that the Lord take him away from here,” said Flanders.
Just then a thunder of vicious knocking began to pound upon his apartment door from out there.
Afraid, Miss McKassey yelled out to that interloper, “I’m all through with you, Wanton Lewd. You will have my body no more.”
And he yelled back, “Redhead, I will take you. I will steal you. I will seize you.”
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Flanders began to pray out loud amid this horrid racket that God either smite him or take him away from here.
Then the pounding upon the door from out there became even more jarring and fierce. Now the satyr fellow was kicking at the door.
Mackenzie spoke and said, “Wanton, if you don’t go away, I will call the police.”
“Woman, this time I have come to rape you,” he said.
“Dear Lord, no!’ she cried out in angst.
Flanders interrupted his prayer to say now to Mackenzie, “Don’t talk to him,” And she obeyed this man of God and spoke no more through the door. And Flanders resumed his prayer to God.
Then the booming cacophony became even more violent. This crazed derelict began to throw his body against this sturdy wooden door with all of his force, over and over again.
Mackenzie McKassey interrupted Flanders from his prayer and said to him, “He’s going to break through your door,”
Flanders calmly said to her, “He has to get past God first, milady,”
And Miss McKassey was very greatly comforted. And Flanders Nickels continued his prayer.
And she began to pray for deliverance from this sex fiend as well with her verbal supplications adding to Flanders’ verbal intercessions.
Suddenly there arose a piercing screech from out in the hallway. It was short, and it was most decisive. Mackenzie did not know what it was all about. But something definitely happened to her licentious assaulter out there on the other side of the door. She put her ear to the door to see if she could hear more. And she heard the thump as of a person falling upon the carpet. She listened more, and she thought that she heard the sound of a man continually landing, the sounds of landing getting farther away and more quiet. After this, the woman heard no more. She listened hard. All was suddenly peace and quiet out there in the hallway.
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She and Flanders looked at each other. Raucous din out in the hallway was suddenly goodly silence. Mackenzie wondered to herself what it was that had just happened. And Flanders answered her thoughts, saying to her, “Our God has taken care of our problem.”
In faith, Miss McKassey put her hand to the doorknob and opened the door to the hallway.
Behold, down there to the left at the bottom of the twenty-four stairs lay the body of the late Wanton Lewd. He was quite dead. The Good Lord had smitten him.
And Flanders Nickels said to Mackenzie McKassey, “Our God has struck Wanton Lewd dead.”
“Praise God I am free!” said the fellow shipper.
“It is written, O Mackenzie, ‘And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,’ John 8:32,” said Flanders.
“And it is written also, Flanders, ‘If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.’ John 8:36,” said the fellow shipper in joy of the Lord.
“Amen, girl!” praised Flanders.
Her face beaming in the radiance of rejoicing in the Holy Spirit, the gymnast girl asked, “Shall I come back into your apartment of God and finish getting right with the Lord, Flanders?”
“A most capital idea at that, girl,” said Flanders. And both came back into his apartment.
“’If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” said the woman gymnast I John 1:9 for their second time tonight.
Together they sat down at his dining room table. They bowed their heads. Flanders listened. She prayed. And this was what she had to say to God now to now come back into sweet fellowship with Him again and to enjoy all the means of worship that He had always wanted from her and for her:
“Dear Father in Heaven: “Before this day, Mary Lou Retton and Julianne McNamara and Pam Bileck and Michelle Dusserre and Kathy Johnson and Tracee Talavera and Marie Roesthliberger and Mackenzie Massey McKassey. After this day, Mary Lou Retton and Julianne McNamara and Pam
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Bileck and Michelle Dusserre and Kathy Johnson and Tracee Talavera and Marie Roesthliberger. This Olympic red, white, and blue stars and stripes women’s gymnastics leotard that I have on now is okay for them in Your eyes, but it is not okay for me in Your eyes. My flesh has turned this perfectly appropriate women’s attire into a sin of fetish. And by it I have become both a fornicator and an adulteress. I am sorry for everything, O Lord. I shall never violate my body the temple of the Holy Ghost with any man ever again. Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before Thee. And I am no more worthy to be called Thy daughter. Make me as one of Thy hired servants. And I promise to take off this women’s gymnastics leotard and to never put on this women’s gymnastics leotard again. In Jesus’s name I promise. Amen.”
This prayer of confession and penitence and repentance finished, Mackenzie jumped back up to her feet at this table and said, “Gotta go home now, Flanders.”
“You’re in such a hurry to leave,” he said.
“It is time to take this off for my last time,” she said, putting her hand to her belly in indication of her patriotic gymnastics leotard.
“Good idea,” he said. “Better sooner than later.”
“But I shall be back for more dates with you, Flanders,” she said. Then she said, “If you will still have me, that is.”
“I have found you back into my life this night, and I wish to keep you back in my life for now on,” he said.
“Gotta go home now and keep my promise to the Lord,” she said, rushing to the door.
“Try not to trip over the corpse at the bottom of the back stairs, Mackenzie,” he said.
“I think that I will go down by the front stairs instead,” she said.
“Good idea,” he said.
“See you tomorrow, Flanders?” she asked. “Same time?”
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“Definitely see you tomorrow, Mackenzie,” said Flanders. “Same time.”
It was the next day. Flanders waited at the top of the stairs for her arrival. And she came right on time. He took one look at her down at the bottom of the stairs, and he said, “Blue jeans, Mackenzie! Very nice, girl!”
And she skipped delightedly up the stairs to be with him. The new Mackenzie McKassey was now dressed in blue jeans and long-sleeved blue chambray work shirt and blue denim vest with metal buttons and dark blue Jiffy hat. Once at the top of the stairs, she spun in place and asked, “Do you like the new me, O Flanders?”
“Oh, I do. Whoa, girl! I love the new you,” he said, captivated by her new outfit.
“Ask me what I did with my old gymnastics leotard,” she said.
“What did you do with your old gymnastics leotard?” he asked.
“First you tell me what you did with the body that was back there yesterday,” she said.
“I hired someone to bury him,” said Flanders.
“Well that’s what I did with my old gymnastic leotard,” she said. “I hired Emmy to go and bury it for me somewhere.”
“Wanton’s remains are at the cemetery on Fox River Drive,” he said.
“I do not know where the remnants of my old gymnastics leotard are,” she said.
“Emmy did not tell you where she buried it?” asked Flanders.
“It is not for me to know,” said Miss McKassey. “I made her promise not to tell me,”
“You made it so that Emmy hid your old fetish underground somewhere that you can never find it again,” queried Flanders.
“That’s exactly right,” she said.
“Just in case you tempt yourself into changing your mind and you decide to go and disinter it
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for yourself and fall back into sin all over again,” he pondered out loud.
“Right on, Flanders,” she said.
“I would think that it is already starting to rot and to decay,” he said.
“And before too long, it will be no longer something that I can put on and feel comfortable in anymore,” she said.
“Wise, Very wise in the Lord, Mackenzie,” he said.
“And to think that I had made that more important to me than I did my Saviour,” she said.
“A basic woman’s garment to do gymnastics tricks in,” he said.
“My tricks were different, though,” she said in pun of her old self.
“No more of that in you new life of repentance,” he said.
“It is written, ‘Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?’ I Corinthians 3:16,” Mackenzie McKassey recited Scripture.
And he went on to add, “Again it is written, ‘What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.’ I Corinthians 6:19-20.”
“My female body belongs to God, not to me. It is not up to me, a born-again Christian, to violate my body with immorality. The Holy Spirit Himself lives within my body. I will not give myself to any man again the way I have before,” she promised in Holy Ghost resolution.
“Between Wanton and your leotard, I do not know which of the two was worse for you,” said
Flanders.
“The leotard had to be the first to come. Wanton had to be the first to go,” she said. Then she said, “And now all the other men left me as soon as they found out that I got right with God. I knew that they would leave me. And I could not wait to tell them how God brought me back just so that I
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could get rid of all of them, too.”
“How was it that Wanton Lewd had found you here at my place yesterday?” he asked.
“Oh, that’s easy to answer,” she said. “Wanton Lewd got to stalking me.”
“Stalkers usually find their women,” said Flanders.
“It was still a surprise for me, though,” she said.
“The coroner declared his death to be an accident. The police are not investigating his case. No one seems to miss him,” said Flanders Nickels.
“His death was not even in the De Pere Journal today,” she said.
“Wanton is in Hell now,” said Flanders.
“And my gymnastics leotard has returned to dust,” said Mackenzie.
“And we are going to Heaven to be with Jesus,” he said.
“And you and I will spend the rest of our lives down here worshiping our Jesus together,” she said.
“As perpetual boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-Christ,” said Flanders Nickels.
“Boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-the-Lord forever–both for in this life and also for in the life to come,” said Mackenzie McKassey.
“You look great in your new outfit,” he said. “You have become in that a classy, snazzy girl.”
“Your classy-snazzy-girlfriend,” she said.
“Yes. My classy-snazzy-girlfriend,” he said.
“Your classy-snazzy-girlfriend-in-Christ,” she said.
“Yes. My classy-snazzy- girlfriend-in-the-Lord,” he said.
“Your fellow shipper,” said Mackenzie Massey McKassey.
“My fellow shipper,” said Flanders Arckery Nickels.
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