Flanders Nickels, a born-again believer, is writing a story about the girl who got away. Her name is Kyrie Kaye. And he fondly calls her ‘My woodland nymph.’ Behold, as he is writing this, she comes for him. And she wears a bewitching black witch hat that looks beautiful on her. He goes on to witness to her about her need for Jesus. But her pet harpy that she has with her comes between the two. Flanders sees her and her harpy as a witch and her familiar spirit. Will the young woman seek Christ as Saviour?
THE WOODLAND NYMPH
By Mr. Morgan McCarthy
“The woodland nymph was cute—almost a fox—but not quite.” This was how his story was starting out tonight. Once again he was writing for God; his name was Flanders Nickels, and he was a born-again believer living mightily for the Lord. This Christian alone with God at his writing table fell upon remembrances of a most special girl. This story was a fantasy story about her. Her name was Miss Kyrie Kaye, but to him, she was “my nymph.” He thanked the Lord for the memory of her. Where she was now he did not know. Holding his writing pencil in his hand, the born-again Christian
looked around his beautiful old-fashioned upper apartment that God had given him. Because it was late October, it was dark outside, but quite warm, nonetheless. He thanked God for his nice little table lamp with the swing arm and the little shade and the sixty-watt light bulb and its brass all over. He thanked God for his three windows here in this living room, all on the east wall, all separate from each other, and all whose bases were chest-high to him. He thanked God for this big black radiator to his side along this same wall right next to his table. Putting his hand to it, he felt cold steel; it was not time yet to turn on the heat. Sweeping his feet across the carpet to this living room, he thanked God for this carpet. His neighbor across the hall referred to it as “K-Mart carpet” in scorn; but Flanders liked it
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anyway. He felt unseasonably warm air coming through this middle window where he sat, and he thanked God for His wind. A good friend once told him that the wind was a metaphor for the Holy Spirit. Maybe he had learned that from Acts chapter two on the Day of Pentecost in the church’s early days of the New Testament. He then put a spoonful of powder coffee creamer into his blue coffee mug, stirred it up, and watched the color of his coffee change from dark brown to light brown. “Thank You, Lord, for this Millstone Danish Pastry coffee. It is my favorite coffee.” And he took a sip and did sigh in satisfaction. Indeed was his life since he had become a Christian a happier life than it had been before he had become a Christian. He called his walk with Christ by the metaphor, “My Story and My
Song.” Christ had put new stories in his life—short stories about souls being saved and about prayers being answered. And Christ had put a new song in his heart—hymns and Christmas carols all year round. He had not found a girlfriend yet in his saved life. God must will him yet not to have a girlfriend. But that was okay, for he had never found a girlfriend in his unsaved life before, either.
It was this Kyrie who for him had been the closest that he got to having a girlfriend, and for that he never forgot about this girl, even though years had passed since those old days. He and Kyrie had worked together at the same grocery store long before; she was a cashier, and he was a bag boy. “Kyrie
Kaye,” he said out loud now to himself to taste her name in his ears. Her name was a most pleasing alliteration. What made Kyrie so unforgettable to him was that she was the only pretty woman who saw him as a handsome man. He had a crush on her, and she had a crush on him! Both at once in one girl had never happened for him either before her or after her! In his lost days, he had desired her companionship in a dating relationship. But in his saved days now, he desired her soul to be saved from her sins. Himself born again, he knew that she, too, needed to be born again. That was the only way that she could get to Heaven. Looking down upon this official short story called “The Woodland Nymph,” in progress, written in pencil on yellow lined paper, and soon to be filled with many pages, Flanders remembered in reveries of an unofficial short story called by the same title, written in magic
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marker on a piece of cardboard, of only paragraph. That original “The Woodland Nymph” was written for Kyrie at that time that he knew her at the grocery store, and he put it in the break room just for her, for her and everybody else at work to read and for all to know about his fondness for this young woman. Lo, this extra special girl was so flattered that the lonely Flanders wrote a story about her that she proudly took it home to show her mom and dad. Flanders found out. Whoa, such flattery for this writer that “his Kyrie” took this story about her home to show her parents! “Kyrie likes you,” one of the workers told him. And he really liked her back! Here at this living room table years later, Flanders wondered what had become of the original story. And he prayed and asked God, “What had become of Kyrie Kaye?” Where was this special “nymph” now? Where did she work now? Where was she living now? Did she have a boyfriend now? Did she remember Flanders? Did she forget Flanders?
Was she, maybe, still carrying a torch for him, as he still carried a torch for her? Sweet reminiscences in his soul and his spirit, this Christian writer now put pencil back upon paper, and he resumed his work on this contemporary story of the woodland nymph here in this living room.
Just then a knock came upon his apartment door. Standing up, he walked across to the other side of this living room to the French door that opened up into his little hallway entrance way, opened this French door, came into this little hall, and came to his apartment door, and opened it to see who could be visiting him now.
Kyrie! Was this she? “Kyrie, is this really you?” he asked in profound affection.
“It is I, Flanders,” she said in most ardent affirmation. “I had to come and see you. Is it okay for you that I came? Could I chat with you here a little while?”
“Why, you’re beautiful,” he said.
“I was only ‘pretty,’ last time, Flanders,” she teased him in most pleasing flirt.
“What you have on, girl!” he said, “most bewitching!”
“Do you like it?” she asked, just as if the years since the last time they had talked had not
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passed them by. “Tonight I am a Halloween woman!”
“Spellbinding,” he praised her her outfit of this day. Miss Kyrie Kaye was dressed in the following: A black witch hat upon her pretty brunette head; a long-sleeved black and gray and white plaid blouse of cotton and a ladies’ vest with a pattern of many jack-o-lanterns with vest buttons all buttoned up covering her torso; a black polyester ruffled Halloween skirt with three flounces reaching nearly to her knees covering her loins; black fishnet stockings covering her legs; and black pumps with wide high heels covering her feet. To add to this most aesthetic outfit was Kyrie’s innate aesthetic qualities of long straight brown hair and slim physique and tall stature and comely feminine voice.
“May I come in, Flanders?” asked a pretty woman for the first time at Flanders’s apartment door.
“Yes! Yes! Do come on in, O Kyrie,” said Flanders for his first time to most fair Kyrie. And an “old girlfriend” came back to Flanders Nickels’s life. He led her to his writing table, pulled out a chair for her on the other side of where his story lay, and he sat back in front of his story, across from her. And they picked up together here just where they had left off at the grocery store, in their old days together a part of a lifetime ago. He said, “I was doing some writing this evening.”
“What about, Flanders?” she said with curiosity and interest.
“About a girl,” he said. “And about God,” he added in truth.
He saw her pretty eyes look upon his story upside-down from where she was sitting, and he knew that she could see the title on this first page. “The Woodland Nymph,” she read out loud with that pretty voice once again so familiar to Flanders Nickels. She said then, “It’s about me. Isn’t it,
Flanders.” Great honor was in her voice.
“This story is about you, Kyrie,” he said in affection.
“You remember,” said Kyrie in ardent gladness.
“I remember, Kyrie,” he said in romance.
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“I remember, too,” said Miss Kaye. A most fond moment passed between the two. The girl said, “I went and looked up what a nymph is in the dictionary. I liked what it said lots.”
He, too, had looked up this word in the dictionary—many times in fact. And he had memorized
what it said in its definition. He said to the girl, “Nymph: Any of the minor divinities of nature in classical mythology represented as beautiful maidens dwelling in the mountains, forests, trees, and waters.”
“I was ‘your beautiful maiden dwelling in the forests and trees.’” said Kyrie in flirt.
“My comely ‘nymph of Olsen Foods,’” he bragged on her.
“I’ve missed you,” she said. “How come you never asked me out, Flanders?”
“I was afraid, in case that would be a bad thing to do,” he apologized. “Now I wish that I had.”
“Maybe I should have asked you out. Maybe you thought that a first girlfriend would be something that you could never get used to. Maybe there was something else in your life more important that I did not know about,” said Kyrie Kaye.
“Kyrie, I have to ask you a question,” he said, his personal Saviour Jesus Christ on his mind.
“Did you ever pray and ask Jesus to become your Saviour as I did a few years since we parted?”
“No, Flanders. I have not done anything like that,” she said. “But it sounds like a good thing to do. Did you go and do that?”
“Yes. I did, Kyrie. I got born-again. And ever since then I have been praying for you that you get born again, also,” he did say.
“Getting born again…is it important to do, Flanders?” Kyrie Kaye asked.
“It is the most important thing to do in this life,” he said.
“I have not done that yet,” she said.
“There is still hope for you in my heart, Kyrie,” he said.
“You found Jesus,” she said. “And I found Jezebel.”
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“Jezebel,” he said, disturbed. “Who’s Jezebel, Kyrie?”
“Oh. she’s my best friend,” said Miss Kaye.
“Is Jezebel a believer?” asked Flanders.
“Oh no. No. Not Jezebel,” said Kyrie.
“Where did you first meet her?” asked Flanders, curious.
“Oh, at the cemetery on Halloween at night around midnight,” said Kyrie, putting her hand to her witch hat to make sure it was still standing straight up upon her head.
“You two first met among gravestones on Halloween?” he asked.
“Well, more like beside the walls of the mausoleum outside,” said Kyrie. She went on to say, “I was there, sitting in the grass that warm night alone. My back was up against the wall. My eyes could see a little hill running left and right in front of me, a hill longer than the mausoleum wall. I felt like I wanted to share this peace I felt inside with a visitor. And along came Jezebel for me. We talked. We bonded. We became friends. And now we are best friends.”
“I would like to meet Jezebel sometime,” said Flanders, liking this girl for being a friend for Kyrie, yet still not comfortable with where and when she had come into Kyrie’s life.
“No no! We cannot have that, Flanders,” said Kyrie Kaye abruptly.
“Really? How come?” he asked.
“People tell me that she stinks and that she is ugly,” said Kyrie most surprisingly. “I can say the same thing about her.”
“What a thing to say about a best friend, Kyrie,” he said.
“Jezebel does have those two things going against her,” confided Kyrie.
“What kind of woman is Jezebel?” asked Flanders, at a loss for what else to say about this mystery gal.
“Well, she is only half woman,” said Kyrie. “And she is half bird.”
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“This sounds like a harpy,” he said. “Is she a harpy—a real harpy?”
Pulling down her witch hat upon her head with her hands holding the outer brims, Kyrie Kaye said, “Yes, Flanders, Jezebel is a harpy.” He paused for words, but did not yet speak any words. “Do you not like my best friend anymore now, Flanders?”
He shared his Christian perspective now upon hearing all of this: “With the way you take such care of your witch hat, I do not know if you are a witch hat girl or a real witch. And the name Jezebel is a name of a woman in the Bible who was a most wicked woman in Israel’s monarchy—indeed a true daughter of Belial unlike any other woman in her sins. And this mythological beast that she is–a living harpy–she sounds like she could be your familiar spirit.”
“Oh how I wish that you like her as you like me, Flanders,” said Kyrie Kaye.
“The Old Testament in several verses condemns wizards and their familiar spirits, Kyrie,” he said.
“Does it say anything about witches and their familiar spirits, Flanders?” she asked.
“No,” he said.
“Do you think that I am a witch?” she asked.
“That I do not know,” he said, gazing upon her black witch hat upon her fair head.
“You so like my witch hat, Flanders, but you so hate witchcraft,” she said, “if I can perform witchcraft that is.”
What she said was true about him. And now he was not so sure about his fair nymph Kyrie
and how he had invited her in.
Then Kyrie went on to say, “Just think, Flanders, if we had been boyfriend and girlfriend, I would never have found good and faithful Jezebel. I had gone to the cemetery alone, because I was lonely without you in my life, and I needed to do some thinking. Then God sent me my own harpy.
Mom always told me that God works in mysterious ways.”
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Upon hearing this blasphemy against his most holy God spoken by a foolish woman, he defended the Lord and said, “Kyrie, Jesus never sent you a harpy.”
“Then who did?” she asked.
“I believe that the Devil sent you your harpy,” said Flanders boldly in the Lord. “Familiars are servants of Satan.
“Then what is a familiar spirit, Flanders, is she is so bad a friend for me to have?” asked Kyrie, peeved and offended.
“A familiar is a spirit often embodied in an animal and held to attend and serve or guard a person,” he said. “A familiar spirit is a spirit or demon that serves or prompts a person; it is also the spirit of a dead person invoked by a medium to advise or prophesy. Whatever of the three definitions pertain to this most unnatural Jezebel, your mythical harpy is all wrong for you, O Kyrie. Let her go.”
“Flanders, do not make me choose between you and her,” said Kyrie in fear of ultimatum.
“Choose God, that you may live,” he entreated this special girl.
Then he smelled a smell worse than a skunk coming into his nostrils. Instinctively he plugged his nose with his thumb and index finger. “Something smells bad,” he said, looking off into the hallway that led to his apartment door. It was a smell worse than any sewer. As for Kyrie, she also looked off toward his apartment door. But there was a smile in her eyes and across her lips. She stood up at this table. Flanders stood up at this table. And then Flanders understood.
And Kyrie Kaye said it, “Ah, good and faithful Jezebel has followed me again.” And she sang out, “Sweet Jezebel, come on in!”
And into a Christian home came a most noisome and nauseating she-demon. Kyrie ran up to her and hugged her around the neck. And Jezebel drooled out of both sides of her mouth upon comely Kyrie’s shoulders. Never before had Flanders seen such a love between that which was beautiful and that which was ugly. And Miss Kaye introduced her two friends to each other there in that apartment
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hallway. The harpy squawked when she discerned the Holy Spirit within Flanders. Flanders gritted his teeth when he discerned the evil spirit within the harpy.
Proud of her most dubious friend, Kyrie Kaye said, “Flanders, Jezebel has a trick that she performs. Jezebel, go and show my good and faithful Flanders what you do.”
And the evil harpy chanted a chant, saying, “Dust to dust; ashes to ashes.” Behold, inside his apartment there came down from above a phenomenon of falling gray ashes throughout all the rooms of this apartment. Flanders felt these gray ashes falling upon himself, but they were not hot ashes; they were lukewarm dry ashes that did not burn where they landed. And the born-again Christian was speechless at this magic trick. He saw some of these gray ashes land upon the cover of his Holy Bible, and he wiped them off with his hand. Lo, the ashes smeared all across his hand and smudged the hardcover to the Good Book where he had brushed them off.
“Ha ha ha!” laughed simple Kyrie. “Isn’t Jezebel something?” Flanders did not find this funny.
Instead Flanders asked in irritation, “Kyrie, can you make her stop?”
In acquiescence, Miss Kaye asked, “Jezebel, would you stop now?” And the harpy stopped her
supernatural phenomenon, and the rain of ashes ceased.
“Thank you,” said Flanders, somewhat perturbed at this girl so special to him.
Not sure what to say next, Kyrie asked, “So, Flanders, what should we do next tonight?”
In the voice of authority, he said, “I need you back at this table where my Bible is. It is time for me to talk to you about God, Kyrie…before she goes and does another little trick.”
“Can Jezebel come with?” asked the witch hat lady.
“I would rather that she would not,” said the Christian man.
“Okay,” she said, in submission to the man. And she said, “Stay here in this hallway, Jezebel, until I call you.” The harpy nodded her head in obedience. And the woman again joined the man and his Holy Bible and his story at his living room table. And the harpy stayed behind in the next room.
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“Flanders,” petitioned comely Kyrie, “before we start talking about God, could I ask you one thing? It has been bothering me all of these years. And I think that it is time you told me.”
In deference to this extra special lady of ago, Flanders willingly postponed his sharing of Christ with her in respect for her wishes. “I await you question, O good friend so pretty,” he told her.
“Why did you never ask me out to be your girlfriend all those months we worked together?
Remember when I bought you that can of Seven-Up in the break room down the basement? I had never seen a guy so cute as you before. You drank that can of pop, and all you said to me was, ‘Thank you for this pop.’ I was so excited that whole break, waiting for the most handsome man of Olsen Foods to ask me to become his girlfriend. When our break ended, and you never popped the question I fell upon a disappointment that has never left me. What suddenly came up between us that kept you from becoming my boyfriend?” asked most alluring and hurt Kyrie.
It was time to tell especial Kyrie about Zack of his unsaved life at the time. And he told her, “Kyrie, a Collie dog came between you and me. Her name was ‘Zack.’ And I had loved her for many years before I even got to know you. And I was so sure that she loved me. I was wrong about her, though, O Kyrie. She never loved me. She only wanted to keep me from Jesus. And she kept me also from dating you. She told me that she awaited me Up in Heaven. And in my false understanding, I was absolutely certain that I must be true to her in my life here on Earth, if I wanted her to be waiting for me Up There in Heaven. And to do that, I was so sure that I was not to have a date or a girlfriend here in this life ever—not even one time. My heart wanted to run the Elysian Fields with my resplendent Collie dog in Heaven for ever. I understood Heaven in it s Heavenliness to be running side-by-side with my Collie dog partner through the meadows of the countryside. If I asked a girl
to go out with me, and she said, ‘Yes,’ and I had my first date in my life, I would have thereby cheated on Zack, and I would have proven unfaithful to the Collie I loved most of all. And she would run away on me. And she would no longer be waiting for me There. And when I myself would get There in my
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time, I would be without her There for eternity. I had betrayed her in this life with infidelity, and I was now alone in Heaven and lonely without her. I remember well now that classic conflict I had between you and Zack back in our grocery store days together, Kyrie. I always said in my heart about myself and her and you in those times, ‘How much better it is to be loved by an angel in Heaven than to be liked by a girl on Earth.’ I was wrong, and I am sorry for that.”
“You were in love with a ‘Lassie,’” said Kyrie, seeing his true tale in the wisdom of a third party.
“I was in love with a devildog,” said Flanders seeing his true tale now in the wisdom of the Holy Spirit of God.
“But was she real, Flanders?” asked Kyrie.
In insight he went on to say, “Behind every idol is the Devil.”
“I heard it said that God is a jealous God,” said Kyrie.
“The Lord is jealous over all of the false gods,” said Flanders. “And He was jealous over me in my old days of sin with Zack.”
“Flanders, I think that there is something out in the outer hallway by your door that you might be glad to see,” said coy and game-some Miss Kaye.
“What could it be?” he asked.
“Well…it is not Zack,” she teased him with a laugh.
“That’s a very good thing,” he said, also laughing. “What is it, Kyrie?”
“It is a present for you,” she said.
“A present from you?” he asked.
“A present not from Jezebel,” she said.
“That’s a very good thing, too,” he said. “What might it be?”
“Let’s go and see,” she said. And he raced to his apartment door, Kyrie running right behind
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him. The harpy had to lean to the side in this inner hallway so as to not get bumped by Flanders. And
Flanders threw open his apartment door and leaped out into the outer hallway. He could tell what it was at once. A piece of cardboard one-and-one-half feet wide and one-and-one-half feet long was resting on the floor and leaning against this wall, a plain side facing him. He knew its written side was facing the wall.
“Amen, dear Kyrie! This is it!” he exclaimed.
“That it is, Flanders,” she said.
He picked it up, his countenance mesmerized, and turned it over, and saw black magic marker words of days of yesteryear. Kyrie broke not this awed silence with words of her own right now. He read this short story in silence, once, twice, thrice. Then he looked up again at her. She said, “Read it out loud for me, if you would, boyfriend.”
And Flanders read out loud to Kyrie “their story”:
“The Woodland Nymph
The woodland nymph was cute—almost a fox—but not quite. Begotten of a water sprite
and born of a magical fairy, the woodland nymph grew up into womanhood with grace
and beauty. Her mother called her name ‘Kyrie’ rhyming with ‘wiry.’ Her father called
her name ‘Kyrie’ rhyming with ‘cheery ay.’ Living her days in the woods, dwelling in
the trees and in the branches above, she beguiled the hearts of many young men with her
female’s charms and wiles. She was tall for a gal. And she had pretty hair of brown, long
and straight and with bangs. And she had eyes that read and discerned countenances. One
day a young woodsman—a feller of trees—came into her forest with a wood ax. He came
upon her tree, stopped before it, and brought back his ax for a stroke. From above, she,
looking down, cried forth, ‘Kind sir, I pray thee, do not chop down my tree!’ The woods-
man from below, looking up, called back, ‘Fine lady, I knew not this to be thy tree.’ And
he brought down his ax to rest upon the ground. He then said, ‘O nymph of the woods,
would you come down?’ ‘That I shall, my gentleman.’ said Kyrie. And the woodland
nymph came down, stood before the woodsman, and curtseyed before him. The woods-
man bowed before the woodland nymph. ‘What is thy name, O fair nymph?’ the woodsman
asked her. She replied, ‘I am Kyrie. What is your name?’ And he replied, ‘I am Flanders.’
He then asked, ‘Kyrie, would you be my woodland nymph?’ And Kyrie replied, ‘I shall,
Flanders. I surely shall.’ And Kyrie and Flanders lived happily ever after as girlfriend and
boyfriend.“
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“I’ve kept this ever since, Flanders,” she said here in the hallway.
“Thank you, Kyrie,” he said, enamored. “Thank you.”
“Is it too late for us to live happily ever after as girlfriend and boyfriend?” she asked.
He said, “Zack can no longer come between us, Kyrie.”
She asked, “What about my Jezebel, Flanders?”
He said, “Your Jezebel can come between us, Kyrie.”
“I was afraid of that,” said Miss Kaye.
“I will not now ask you to choose between me and your harpy,” said Flanders solemnly.
“What are you now asking me to choose between, Flanders?” asked his comely young nymph.
“I must now ask you to choose between the Good Lord Jesus and your harpy, O Kyrie,” he
declared.
“I must choose between God and Jezebel?” asked Kyrie Kaye.
“Do think upon that,” he said.
“I don’t even know God,” she said. “And I know all about Jezebel, and I love her very much.”
“Your Jezebel never died for your sins as God did,” said Flanders. “And I think that maybe you do not know all about Jezebel, Kyrie.”
“I would be a cheater to choose God over Jezebel,” she exclaimed.
“Would I have been a cheater if I had chosen Zack over you back in the day, Kyrie?” he asked.
Clear and manifest understanding filled the features of Kyrie Kaye’s face. At first she said nothing. Then she brought her tongue to her teeth several times, seeking what to say. Then she said in humbleness and conviction, “I do not know God.”
“You need to know God,” he said.
“How does a witch hat lady get to know God?” she asked.
“You’ve just taken the first step,” he said.
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Understanding what he meant when he said that she had just taken the first step, she said, “I’ve
just asked a man who knows God how I can get to know God.”
“Yes!” he said. “As you have spent your years past missing me and wondering why things turned out the way they did between us, Kyrie, I have spent my years past missing you and praying desperately for your soul that it might get saved as mine has.”
“You’ve been praying for me, Flanders?” she asked.
“Hard and long,” he said.
“For years?” she asked.
“For years,” he said.
“I am ready now,” she said. “Would you tell me all about the Lord right now, Flanders?”
And they came back to his living room table and sat back down before his King James Bible.
He opened up the Good Book, and, lo, the harpy’s foul gray ashes had even come into the closed leaves of these Scriptures. Careful not to smear the pages where he had opened the Holy Bible, Flanders blew these ashes off of the pages with his breath, and the smudging ashes floated down to the carpet. From the inner hallway, watching and preparing, the harpy said to Flanders, “Ha ha ha!” In his heart, Flanders prayed to God that this evil harpy not interfere with Kyrie’s getting saved today. Nothing could make the Devil more happy than if his harpy had kept his witch from salvation here this night in this Christian man’s home.
Having prayed for the Lord’s will to be done thus, Flanders Nickels now began to witness to his
extra special nymph. He turned to Proverbs 20:9 and he read this verse to Kyrie, “’Who can say, I have
made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?’” She looked down upon this verse yet upside-down to her. Flanders turned the Bible for her to make it easier for her to read. And she read it in silence. “What do you think, Kyrie?” he asked. “Are you impure from sin?”
“I think it is true. If it is in the Bible, it’s got to be true,” she said. “I sinned.”
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“Do you think that it is true for you, O Kyrie?” he asked.
“I believe.” she said. “It is true for me. I am a sinner.”
“How come?” he asked, seeking sincere humility in her confession.
“Flanders, your good girlfriend is really a bad witch,” she now told him everything. “There is no person on earth who can say that he has made his heart clean and that he is pure from his sin. And nor can I say those two things. Especially not a witch with a harpy.”
“So it is true, Kyrie. You are a witch and not a witch hat woman,” he said.
“Is there any hope for me, Flanders?” she asked.
“I have not just hope—but now confidence—for you, Kyrie,” he did say to her in faith in the Lord.
From the next room, the harpy called forth, “Lies! Lies! All lies, O Mistress!” Kyrie turned
from Flanders to Jezebel back to Flanders. Neither of the two at the table said anything. The harpy then broke in again and said, “I heard that, man of God.”
Flanders continued the Lord’s work on his fair nymph’s soul, “Kyrie, you have just confessed that you are a sinner who cannot save yourself. That is good, very good. That is the first step to getting saved.”
“Did I do good, Flanders?” she asked.
“Pride that says, ‘I am no sinner,’ has sent many to Hell, Kyrie,” he edified her.
“That is one place where I do not want to go,” she said.
From the next room, the familiar spirit interrupted again and said, “Hell is not really all that bad. Don’t let this man of God scare you into something you’ll regret later, my mistress.”
Miss Kaye turned to Jezebel and did not turn back to Flanders. Seeking her needful attention
to these things of God, Flanders said to the young woman, “Never mind her right now, Kyrie.” And Kyrie turned away from Jezebel and looked back again at the man of God.
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“Tsk tsk,” rebuked the harpy, and then she said no more for now.
And Flanders continued witnessing to Kyrie. Opening his Holy Bible to John 3:16-18, he read to Miss Kaye, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” Right after reading this to Kyrie, he turned the Bible so that she could read these verses for herself, and Kyrie also read these three verses out loud for herself.
She then asked, “This only begotten Son…is He the one Who saves souls?” she asked.
“He is the Saviour of the world, and He is my personal Saviour,” said Flanders Nickels.
“He is Lord?” she asked.
“He is both the Son of God and also God the Son,” replied Flanders.
“What does it say, Flanders—this group of Bible verses?” she asked.
“Don’t ask,” interrupted Jezebel into the next room.
“But I want to know,” said Kyrie getting strangely impatient at her best friend.
“I’m coming in,” said the familiar spirit.
“No, Jezebel. You stay out of this living room,” snapped the witch at her familiar spirit for her first time. The familiar spirit stayed there for now in that hallway, and she sulked in brooding silence.
Fighting the Devil over pretty Kyrie’s soul, Flanders resumed his witnessing: “In answer to your question, Kyrie, about what these three verses are saying, they say that God the Heavenly Father so loved you and me that He sacrificed His Son’s life on the cross of Calvary so that we do not have to burn down in Hell. Because this Jesus willingly laid down His life on the cross, we can get to go to Heaven instead for forever when our time comes to die. The good Lord Jesus allowed most wicked men to drive spikes through His hands and spikes through His feet upon that old rugged cross. He shed
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His life’s perfect blood to redeem us from our sins. He died in our place as a Substitute. He died in our
place as satisfaction for payment for our sins before His Heavenly Father. He died in our place as our
Redeemer. He died in our place that we do not have to experience the Second Death—the lake of fire.
And He died in our place because of His perfect agape love for us dirty rotten sinners. And just before
Christ Jesus gave up the ghost, He declared the three words, ‘It is finished.’ And Christ’s work of salvation was complete. Salvation was free to any who asked God for it. This only begotten Son of God bought it for us in His death. Three days later, He arose from the dead. Christ lived again. And He lives today. A dead God cannot save souls. A living God can save any soul. As we Christians love to say, Kyrie, ‘Jesus saves!’”
From the hallway, man and woman heard a sound of sickness. “Did you hear what I heard, Flanders?” asked Kyrie.
“Did it sound to you like it sounded to me?” he asked.
“I wretch at this preaching,” said Jezebel.
“My carpet,” said Flanders.
The harpy said, “God’s Word makes us harpies nauseous, my mistress.”
Flanders stayed at his table where he was preaching wonderful words of life to his attractive nymph. But this attractive nymph got up from the table and went to the doorway of this little hall
to see the vomit. “Yuck!” said Kyrie. “I am so sorry, Flanders. Jezebel, are you all right, girl?”
The wicked harpy tempted the young witch and said, “I will be okay if your boyfriend stops all this talk about Jesus.”
In the doorway, Kyrie Kaye turned to Flanders and said, “What do you think, Flanders?
“Kyrie, can’t you see what she is doing?” asked Flanders in perplexity.
“My friend is sick,” said Kyrie defending the familiar spirit from Hell.
“Kyrie, this is another one of her tricks,” Flanders told her. “The Devil is here with us, and it is
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she! I implore you now, ‘Come back to this table.’”
Looking upon this harpy, squatting now before her pile of throw-up, Kyrie said to Flanders, “She does look more like a demon than she does an angel. You might be right about Jezebel. Just in case.” Then she said, “Excuse me, good friend. I have to get back to my boyfriend right now. I’ll be right back.”
“Et tu, Brute?” cried out the harpy to her witch in great deceptive earnestness.
“I do not know what I should do now,” said the witch in a type of menage a trois.
In great Holy Spirit wisdom, the born-again believer man Flanders asked her, “Kyrie, what would God want you to do right now?” Kyrie Kaye hesitated, faltered, looked back at Jezebel.
Then Jezebel said to her, “O Kyrie, this man only wants you for your form.”
And Kyrie became strong in the spirit and said, “Jezebel, if Flanders only wanted me for my body, why is he telling me all about Jesus this whole night?”
“He’s got only one thing on his mind about you,” said the harpy futilely.
“My Flanders is a perfect gentleman with a lady visiting him this night,” said Kyrie Kaye. “You lie, Jezebel!”
“Ouch!” cried out the little devil. The witch was right. And the harpy was at a loss for words for the moment and said no more for Satan.
“I am ready, Flanders, for more,” said Kyrie, and she came back to sit down with him at the table. She did what God wanted her to do now.
Flanders continued God’s work for her lost soul, “Kyrie, do you believe that the Saviour Jesus Christ died for your sins and arose the third day?”
“I do believe,” she confessed the Gospel of salvation.
“That is the second step to salvation, girl. Amen, to hear those words coming from your tongue,
so pretty Kyrie!” said Flanders.
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“What might be the third step to all of this?” asked the witch seeking God’s truth.
“Simply accepting the free gift of everlasting life,” answered Flanders. “That is the last step to salvation. After doing that, lo, you are saved, Kyrie.”
“That’s good!” she said. “What must I do to be saved freely?”
“Just ask God to save your soul, and He will save your soul,” he told her. He then turned to another Scripture verse and showed it to her and recited it by memory, “’For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ Romans 10:13.” Thus thirteen words of great promise.
“That’s easy for me to do, Flanders,” said Kyrie Kaye. “I can see this salvation thing to really be like a present that God is holding out to me right now with you telling me about it. He wants me to take it in my hands and open it up and to thank Him for it. I cannot buy it. I cannot pay for it. I cannot
earn it. I can only accept it as a free gift from Jesus. And it is eternity in God’s Heaven in perfect joy and perfect rejoicing.”
“Amen! This moment is salvation not far from an old flame,” called out Flanders in great wonders.
In further spiritual wisdom now so close to her own so great salvation, Kyrie said, “I become born-again and saved from my sins by praying to God and asking Him for this free gift of eternal life.
And when I ask Him to save my lost soul, he will indeed save my lost soul. Like you said, Flanders, ‘Jesus saves.’”
“Praise Jesus!” he cried out. “Let us pray and get you saved right now, O Kyrie.”
“I am so ready now!” said the girl.
“Repeat after me, dear Kyrie,” he said. And he began to lead his girlfriend through the sinners’ prayer unto good and great and grand salvation: “Dear Father, Who art in Heaven.”
The witch paused right now to take off her black witch hat and to set it down upon the floor to her side where she sat.
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Right then, from the hallway, the harpy Jezebel uttered a magic spell, saying once again, “Dust to dust. Ashes to ashes.” And once again the ashes came down in a little plague inside. But this time
the ashes were black. And, behold, they burned! Lo, these ashes were not harmless and of minor mischief; these ashes were burning fiery embers instead. And the danger of fire came upon Flanders’s Christian home. And man and woman began to suffer burns on their bodies where these cinders did land upon them! And the sinners’ prayer was ceased from the girl’s lips even before it started.
“Help! Help! Flanders!” cried out Kyrie Kaye in sudden great fears of her familiar spirit.
But her familiar spirit mocked witch and believer with the laughter of “Ha ha ha!”
“Make them stop, please, O Jezebel!” cried out the yet-lost witch. “I disown you now!”
“No, Kyrie,” said her familiar spirit to her witch for her first time. “I will not.”
Flanders Nickels, the young man mighty in God, sought the will of God in quick silent prayer,
and the Almighty God answered his prayer and told him what He needed him to do right now in this exigency. And Flanders did what God told him to do in this phenomenon from the wicked harpy.
This born-again believer, amid the burning black cinders falling, assuredly walked up to the harpy, stood before her, and proclaimed, “It is written, ‘And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? For the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.’ Isaiah 8:19-20.”
The mighty harpy betrayed a screech of dismay and of pain, having been struck by the Word of God spoken by the man of God. Behold the work of the Lord!: Suddenly the most harmful falling burning ashes of black were turned now into the previous harmless falling ashes of gray. And the gal and the guy were being scorched no more.
Steadfast in his Heavenly Father, Flanders Nickels went on to strike Jezebel with God’s spoken
Word a second time. And he declared now to his adversary, “It is written, ‘Regard not them that have
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familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.’ Leviticus
19:31.”
Smitten of God and of His Words this second time, Jezebel screeched again in torments and in consternation. And she turned toward the apartment door, thinking about escape in flight. She stayed there yet in this inner hall. Lo, God now turned these dirty gray ashes of the dirty foul harpy into clean
white ashes that smeared not. Flanders and Kyrie reached out to touch these falling and safe white ashes and marveled upon God’s work.
But Flanders went right back to work in his battle with a familiar spirit, “It is written, ‘And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and I will cut him off from among his people.’ Leviticus 20:6.”
And the formidable harpy screeched a third time with this third smiting from God Almighty, and she sought escape. She fled to the open doorway of Flanders’s apartment, then lingered. In indecision
Jezebel remained here, half leaving and half staying.
And of course the Lord wrought His work in tonight’s phenomena inside. God turned these good falling white ashes into good falling drops of rain. Man and woman watched as the rain fell inside all throughout this apartment. And God’s rain put out all of the fires which the burning ashes had started just a few moments before. And not long later, no more little fires remained from the Devil’s previous work.
Not done yet, the born-again Christian man went ahead to finish off his defeated harpy foe with a fourth and last Scripture verse about familiar spirits. And the man of God said to Jezebel, “It is written, ‘A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.’ Leviticus 20:27.”
Miss Kyrie Kaye, having disowned her familiar spirit, was not wounded by this Bible verse.
But, of course, the familiar spirit was wounded grievously. And she shrieked a shriek of fear at God
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and at God’s man, and she ran for her life, escaping off down the outer hallway, fleeing the Word of God, and vowing never to come back to this Kyrie. And Jezebel was no longer in Flanders’s apartment with her presence of evil. And now the good safe rain coming down was turned into wonderful falling flakes of snow that cleansed. Boyfriend and girlfriend watched God’s marvelous flakes of snow fall.
And this snow from Heaven landed upon everything and cleaned and purified and made godly all these things damaged from those diabolical ashes from the familiar. And in this way did God make all that was in this Christian man’s home good and godly once again. Then the white snow ceased.
“Praise the Lord!” said Miss Kyrie Kaye for the first time in her life.
“Your best friend left you,” said Flanders Nickels.
“Praise the Lord!” said the young woman for her second time.
“Shall we pray your sinners’ prayer now, dear Kyrie?” he asked.
“Let’s” said the young lady. And they came back and sat back down at his table.
And he began her prayer for her to repeat after him line by line: “Dear Father, Who art in Heaven:”
“Dear Father, Who art in Heaven,” she began.
“I am a sinner who sins,” he led her.
“I am a sinner who sins,” she repeated.
“I am sorry for my sin. Please forgive me. And cleanse me,” he said.
“I am sorry for my sin. Please forgive me. And cleanse me,” she did say.
“I wish to repent,” he said.
“I wish to repent,” she said.
“I confess that Your Son shed His blood and died for my sins,” he said.
“I confess that Your Son shed His blood and died for my sins,” she said.
“And I confess that this same God arose from the grave on the third day,” he said.
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“And I confess that this same God arose from the grave on the third day,” she said.
“I am trusting You—and You alone—to save my soul,” he said.
“I am trusting You—and You alone—to save my soul,” she said.
“Good Lord Jesus, please become my personal Saviour,” he said.
“Good Lord Jesus, please become my personal Saviour,” she said.
“And give me everlasting life in Heaven,” he said.
“And give me everlasting life in Heaven,” she said.
“Thank You, Christ, for saving my soul,” he said.
“Thank You, Christ, for saving my soul,” she said.
“This witch has become Your daughter instead, O Heavenly Father,” he said.
“This witch has become Your daughter instead, O Heavenly Father,” she said.
“In Jesus’s name I pray. Amen,” he said.
“In Jesus’s name I pray. Amen,” she said. The sinners’ prayer was done. Kyrie and Flanders looked up from this prayer at the table. She knew what great things had just happened for her. Flanders asked her now for her own assurance, “Kyrie, if you were to die today, where would you go?”
“I would go to Heaven,” she said.
“And how do you know?” he asked her in order to make her own self sure of her salvation.
“Because I prayed and asked God to save me,” she said in great wisdom.
“Thank God! This day has so great salvation come upon my especial woodland nymph!” he exclaimed.
“Now that I got born again, I get to go to Heaven now, and I cannot now go to Hell,” she said,
understanding her newfound salvation.
“You said it, girl!” he said. “Now I can spend my eternity in Heaven with you!”
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“What do you think that Heaven will be like for us, Flanders?” she asked him.
In Biblical answer, he went on to say, “’And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.’ Revelation 21:4.”
“There are no harpies in Heaven,” she said in gladness.
“This night with you God has answered all of my most fervent prayers—my intercessions for you for many years, Kyrie,” he did say.
“What is it like when a Christian prays?” she asked.
And he answered with another Bible verse: “’And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ.’ Philippians 4:7.”
“Praying brings peace,” she said in understanding.
“The Scriptures talk much about prayer,” he said.
“What is it like for a believer when he read the Scriptures?” she asked.
And he answered this third question with another Bible verse, saying, “’Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.’ Matthew 5:6.”
In newfound knowledge as a new convert to Christ, Kyrie went on to say about this verse, “Those who read the Holy Bible are blessed by God. And they get filled up inside with satisfaction from reading the Good Book.”
“Yes!” he said. “I first learned about that verse from my pastor long ago. I heard it at church one day in Sunday Morning Worship.”
“What is it like for saved people like us to go to church and hear a good sermon, Flanders?” she asked him. “What is it like to share Jesus in fellowship with other saved people?”
In answer, he quoted a Bible verse about going to church, saying, “’Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!’ Psalm 133:1.”
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“What a love there can be between the brothers-and-sisters-in-Christ in a good church, I would think, Flanders,” she said.
“It is called ‘phileo’ love, Kyrie,” he said. “My best friend Pastor and I, as brethren in the Spirit, go out knocking on doors together win souls for Christ.”
“You knock on doors and tell people what you told me tonight?” she asked.
“We tell folk about the love of Christ and lead many through the sinners’ prayer as I have with you tonight,” he said.
“What does it feel like for a door knocker to tell others about Jesus?” she asked. “What was it like for you to do that for me tonight?”
Again he answered her question with a Bible verse, “’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.”
“So God is saying that your feet are beautiful?” she asked. He nodded in assent. “Then your feet must be beautiful indeed,” she said, understanding the mind of God. Then she said, “This going door-to-door as you and your pastor do together—is that what that hymn called ‘Bringing In The Sheaves’ is all about?”
“Ah, that great soul-winning hymn,” he said. “How I love to sing, ‘Bringing In The Sheaves.’”
“What is it like for a church person to sing a hymn like that from the church hymnbook?” she asked.
In Biblical response once again, he said to her, “’Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.’ Psalm 98:4.”
“Would it be making a joyful noise if it were I who were singing, Flanders?” she asked. I’m a bad singer. I sing real bad.”
Yet her boyfriend said, “Very much so, Kyrie. I like your voice a lot. So does God.”
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“Oh,” she said, surprised by this sincere praise. “Thank you for saying that, Flanders.”
“You have the rest of your life down here and all eternity in Heaven Up There to pray and to read your Bible and to go to church and to tell others about Christ and to sing. Except in Heaven, all the souls will already have been saved, so there will be no door-knocking up There like down here,” he said to her.
“Will I never have any more problems in this life now that I got right with God as I did?” she asked.
“You will continue to face trials for the rest of this life down here, Kyrie. But now you have the Lord to help you through these trials,” he said. “For now on, because you got born again, God will always be with you in good times and in bad times. The Bible says about the Christian life in John 14:27, ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.’”
Miss Kyrie Kaye looked down upon her boyfriend’s table to gaze upon the story “The Woodland Nymph” that she had brought here and to gaze upon the story “The Woodland Nymph” in progress that he was writing here when she came. Flanders saw her gaze. He said, “The one story, written when we were both lost in our sins; and other story, being written now when we are both saved from our sins, Kyrie. Just think!”
“I’m a nymph!” she said in most pleasing coquetry.
“You’re my nymph!” he flirted back.
“Does my boyfriend find me cute, Mr. Flanders Nickels?” she asked.
“Almost a fox, but not quite, Miss Kyrie Kaye,” he answered.
Then Kyrie saw her witch hat, still there, resting unharmed upon the floor. This was the symbol of her old life of sin. She then got up and stomped it flat unto destruction, laughing gaily as she did so in complete repentance of witchcraft.
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Then she asked, “Does my boyfriend find me cute now?”
And he said, “Truly a fox. Quite!”
“Amen! Jesus saves!” said the saved nymph.
“Amen, Jesus saves!” said her precious boyfriend-in-Christ.
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