Faith

---

(Continued from Part Four of 'Sleeping through the Alarm
on Judgment Day')

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: Once upon a time, fear and anxiety came knocking
at my door. I let my new faith in Jesus open it. When I looked
out, fear and anxiety were gone.]

In memory of Julian and Elaine.

"Uh, oh." Gabriel, Joach and Michael all harmonized, again. The
Fighting angel had a very low tenor; it went nicely with Joach's
squeaky, raspy contralto. Gabriel actually didn't like to sing; he
couldn't play a harp, either. Contrary to human folklore, very few
angels were good at it.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! The rap-tap-tap on Joach's front door
was very assertive and brimming with confidence, with all the air of
an angel who knew exactly what was going on, and why.

"Jo? Michael? Are you guys in there?" Angela's voice, through
the rounded wooden door, had already caused Josh's ears to perk
up. It was at this time that the basset hound chose to begin barking -
and then to immediately start howling.

"Shh, Josh! Quiet down! Let me get the door!" Gabriel patted
Joach's slumping shoulder, and got up from the clutter strewn
coffee table. His tall figure, silhouetted by his exquisitely molded
feathers, and full soft locks, cut a path through mounds of clothes,
doggie kibble bags, boxes of Archie comic books, piles of CD's of Christmas
carols, and several half empty boxes of cookies and crunchy cereal,
to get to Joach's front door.

"Well, hello Gabriel! What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed
to be in line by now? How come you're not dressed in your purple
robe, yet? Where's your Trumpet? Oh hi, Michael. I had heard
that you were going to be here! Haven't either of you two taken
Josh for a walk, yet? If he doesn't get some exercise right now,
I'm afraid he's going to begin howling right in the middle of.......
well, you know." Angela gave the fat basset a stern, no-nonsense
look. She WAS wearing HER purple satiny robe, and was carrying a
rather awkwardly large box.

Immediately, the dog started whimpering. He seemed to know exactly
what his owner's bossy cousin was referring to; Josh didn't really
like going out for walks. His sway back, stubby legs and paws, rounded
belly, and drooping ears weren't conducive to any sort of athletic
workout. Josh preferred lazing on Joach's warm, breezy balcony in
order to get some sun on his patch colored fur.

"What's this, Angie?" Michael had held out his bulky arms to take
the big box from his cousin. Suddenly, a huge spider crawled out of it.

"AHH!" Michael yelled, and almost dropped the box on top of
Josh's lowly head. In spite of being the well-known Fighting angel,
Michael did have one phobia: he was scared of spiders.

"Oh, there he is." Angela commented as though she were discussing
the weather. [Another myth about Heaven is that it's always sunny;
actually, some of the best thunder and lightening storms have never
been seen by man......nor beast.]

"Hey, Angie! What's all this about? Don't you think that Joach
has enough stuff in here?" Gabriel gently picked up the spider,
and let it crawl onto his shoulder.

"Joach, there's no place in here to sit down! Now, get a move on!
Where's your purple robe? Is it pressed? It's clean, isn't it?"
Angela had immediately begun picking up straggly pieces of dirty
laundry, and tossing them over her satiny sleeve. "Oh, there's a
reason why the spider's in there."

Joach, flushing deeply at being caught so disheveled, as well as knowingly being
the main culprit of the Last Call's delay, just stood in the middle
of his messy, gold-speckled floor, and folded his plump arms
over his mound of a stomach. Josh came over, sensing that his
pal needed some support; he licked Joach's dirty, bare toes and then
sneezed loudly.

The sneeze spattered onto Angela's fine, satiny material. As
Chief Director of the Last Shofar Last-Call-and-Come-to-Battle
lineup, Angela had been preserving the special robe for several years. The last time she had worn the garment had been on the morning of the First Christmas. Angela had been one of the Messengers from the Father, to the frightened shepherds on the hill outside of Bethlehem.

"JOSH! OH, NO!" Joach covered his reddened cheeks with both
hands. Biting his fleshy lower lip, he knelt down and dragged the
misbehaving basset away from the obviously soiled gown. Josh
whimpered, letting his uneven claws dig into the gold-speckled carpet.
His true howling, however, didn't begin until his embarrassed owner
pulled open the smeared glass balcony door, and shoved him rump
first, out on the patio, and heaved it closed.

"Really, Angela; you can hardly see it." Gabriel tried to sound
convincing. There was doggy sneeze stuff already spotting the
bottom of the fine, and very precious material.

"Yeah, Angie! Really! It wasn't Josh's fault, everybody! This box
is pretty dusty. I feel like I'm going to sneeze, too." Michael
rubbed his nose on his own thick, cottony robe. He still had
yet to put on all of his Fighting gear. "Where do you
want me to put this - outside?"

"NO! Set it down right there!" Angela was still in shock from the
big pooch sneeze, and she couldn't quite keep her lovely mouth from
hanging open. "Joach! That dog of yours is the cause of all of this
trouble!"

"Oh, Angie." Gabriel noticed that Joach's double chin had begun to
quiver again. "Everything's fine." Quickly, he darted a frowning
stare, and slight nod at his very punctual, and particular cousin.

"You're right, Gabe. I'm sorry, Jo." Angela grabbed Joach by the
plump arm, and gave him a smothering hug. "It's okay. It's okay!
The important thing is that we're all together." Joach sniffed,
and almost blew his nose on her satiny shoulder. Michael quickly tossed
him a piece of laundry from the gold-speckled sofa. He saw Angela
roll her eyes, and almost laughed.

"What's the spider for, Angie?" Gabriel was very good at changing the
subject, in order to divert everybody's attention. He had been
present when the walls of Jericho fell.

"Yeah.....why'd ja' bring him in here?" Michael had set the bulky carton
down, and was pulling the big flaps aside. His deep, thunderous voice
could hardly be heard over Josh's growling barks from the patio.
"Hey! Look, Jo! Look'it what it is!"

Joach disentangled himself from his cousin's embrace, and picked
his way carefully through his own clutter, to where Michael stood.
"Oh, wow! My shofar! But, Angie......." He pulled his sleeping gown
up a bit, so that he could kneel down beside the big carton.

"I've had it ever since Saturday afternoon when it fell off your
balcony, Jo. I knew that it must've belonged to you, but I thought
I'd keep it, until I could get it fixed. I didn't know that the Last
Call Day was going to come so soon, you know? All of a sudden,
I got the Word, and began rushing around. I totally forgot about it -
that is, until just a little while ago."

"I still don't understand about the spider?" Gabriel bent down,
and lifted one half of the broken shofar out of the carton.

"Hey, Jo. You never did tell us how Josh broke it." Michael,
hearing about the spider again, began warily looking over his
massive shoulder.

"Oh, that." Joach slowly pulled the other half of the ram's horn
out of the dusty box. It was the mouth end of it; instinctively,
Joach put it to his lips, and blew. Nobody had to worry about the
pitiful noise which came out of it, to be the Last Call. "Well....you
see, like I said I was practicing on it, just Saturday afternoon.
Josh was sitting out there with me, and was being really good,
when......"

Angela rolled her eyes Heavenward, once more.

".......that big cat, up in Ben's apartment, jumped onto the top of his railing.
Well! You can imagine! Naturally, Josh saw him right away, and
stopped his howling, just long enough to bark! I went to set my
shofar down, so that I could try to grab his collar and drag him
inside again, when......" Joach shrugged deeply, and hung his shaggy
head.

"I still don't understand what's the spider for?" Gabriel was holding
the other broken end of the shofar up to his left eye, and squinting
with the other, as though the horn were a kaleidoscope. In spite
of its heaviness, the ram's horn was a bit shorter than most, being
hand-picked by Father, especially for Joach.

"Oh, that! Well, I got it just now from Father. It's actually for
its web. We're going to use it to repair Jo's Trumpet!" Angela
announced merrily, and raised her small hands in the air.

TO BE CONTINUED.........................

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE