Revival Season - Monica West (recommended ebook reader TXT) 📗

gripping mine so hard until I let it go. I took one bite and then another as I relaxed into the chair, listening as Papa feigned interest in Micah’s story. As he nodded and gave the occasional mmm-hmm, I knew what he was thinking: It feels good to be back.

“Praise the Lord,” Ma said. She’d been saying it nonstop for three days—ever since we were clustered at the foot of Micah’s hospital bed—and it was losing power with each iteration. Especially since she was saying it about Papa.

“What a testimony,” Papa finally said. “The Lord is good.” I wondered if the rest of the table noticed the way he said Lord like it was a stand-in for his own name. My attention flickered during parts of the conversation—I felt the healing in my hands the second I left the ambulance. I knew that God would give me the ability to heal Micah, so I’m grateful that my prayers have been answered. My chest started to swell, pressing against my shirt when I wanted to take a small amount of credit for what had happened. But I knew that I couldn’t, and each word from Papa’s mouth made my neck bow over the plate of cheesecake that Mrs. Johnson had brought out for dessert. There was no gratitude to God in my stooped posture—just defeat as Papa spun a story that he and I both knew couldn’t have been true.

In the days right after Micah’s healing, Papa’s voice boomed in ways that it hadn’t since we left Bethel. The more he proclaimed it over the mic on Sunday mornings and paraded Micah onstage next to him, the more he seemed to believe in his renewed power. And even though homeschool was Ma’s domain as our teacher—the one place in our house that Papa steered clear of—he ventured into the basement where we were gathered, interrupting Ma in the middle of a lesson. He ordered all six of us—me, Hannah, Micah, Caleb, and two other elementary kids in the congregation—to gather around him and praise God for Micah’s healing, completely ignoring Micah, who stood beside him.

Weeks later, buoyed by the healing that he had so desperately needed—a healing whose extra emphasis seemed strange given the fact that he had healed so many people before—the congregation anxiously waited for the announcement about when the stand-alone healing services would start. For someone who felt so much power after healing Micah, it was odd that he didn’t seem to be in a hurry to start them again anytime soon.

And then finally, on the first Sunday in October, a month after Micah’s healing, Papa announced that the first post–revival season healing service would happen on the following Friday. He seemed nervous in the days after the announcement, never sitting at the dinner table long and changing the subject whenever we brought up the healing service.

One night, I caught him standing in the backyard after dinner, arms raised in a V above his head, the doubtful slouch from Bethel still in his shoulders as he prayed. I flicked the latch of the patio door and slid it open before crossing the wooden deck planks and descending the steps into the backyard. I stepped closer to the guttural remnants of a prayer.

“I know that You have not forsaken me, Lord. The power is still there. Continue restoring me in time for the healing service. Use me to do Your will. Amen.”

Papa must have heard my sharp inhale because he immediately stopped speaking and turned around; his teeth and half his face glowed in the blue moonlight.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked.

“I just wanted to see what you were praying about.”

“Prayers are private. You know that.”

“Are you nervous about the healing service?”

“Why would I be nervous?”

“I don’t know. I’d be nervous after this past summer.”

Papa lowered his arms. I waited for him to take a step toward me the way he did outside the hotel room in Bethel, but he just glared at me.

“What do you mean you’d be nervous?” I was close to the edge of his patience—the clipped end to the question assured it—and I couldn’t make myself look in his eyes anymore. I wanted to push, to get him to admit that he knew he hadn’t healed Micah. But in the prolonged silence that formed, it became clear that he’d never confess.

“I just think that healing would be hard. I wouldn’t be able to do it.” The last words got caught in my throat—even putting healing in the same phrase with my name seemed like too much of an admission. But Papa, none the wiser, seemed relieved by what I’d just said.

“Yes, it is,” he exhaled. “But all I can do is shepherd the power that God has given me. And if Micah is any indication, many will be miraculously healed this year.” He looked up to the sky as he spoke, his hand rubbing the mini–mountain range of razor bumps on the underside of his chin.

“Pray with me for these upcoming healing services.” He extended his arm across the chasm of grass. I had prayed with him hundreds of times, had listened to him pray even more than that, but now as his hand beckoned me over—his thick fingers curling, his wedding band glinting in the darkness—I was reminded that I’d have to swallow what I’d done so he could believe in himself.

I walked over and stood next to him, my chest heaving with each breath. His hulking body was inches away from mine, and I could feel his presence even with my eyes closed and head bowed.

“Kneel,” he commanded. As I knelt, each blade of grass knifed into the tender skin of my knees, and my body listed forward as he spoke.

“Heavenly Father, thank You for the gift of healing. I pray that You will bring many souls to the church for healing services so that I may reveal the power that You have given me. Use me to make bodies