The phone rang, my heart trembled as did my hands. I pretended that I didn't hear the call, I quickly ducked back into the kitchen and started to wash the dishes which I had actually planned to do later. I prayed in my heart that this call shouldn't be mine. My son received the call and called his dad, I was happy. This was the time when we still had those landlines and we at home still didn't posses a handset.
I had never felt such irrational fear in my life ever before. I couldn't understand myself, this was the thing I'd wanted to possess but when I got it, it made me tremble with fear. I did have some normal fears like many others but those were not baseless, there was always a reason behind those fear and I could work through them. This was the first time I felt like an alien to myself.
The loud ringing of the phone brought about these mysterious emotions. I just didn't want to receive calls any more. Thankfully my little boy loved to pick up all the calls when he was around. He did help me by giving me some time to steady myself before I could take the call. He had this habit of picking up the call and asking the caller who he or she was, when he knew the name he would shout out and announce the caller. This act somehow made me feel a little more prepared for the call.
I don't remember exactly why I took the day off from work that Monday, all I remember now was that I was busy doing some paper work when the phone rang that morning. My son was at school and my husband was at work. My hands trembled as I picked up the receiver, in my mind I hear a voice saying "Hi, Sophie this is Samuel"
Hearing the voice from the other end made my hands shake so wildly I almost dropped the receiver. I stammered and stuttered through the call in the next few minutes before I finally sat down on the couch near by. It took me a few minutes to calm myself down.
As I sat on that couch my mind swirled back to the time a couple of weeks before when I suddenly decided to accept a suggestion from a friend of mine to go to a Christian retreat center for a week. This was an intense prayer and study session which meant I had no contact with the world outside while I was there. Most importantly I hadn't seriously considered the fact that I had to leave my son with his dad and go there. I have never left him alone with his dad before I had no idea how my husband would handle this new responsibility.
It was as if I wasn't even thinking clearly anymore. I hadn't even checked with my husband about his plans, he worked really far from home and the commute took hours. All I knew was I just had to go. I went to that retreat center and forgot all about the small, little world I left behind back home. I had a wonderful experience there and came home refreshed and happy. My happiness was visible in the brightness of my eyes. Yet a week later here I was trembling with fear. What had happened to me to rock my peaceful little world?
When I was at the retreat I prayed for a special gift, a gift to know the future. Perhaps I had asked for the wrong gift, I honestly don't know, but at that time I thought it was the right thing to ask. As I sat there thinking about these things the phone rang again. "Hello, Sophie, this is Robert here." Robert is my brother and he was making a regular brotherly call.
I sat down once gain to steady my feet which were shaking wildly. This was the tenth time I knew the name of the caller even before I picked up the call. The fear within me made me ask for the gift to revoked. I prayed fervently. I did seem like a fool to myself, who would throw away a gift like that? There are so many people in the world who would give anything for a gift like that.
However, just knowing the name of the person who would call me somehow made me tremble with fear. I didn't even want to open this the wrapper and see fully into the gift. The future is better left unsee until we arrive there. There is such a thing as the right time for knowing the things that need to be known. Knowing things before hand is a chance to mess things up with our impatience to get there sooner than we should. Anything that happens naturally in its time is like a sun ripened fruit, ripened in the right conditions. This realization struck me like a bolt from the blue.
Grabbing a fruit before time never gives the fruit the same taste or the right flavor, so is life. The more I feared this gift the further it moved away from me. Having extraordinary powers comes with extraordinary responsibility. I wasn't ready to handle it then, I don't want it now either. Had I known that I would survive three heart attacks I would have lived twenty five years of my life in fear, now I live with gratitude.
Thanks for journeying with me thus far. I appreciate your time.