The Lord said: Go and harvest.
That was the instruction of God to his angels.
The angels with their sickles flew out of heaven to come down to earth.
One of them found one, a homeless person, sleeping under the shed of a bus station on its long passenger chair. It was midnight.
The homeless man was a street beggar. An old man named Jeremiah. Few years ago, he lost his wife. After he lost her, he lost himself. His family has been looking for him, but his changes of physical features and denial to be recognized have made it impossible for him to be found until that night that an angel shook him up from his sleep.
He woke up and thought he was dreaming. It has been several days since he has had a high fever and uncovered that cold night.
Everyday, people could see him but no one cares. They saw him sleeping and always opted not to wake him up.
There have always been police or city authorities that come once in a while to help. But always in the end, he goes back to the street, especially to the church in front where he once met a boy named Matthew.
The writer remembered his story. It was his The Writer Series 8: Believed.
The angel spoke to him.
"Are you ready to come home with me?"
Jeremiah opened his eyes and covered it with a hand as if shadowing his eyes from sunlight. But the angel's light is white, not yellow. Besides, it feels good to the eye.
So, releasing his hand, he sat himself straight. To his surprise he did not feel the usual difficulties of doing it. Instead, he could do it with ease.
He looked with surprise to the angel, as he sat beside him. He is a man in accordance with his beautiful, amazing facial features. He looked like the little boy holding that round thing Matthew loved to look at while a mother held him in his arms. It made him turn his gaze to that sanctuary of the Virgin Mary outside the church in front.
"Are you that boy over there? But you're not a boy."
The angel did not turn to look but smiled and nodded, blinking his eyes to respond "yes".
Jeremiah smiled too. Feeling happiness inside.
" Is this my moment?"
The angel nodded.
"What did you do before I came?"
Jeremiah tried to remember. As he did, he felt sadness and tears fell down his eyes.
"I was so, so hungry that when another boy, a beggar myself, offered me his sandwich to eat. I shouldn't, but I did. I ate so fast that when I finished, I realized he was gone. I felt so guilty, I ran inside the church and asked forgiveness from God. I hope he did. Then I came here to sleep. When you are asleep, you don't feel anything. You live in a different world and can make up your own imagined realities in your dreams. That is what I have been into these last few days."
The angel assured him.
"God has forgiven you. He always does. He knew you were sincere in asking for it."
The old man smiled and jumped to dance.
"Praise the Lord! Thank you, thank you."
Then the angel stood up amused with him.
"Now, I ask you again. Do you want to stay living on earth or come with me to live in heaven eternally?"
Jeremiah did not understand anything as his head was bowed down and his eyes closed while he felt the right hand of the angel on his head.
As he lifted up his head, the angel put both his hands on both sides of his arms to lift him up.
"I am just a messenger. We only bowed and kneeled to God. No exceptions."
The angel spoke so heavenly to him as he looked straight into his eyes.
Still, the old man did not realize the changes in his appearance nor bother to look somewhere else but the face of the angel.
The angel smiled and turned around to start walking.
"Come with me. The other angels were harvesting too for the Lord."
Jeremiah asked a question, but the angel started moving again as he was already a couple of steps ahead of him.
"Harvesting?"
He did not demand for an answer. Instead, he just walked beside him.
The angel has reached the street corner, aiming to cross to the other side where the church is. Right there, standing by the main door of the church was another angel.
What was funny for the old man, the angel with him waited first for change of the traffic lights before crossing.
There he was an angel with his wings and splendor.
He questioned himself.
"It is midnight. There are still people walking, cars on the road, some stores open. Why does nobody seem to be surprised that something strange is happening?"
The angel turned his gaze at him to smile as if reading his thoughts, while he reached his side waiting to cross.
"Only you can see us. Yes, you are privileged."
The traffic light said "Go", a green light, and the angel started to cross. He was not given the time to respond or say anything more, but to cross the street too.
As they climbed the two steps to reach the church front door, the angel there smiled at them.
The angel with him questioned the other.
" How is she?"
The other angel, a woman in her long golden hair flowing like ocean waves, made her the most beautiful woman Jeremiah has ever seen.
The angel seemed to read his thoughts as she smiled and nodded at him first saying "Thank you."
Her face, though, changes from happy smile to sadness as she looks inside the church.
As we reached her side, we followed her look.
"She lied. She had to stay. She preferred her death."
Jeremiah looked from one angel to the other as if asking what death meant. The woman he saw, as he recognized her, was Jason's mother.
The writer was asking himself, who Jeremiah was referring to. He checked his series and found out he was talking about Jason of his The Writer Series.
The man angel beside him turned to him and gave him the answer.
"When I asked you if you wanted to continue living on earth, it was because I knew you were alive, living with the Holy Spirit in you. You live your life righteously."
Then the woman angel talked to him too.
"I said she preferred death because if you choose not to bury your sins, asking forgiveness as you repent, you live as dead though you are breathing. Your breathing is your chance to change. Once you bury your sins, you give yourself the good opportunity to rise up again and be renewed.
The renewal is the resurrection. To be so is to recognize the Son of God, the Savior sent by God. Unless one truthfully repents and has asked forgiveness from the heart, that rebirth will not happen."
The writer was the one puzzled by it. But then, the pen has helped him. As he put down his pen, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes and laid his head on the chair's headrest. Then he asked himself in prayers a question.
"Lord, where in your words have I read that once?"
Then he remembered something about "let the dead bury their own dead."
He suddenly opened his eyes, sat straight up and searched for his pen.
He cracked a laugh as he saw his bible nearby and the pen on top of the verse itself.
"But Jesus told him: Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead." (Matthew 8:22)
So in the mind of the writer, he understood that Jesus refers to sinners burying their own dead bodies. For if they have been saved sinners, Jesus would have cared as the saved sinners rose up from the dead in the resurrection.
The writer asked himself a question as he gazed at his pen as if looking for an answer.
"Would there have been an angel to come to them before they died?"
He put down his pen. Hoping it would act rarely again. But nothing.
Then the story of Jeremiah came back to his mind.
Jeremiah asked the woman angel a question.
"Do you mean she refused to come with you?"
"No. I refused to take her with me."
Then with her sad eyes, a tear fell down as she continued.
"She came here to pray asking forgiveness. But it wasn't sincere as she would not give up her adoration and fear to man who has been obliging her to commit sins.
God, in his commandments, has made it clear his laws. The Son of God had even simplified it into two laws. You break the first of the two, you break the second.
The man angel told her to tell Jeremiah what Jason's mother was praying for.
She responded as she raised up her head and the tears were gone.
"She asked for forgiveness as a mother to Jason. But prayed that God help her to sell more drugs so she would not disappoint her beloved man."
She stopped to pause as she looked back at the woman sleeping on the last long chair of the last row inside the church.
"She was sincere as she asked forgiveness for what had happened to her son. But she wasn't repentant in what she had been doing that caused it."
Jeremiah finally understood it, yet still asked another question.
"Did you ask her if she wants to come? Maybe if she sees you... I mean, I don't know what I'm saying."
"I heard her prayers. I knew she wasn't ready. I came close to her but she did not see nor felt me."
As she finished talking, we heard a car crash behind us.
There on the street was a young man with a woman's bag that when he was hit by a car, the money inside the bag flew into the air. It was a thief running and was hit by the car as policemen came after him.
Then they saw the soul of the man come up from his body and suddenly dark spirits took him away.
The writer remembered something.
"Oh! Like that in the movie Ghosts!"
The pen he was using freed itself from his hand and swayed on top of the table as if confirming what he just remembered.
The writer cracked into laughter and then continued writing.
The woman angel started to talk again so they, both Jeremiah and the man angel, turned their attention to her again.
"I put my sickle on her as God has instructed in His Words, but nothing happens."
Then the angel beside Jeremiah spoke.
"God is good all the time. She is given more time to repent one day before her lifetime is over."
The woman angel nodded and saw something behind us that made us turn.
There coming behind us were more angels coming with other humans like me.
Jeremiah asked himself.
"Am I still a human being?"
"No Jeremiah. You are a soul in spirit form like the rest of these coming here with the angels. We gather here then we all go together to God's kingdom in heaven. Welcome."
Before they go, Jeremiah takes a last look to his sleeping place where his dead body lies on the chair by the bus stop in front of the church.
Then he saw the policeman who had been trying to wake him up, the ambulance arriving as well as the car of his daughter arrived and upon recognizing him he cried aloud in sadness. Her tears so many that moved the hearts of the people around her.
"I am in God's hand, my dear, do not cry for me."
The writer now has found the answer to his own question at where Jeremiah's burial was. It was in Believed 4.
@simplemethepen
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