I waited, my mind was calm and empty.
I heard a car drive into the parking lot. I looked over the edge of the ditch and saw a black woman in blood-colored nurse’s scrubs get out of a maroon Mazda. I sat back down and listened as she unlocked the door of the clinic and start pressing buttons to turn off the alarm. After she went in, a security guard I had not seen before drove up. He was a black man carrying a large cup of coffee and a newspaper. A few minutes after he walked inside, a white woman drove up. Skinny, with short curly hair and bad skin, she was, I think, the nurse I’d seen the day before.
Fifteen minutes later, the BMW drove up.
To that point I’d not been scared at all. Not all morning. But fear seized me when he finally appeared. I lay against the muddy edge of the ditch. My hands shook. I felt the unbelief prodding me, Don’t do this! I heard him shut off the car and open his door. I looked straight up at the sky crowded with smooth gray clouds drifting along like the bottoms of battle ships. I heard his shoes on the pavement.
Don’t, Daniel!
He dropped his keys on the asphalt, and I peeked over the ditch and watched him bend over and pick them up. When he straightened up he grunted and rubbed his lower back.
I shook, and my throat was dry. Lord, I do believe , I prayed. Help my unbelief .
Then, very clearly it came. He said, Stand up. Shut out the unbelief and believe. Believing is doing. A faith without works is dead, and this is the work I’ve given you.
I closed my eyes. When I was seven and standing in the pew beside my father, I had felt God calling me down the aisle to be saved. I asked Father to go down with me, but he shook his head and said, “You must go alone,” and so I crept out of the pew and walked past the other adults and prayed with the preacher. That was what this was. It was terrifying because it was abandonment, but it was abandonment to Him, and it was the purest feeling on earth once you did it.
I stood up.
The abortionist saw me. He was holding out his keys to turn on his car alarm. When he saw me, he did not immediately put together what was happening. He looked down at his car as if—just for the briefest of moments—he thought I might be there to steal it. Then he saw the gun.
I walked toward him, and he dropped his keys and turned around.
Just walk down the aisle.
He started running for the building, and I raised the gun level with his back and pulled the trigger, and the crowded sky seemed clearer than it had ever been, so clear that it opened to what was above it in the Heavenly realms. I could see the Lord’s Throne surrounded by all the saints of all the ages, and I saw angels beautiful and singing like those birds at the pond, and in the middle of all of it was God Himself, looking down on me, smiling and saying, Well done Thou good and faithful servant .
I heard a car drive into the parking lot. I looked over the edge of the ditch and saw a black woman in blood-colored nurse’s scrubs get out of a maroon Mazda. I sat back down and listened as she unlocked the door of the clinic and start pressing buttons to turn off the alarm. After she went in, a security guard I had not seen before drove up. He was a black man carrying a large cup of coffee and a newspaper. A few minutes after he walked inside, a white woman drove up. Skinny, with short curly hair and bad skin, she was, I think, the nurse I’d seen the day before.
Fifteen minutes later, the BMW drove up.
To that point I’d not been scared at all. Not all morning. But fear seized me when he finally appeared. I lay against the muddy edge of the ditch. My hands shook. I felt the unbelief prodding me, Don’t do this! I heard him shut off the car and open his door. I looked straight up at the sky crowded with smooth gray clouds drifting along like the bottoms of battle ships. I heard his shoes on the pavement.
Don’t, Daniel!
He dropped his keys on the asphalt, and I peeked over the ditch and watched him bend over and pick them up. When he straightened up he grunted and rubbed his lower back.
I shook, and my throat was dry. Lord, I do believe , I prayed. Help my unbelief .
Then, very clearly it came. He said, Stand up. Shut out the unbelief and believe. Believing is doing. A faith without works is dead, and this is the work I’ve given you.
I closed my eyes. When I was seven and standing in the pew beside my father, I had felt God calling me down the aisle to be saved. I asked Father to go down with me, but he shook his head and said, “You must go alone,” and so I crept out of the pew and walked past the other adults and prayed with the preacher. That was what this was. It was terrifying because it was abandonment, but it was abandonment to Him, and it was the purest feeling on earth once you did it.
I stood up.
The abortionist saw me. He was holding out his keys to turn on his car alarm. When he saw me, he did not immediately put together what was happening. He looked down at his car as if—just for the briefest of moments—he thought I might be there to steal it. Then he saw the gun.
I walked toward him, and he dropped his keys and turned around.
Just walk down the aisle.
He started running for the building, and I raised the gun level with his back and pulled the trigger, and the crowded sky seemed clearer than it had ever been, so clear that it opened to what was above it in the Heavenly realms. I could see the Lord’s Throne surrounded by all the saints of all the ages, and I saw angels beautiful and singing like those birds at the pond, and in the middle of all of it was God Himself, looking down on me, smiling and saying, Well done Thou good and faithful servant .
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