Sam nodded and gave him a cursory wave, then headed for his office. He passed his secretary on the way in.
“Mornin’, Sam,” she said. “How’s it going?”
“Good, Sally. Any messages so far?”
“Not yet.”
He stood at her desk and scanned her calendar to see what was on his agenda today. She pulled her chair up and began jotting his appointments on a separate sheet of paper.
“Eleven, six, fifty-seven.”
He glanced at her and saw that she was busy writing. “What was that?” he asked.
She looked up at him, perplexed. “What?”
“Didn’t you say something?” He was sweating now. His tie felt too tight; it was constricting his breath.
“I said no messages.”
“No! After that.”
Slowly, she got up. “Sam, are you sure you’re all right? You’re looking a little pale.”
“I’m fine,” he snapped. “Maybe I need a glass of water.”
“I’ll get you one.”
As she headed quickly for the lounge, Sam went into his office and sat down. Things were getting too weird. Nothing made any sense. Sally brought him the water, and he gulped it down, but it didn’t do much to help him.
“Do you have a fever?” she asked, touching his forehead maternally.
“No, I just didn’t sleep very well last night. I keep thinking I’m hearing people talking.” He frowned, realizing what she must be thinking. He was delusional. But he didn’t hear any such thought from her. Instead, she repeated, “Eleven, six, fifty-seven . . . It has to win. It has to.”
Sam sucked in a breath. “A lottery ticket?” he asked.
The question startled her. She looked as though she’d just gotten caught stealing. “I didn’t—”
“No, don’t defend yourself,” he said, getting up. “I don’t care. I just want to know. Are you trying to win the lottery?”
She looked embarrassed for a moment, then after a few seconds, compressed her lips and threw her chin up. “Yes, Sam, I am. You see, I don’t make the kind of money you make, so I have to take other opportunities.”
“The numbers,” he said. “Were they eleven, six, fifty-seven?”
Her gasp could have sucked in an insect from the other side of town. “I knew it!” she shouted. “They’re winning numbers. First I heard them on the radio. This guy had kids ages eleven and six, and it was fifty-seven degrees when I got up. And those are the numbers of my birthday! And there were eleven red lights on the way to work and six stop signs, and I saw a flock of birds that must have had fifty-seven—”
He moaned and dropped back down. “Sally, this is a stretch. You’re looking for those numbers, but the chances of your winning—”
“Then how come you just spouted them out to me? It’s affirmation, Sam! If I wasn’t sure before, I am now! The Lord gave me these numbers!”
“Sally, the Lord does a lot of things, but I don’t think he picks lottery numbers. My understanding is that he isn’t big on gambling.”
“Well, you just wait and see,” she said.
“If I win, he’ll see what I’m worth.” This time her lips didn’t move.
There it was again. One of those thoughts. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and covered his ears.
“You don’t look so good, Sam,” she said. “Maybe I should call Kate. She could get you in to see a doctor.”
“I don’t need a doctor. It’s these stupid voices!”
“I had a friend once who kept hearing voices, and it turned out she was picking up radio waves on her fillings. You don’t have any new fillings, do you?”
“It’s not the radio. It’s . . . real voices.” He was making no sense at all. This was madness. These voices obviously weren’t real, or he would see the mouths move. Maybe he was still dreaming. Maybe he just needed to wake up.
But it didn’t feel like a dream.
He got to his feet. “You know, come to think of it, maybe I do need a doctor.” He ran his shaking hands through his hair. “Uh . . . look, cover for me for a couple of hours, will you? I need to get out of here, get some fresh air.”
“Sure thing, Sam. Your first appointment isn’t until eleven, so don’t worry about it.”
He practically ran up the hall to get away, but he changed his mind before he got to the elevator. He didn’t want to be on it with Jimmy again, so he took the stairwell and ran all thirteen floors down. He was perspiring and out of breath when he got to his car. He just needed some Tylenol, he thought. He needed to go to the closest store and get some medicine to help him.
There was a supermarket a mile up the street, so he drove there as fast as he could, almost running over a pedestrian as he turned into the parking lot. He pulled into handicap parking and sat there for a moment, feeling as disabled as anyone who couldn’t walk. Finally, he got out and headed in.
He had never been to this store before, so he didn’t know where the Tylenol would be. He headed up aisle one and passed a woman standing with a jar of peanut butter in her hand. “We’re gonna go hungry,” he heard her say. “I can’t provide.”
He turned around and knew instantly she hadn’t said it aloud. She gave him a startled glance and put the peanut butter back. He shrugged out of his coat and almost ran into a teenaged couple standing in front of the school supplies. They were discussing the size of index cards they needed, but as he passed, he heard two other simultaneous voices.
“The pressure . . . it’s too much.”
“I just want somebody to love me.”
He bolted around the corner, and thankfully, came to the Tylenol. He grabbed at the first package he saw, knocking the rest off of the shelf. Trembling, he knelt down and began picking up the boxes. A woman who worked there came up and started helping him. “Are you all right, sir?”
“Yes . . . fine . . . just a little clumsy . . .” He got to his feet and tried to stack the boxes again.
“I’m nobody. He won’t even look me in the eye,” a voice said.
He told himself he wasn’t hearing what he was hearing and took off up the aisle to the cash register. Standing there, his heart pounding, he waited for the man in front of him to pay.
“I miss my family. What have I done?” The man’s mouth was set in a grim line as he sorted through his wallet.
Sam turned away and saw the woman with the peanut butter behind him. “They’ll go to bed hungry again. I can’t take care of myself, much less them.”
He tried to open the Tylenol package, but his hand was shaking too badly. He heard the girl behind the cash register muttering, “This is as good as it gets.”
Deciding that the Tylenol wasn’t going to help anyway, he dropped it onto the belt, pushed past the man, and ran back out to his car.
He got in and locked the door and sat there for a moment, reveling in the silence. He didn’t want to get out again. He couldn’t take the chance of being around people, of hearing those voices.
He needed help, he thought. Someone to talk to. Someone to tell him what was happening to him. He thought of John, his pastor. John had always listened to him, even before Sam gave his life to Christ. He was a good listener. Nothing had shocked John, not even Sam’s sinful past.
He pulled out of the parking lot, and driving as if his mental health depended on his speed, he headed for the church.
3
John was just pulling into the church parking lot when Sam drove up. It seemed late—midmorning at least. But as the pastor waved and got out of his car, Sam realized that it was not quite eight. None of the rest of the church staff had made it in yet.
He got out and leaned wearily against the hood as John came around his car. “Sam, are you all right?”
“No,” he said. “No, I’m not. Can I talk to you in private?”
John looked around as if to say that they were in private, then said, “Sure. Let’s go into my office.”
Sam managed to hold his confusion in as John escorted
him into the church and up the hall to his office. He hadn’t been in John’s office in a very long time, not since he’d helped paint the place three years before. He went in and slumped down in the chair across from John’s desk.
John took the chair next to him and sat facing him. His elbows on his knees, he leaned forward in a gesture of concern. “Tell me, Sam. What’s wrong?”
“I can hear things,” Sam blurted. “Everywhere I go . . . I hear voices. Talking at me from every direction, every person I pass. I think I’m losing it!”
John sat straighter, letting the words sink in. “What kind of voices?”
Sam got up and went to the window, looked out, and raked his hand through his hair. “Just . . . voices. Like thoughts.”
“Talking to you?”
“No, not me, really. It’s like . . . it really doesn’t have anything to do with me. I just overhear. Like I’m eavesdropping . . .”
He swung back around and saw the twisted expression on the pastor’s face. He sounded like someone on drugs, Sam realized.
“Sam, how long have you been this way?”
“Since I woke up.” He remembered the dream, and his eyebrows arched. He hurried back to his chair. “I had this dream last night. It was so vivid, John. About some woman looking all over her house for money.”
“Money? Sam, are you having financial problems?”
“No! It wasn’t about money. It was just a quarter or something. She found it and started celebrating like it was really important. It didn’t make any sense. But I’m standing there, part of it, and not part of it . . . wondering what the big deal is with one lost coin.”
John sat back in his chair and nodded as if he’d heard all this before. “Sam, did you fall asleep reading the Bible yesterday, by any chance? Had you been reading from Luke 15?”
Sam shook his head. “Luke 15? No. Why?”
“Because I mentioned it in my sermon yesterday. Remember?”
Sam wished he had paid more attention. “No . . . refresh my memory.”
John didn’t look surprised. “In Luke 15 Jesus tells about a lost coin and a lost sheep and a lost son. It sounds like you were just dreaming about that, maybe processing my sermon.”
Sam looked down at his feet. He didn’t think it had come out of the Bible—he hadn’t read from Luke in a long time. Then he thought about the foreign word that had shaken him so and looked quickly up. “I woke up, and I know I was awake . . . and there was this voice . . . It had all this power and authority, like it was God, himself . . . and he said something in another language.”
John’s brow furrowed as if he was trying to follow every word. “What did he say?”
“Ephphatha, I think. Something like that. You know what that means?”
“No.” John thought for a moment. “So that’s the voice you heard? That’s why you think you’re going crazy?”
“No, not just that.” Sam got up again and walked across the room, combing his fingers through his sweat-dampened hair. “I was at the diner where I eat breakfast every day, and I heard the waitress—her thoughts or something. I looked up, and she hadn’t said anything. And the lady next to me . . . she said gravity was going to let her go, and she was going to fly out in the universe and nobody would notice. I looked at her, and, John, she hadn’t said anything. She was just staring down at her coffee. And then the man at the table, and the woman crossing the street, and the elevator guy, and my secretary . . .”
“You heard all of their thoughts?”
“Not their thoughts. I couldn’t read their thoughts. Just . . . their feelings, I guess. I don’t know.” He sat back down. “John, you’ve got to help me. I don’t know what to do.”
John took in a deep breath, and looking troubled, he got up and went around his desk. “Sam, I’m gonna refer you to a counselor. You need to talk to a professional.”
“Like . . . a shrink?” Sam asked. He remembered telling his wife she needed psychiatric help. He had been kidding, but John was not. The idea didn’t thrill him, but he would do anything to get to the bottom of this. A shrink probably saw things like this all the time. Maybe there was some logical explanation. Food poisoning or a bump on the head he’d forgotten about. Maybe he could stop the voices. “That’s okay,” he said as his mind reeled with possibilities. “That’s good. Maybe he can help me.”
John flipped through his Rolodex for the name, pulled out a card, and wrote the number. Sam knew he didn’t believe him about the voices, but it didn’t much matter, as long as he got some help.
“I don’t belong in ministry. Nobody listens. I’m not making an impact.”
Sam looked up. “Sure, you do.”
John stopped writing. “What?”
“You make an impact. You definitely make an impact. You’re not thinking of leaving the ministry just because of wackos like me . . . ?”
John’s face changed radically, and he sat frozen, staring back at Sam.
Then Sam realized what he had done. “You didn’t say anything, did you? You thought it or felt it. I heard it, John. Don’t you see?”
John looked as startled as Sam. “I hadn’t told anybody that,” he said. “I hadn’t discussed this even with my wife. It’s just been going through my mind . . .”
“I heard it, John! I’m not making this up! Now can you see what I’m going through?”
John was beginning to perspire now. He rubbed his chin for a moment, staring at Sam with stricken eyes. Slowly, he got up, came back around the desk, and sat in the chair opposite Sam. “Sam, can you hear what I’m thinking right now?”
Sam closed his eyes and tried to listen. It was useless. He couldn’t hear on demand. He had no power over what was happening to him. “No. I’m not psychic. It’s not like that. It’s more like I hear . . . needs. Specific ones.”
“Needs? Could you hear people’s orders in the diner? Before they spoke?”
“No, not those kinds of needs. It’s like . . . what you said in church Sunday, about what would happen if we could hear people’s spiritual needs.”
John sat back in his chair, silent for a moment. “I didn’t think you were listening.”
“I wasn’t,” Sam admitted. “It just sort of came back to me this morning. After God spoke that word.”
“You really feel it was God who said that to you?”
Again, he struggled to think it through logically but came back to the same conclusion. “Yes, I do think it was God. I mean, think about it. I’m dreaming about Luke 15, I hear a word in some other language, I remember part of your sermon . . . That stuff never happens to me.”
“Thanks a lot,” John said.
“But I start hearing all these things . . .”
John went to his bookshelf and got down his concordance. “What was the word again?”
“Ephphtha or something.”
“Epithet?”
“No. It wasn’t English. I’m sure it wasn’t.”
“Ephah? That’s a measurement.”
“No. It had another syllable, I think. Let me see.” Sam took the book and scanned the Eph’s, whispering the pronunciation of each word. “Epher, Ephesus, Ephod . . .” His eyes widened as he came to the word. “Ephphatha! This is it! John, this is the word.”
John took the book and found the reference. “It’s Mark 7:34.” He grabbed up his Bible, scanned the verses, then dropped back into his chair. “Wow.”
“What?” Sam took the Bible and found the verse. Slowly, he began to read. “He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ (which means, ‘Be opened!’).” Sam frowned up at the pastor. “So what was God trying to say to me?”
“Look at the context,” John said. “They had brought Jesus a deaf, mute man. And Jesus spat on his fingers and put them into his ears and said, ‘Ephphatha! Be opened.’ And the man began to hear and speak.”
“But what has that got to do with me? I’m not even hard of hearing.”
John got that look in his eyes
that he got when he thought the Holy Spirit was moving in their church services. He was obviously getting excited. “Don’t you see, Sam? For some reason, the Lord came to you last night, and he opened your ears. Is it possible, Sam, that you’re hearing what the Holy Spirit hears? Out loud?”
Sam sorted back through the things he’d heard and slowly began to nod. “I heard a woman who couldn’t provide for her family, another woman who thought she’d never escape her past, somebody who thought she was nobody, insignificant . . .”
“Spiritual needs. Just as God hears them.”
Sam thought about it for a moment. “Yes, I guess so. But . . . why me? Why would God choose me to curse?”
“Sam, this isn’t a curse! This is a gift!” John said. “What I wouldn’t give to have it!”
“But why me? Why not somebody like you who knows how to explain about Jesus? Somebody who’s comfortable with sharing their faith?”
“We’re all supposed to witness whether we’re comfortable or not, Sam. That’s what I preached on Sunday. We’re all supposed to go out there with the feeling of urgency because there are lost people and no one to find them!”
“But I can’t do that!” Sam shouted. “I’m just an ordinary guy! I’m not a preacher. I’ve never been to seminary. What am I supposed to do? Preach on the street corners? Go around proclaiming Jesus from the mountaintops?”
“Yes!” John said, springing to his feet.
Sam let out a disbelieving breath and wilted back into the chair. “John, you’ve got to help me. I can’t do this.”
“Sure you can,” John said, leaning toward him and taking his shoulder. “Sam, if you’re a Christian you can do this. You’ve been given a mighty gift, and the Lord never gives a gift he doesn’t equip you to use.”
“But this is insane. Kate’ll have me committed.”
“Not if she hears her deepest spiritual needs spoken back to her like you just did with me. People will listen to you, Sam! They want nothing more than to find the answers to their deepest needs—they’ll want you to talk to them! Do you know how special that is?”