Burdened by the Lord

Pentecostals love revivals, and I’d been saved at one when I was twelve. In fact, during that revival, I’d accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior thirteen times before your grandmother put a stop to my altar runs. She grabbed my arm before I could dash down again. I tried to pull away, but she tightened her grip. “God saw you the first time,” she hissed. I sat still and miserable, torn between conviction and the twelfth commandment. 

She was quiet on the walk home, but as soon as we entered the living room, she started. “Carmen, look at me.”

I turned. Whatever she was going to say was important because she still clutched her Bible, and the first thing she did was replace it, with care, on the center of the piano.

            “I want you to sit with me from now on. You can’t keep running down to the front of the church. People will think there’s something wrong with you.”

            “But I feel led! I hear the voice of God every time the preacher offers salvation.”

            “You’re twelve years old and you just want to move around. The voice is, well, you’ve got a big imagination. Once saved, always saved. Nothing can snatch you out of God’s hand.”

            I don’t want to offend you, Lorraine, I’m sure you’re a God-fearing woman who attends Glorious Life just like your grandma, but I’m here to tell you that if you can’t be snatched, you can be pulled like taffy.

            After Samy died, I began hearing a voice. Not audible, but as clear as the one I’d heard at twelve and as real as the list of improvements your grandmother had taped on the refrigerator door. I hated that list. It began with: YOUR GRIEF—CLOSE THE DOOR, which she repeated to me every day because I wasn’t responding reasonably. “No one carries on the way you do, Carmen, it’s not natural.” But at least your grandmother’s voice was familiar, and I’d have given anything, done anything, if it had been the only one I heard. The one in my head was voicing things which were opposed to everything I’d learned.

            The first time, I was writing thank you notes for the flowers and food we’d received (another prod from your grandmother, who told me Lois Hinkle had asked twice if we’d liked the cherry glazed ham). Right in the middle of “Your thoughtfulness meant so much to us during our time of—” a voice interrupted my thoughts.

 Jesus Christ was a bastard.

            My hand jumped, smearing the ink. I don’t know how long I sat simply trying to breathe before I went to the kitchen and tore the note in teeny tiny pieces over the trash.

            I bolt-locked my bedroom door and knelt beside the bed, asking forgiveness, hoping God would understand I’d had nothing to do with those terrible words, and begging that I never hear anything like that again. I prayed so hard that I had red spots on my elbows from the chenille bedspread and sore knees from the floor. Finally, I got up, feeling not exactly right, but better. I hadn’t heard God’s voice, but I hadn’t heard the other one, either. I hadn’t been eating regularly since Samy’s death and was often lightheaded. Maybe I’d imagined the whole thing.

            First thing I heard the next morning was: God’s bullshit.             

I had to force myself to breathe. I couldn’t pray. I just lay in bed with my heart jarring the mattress, waiting for the sky to darken and a lightning bolt to come my way. I could hear the boys running through the house and crashing sounds, but I stayed in bed until the day got bigger