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IMAGINE... The Great Flood Page 4


  The flood was coming to wipe everything away, and the worst part was that Corey wouldn’t get out alive.

  He was trapped.

  The heavy beams of wood that formed the grate still covered the cistern, keeping Corey in like a prisoner held against his will.

  The rain felt like it was falling harder now, soaking Corey’s clothes and hair. The dirt walls were slowly melting into mud. Helplessness fell over Corey, mixed with the rain. Now, stuck in this dark place, all he wanted was to be free. Here in the well, all Corey could think about was the end…when the floods came and he would surely drown.

  Right now the fear of the Florida move seemed ridiculous. Corey was ashamed of himself that he ever once complained. Right now, practically buried in the earth, Corey couldn’t help but admit his selfishness.

  “Lord Jesus, forgive me.”

  Abandoned.

  Alone.

  Afraid.

  “Please help me, Jesus.”

  Corey’s mind went haywire, overloading with a mixture of panic and selfish pride. He was scared and didn’t want to die, but he didn’t believe that his life could actually be almost over. His parents always told him he was special. They always made him feel like a king. Except, the truth was, here in this wherever-he-was place—this bizarre dreamscape—Corey was nothing. He always thought bad things happened to other people. Now the bad things were all his.

  “Jesus, help me.”

  But Corey needed a miracle, and none seemed to be coming. Lying there in the muddy water, hopelessly trapped at the bottom of a nondescript well, Corey doubted. He doubted that God was there with him. He doubted and felt terrible for it.

  “God, forgive me.”

  More rain.

  More doubting.

  More shame.

  The shame made Corey think about a story his New York grandpa always told. It was the best story he had ever heard his grandfather share. There was something about it that made Corey know that God really did forgive sins and selfishness.

  When Opa, Corey’s great-grandfather in New York, first came to America as a young man, he had sailed across the Atlantic with other immigrants from Germany. Arriving at Ellis Island and seeing the Statue of Liberty filled Grandpa with awe. He admitted to Corey that he’d been scared to move halfway around the world to the United States, but he had hope that moving meant having a new chance for a better life.

  Needing money, Opa landed a job as a short-order cook at Vinnie’s, a hole-in-the-wall diner on Manhattan’s Lower West Side. Opa flipped hamburgers and crafted BLTs for Wall Street suits who lived in a constant state of hustle. The silver order wheel was always filled with slips: hash browns, eggs, bacon, sausage, grilled cheese, fried bologna. It was grueling work standing over a hot stove all day, but Opa believed in doing his best even in hard times.

  There was never a day when he messed up an order. All those days. All those customers. All those orders. Not a single mistake.

  Until the afternoon that John Ride came back.

  Opa knew the man by heart. The two had met during Grandpa’s first days at the diner. John Ride was big. Tall and strong. He looked like he could rip a phone book in half with his bare hands. That was way back in the days before phones became smart.

  The mistake happened when Opa grabbed the next batch of tickets off the wheel and read them. The diner was packed with the typical lunch crowd. Private conversations mingled with waitresses calling out special requests to Opa behind the counter. He kept looking at the towering form of John Ride. Great-grandpa set the tickets down and started preparing three hamburger patties for the grill. The problem was the tickets were for three ham sandwiches.

  Opa never thought he’d see Mr. Ride again. At their first meeting, Mr. Ride had sat at the counter. He ordered coffee, no cream or sugar. No food.

  This second encounter, Mr. Ride ordered the exact same thing. Coffee. No cream or sugar. Opa heard his voice over the cacophony of diner sounds. “Is Henry here?” The waitress said, “Of course, honey. Hold your horses while I go get him.”

  Opa had no choice but to face his past and greet Mr. Ride. After all those years.

  He wiped his hands on his apron and stepped out of the kitchen.

  “Henry,” the giant customer said. “It’s been a while.”

  Great-grandpa knew he had to apologize for the past. His past. His past shame was being offered a chance to seek forgiveness.

  “John…I’m so sorry.” Opa looked at the floor between them. “Please forgive me.”

  The big man pulled an envelope out of his jacket pocket and put it on the counter next to his coffee cup. “Henry, by God’s grace, I forgave you a long time ago. Today, I came back to show you I mean it.” Ride pushed the envelope across the bar. “Take it.”

  Out of respect, Opa took the envelope.

  “Open it, Henry.” Mr. Ride took a sip of his coffee. He had the smile of parents who are watching their child open a big gift on Christmas morning.

  Opa opened the envelope. Inside he found ten one-hundred-dollar bills and a note: Jesus loves you, Henry. He is NOT ashamed of you. John 3:16

  Opa lost the fight to hold back his tears. He used the greasy apron to wipe his wet face. When he dropped the apron, Ride was gone.

  That night Opa went home holding on to the envelope like it was something sacred. He fell to his knees and asked Jesus to forgive his heart problem. He asked Jesus in. To take over. Right then he promised his Savior that he would use every penny of that money for good.

  Corey recalled that story every time he felt like he had made one too many mistakes to be forgiven. Sitting in the well, armed only with Shem’s staff and no way out, Corey asked Jesus to forgive his complaining and ungrateful heart. He knew Jesus did. He knew Jesus erased the shame Corey felt from his own selfishness.

  He felt the rain. It kept coming, just like the truth found in Opa’s story. Corey remembered asking him what he did wrong.

  He answered, “Corey, I am ashamed of myself. That first time John Ride ate at Vinnie’s, he left his wallet on the counter. I took it to hold on to so no one would steal it. I counted the money in it. Sixty dollars, which is about a thousand dollars today. Days passed, and Ride never came back asking for the wallet. I knew I should just hold on to it, but I didn’t. Money was tight, and I needed to pay my rent. I was behind so I used all of Ride’s money.

  “The very next day after I spent the money, Ride came in the diner looking for his wallet! He asked for me personally. I lied and told him I never saw it. He looked at me long and hard, even gave a faint smile—like he knew I had his money—thanked me, and just walked out.”

  Corey also remembered how his great-grandfather kept the promise. He converted the thousand dollars that Ride brought back in the envelope into ten-dollar bills and gave it all away to the homeless. Opa kept track of the hundred names he gave the money to and prayed over them. He broke up the blessing and multiplied it.

  Here in the well, Corey couldn’t find the blessing. He was at the end where blessings aren’t found.

  CHAPTER 10

  Rain continued to fall from the sky.

  Fifteen feet above, Corey saw movement, like shadows sweep across the grate.

  The shadows kept sweeping back and forth across the opening, and finally Corey could see that the shadows were actually two elephant trunks. They both began to curl around one of the heavy crossbeams. The trunks went taut. The elephants were trying to pull the grate away!

  Corey watched in awe as the mighty trunks pulled the grate loose with ease.

  Now the problem for Corey was getting himself out of the well, armed only with Shem’s staff. He thought about his grandfather’s story again.

  The blessing was the animals removing the barrier. But there had to be something else. All Corey had was the staff. He thought hard about his situation. How could the staff help him get out of the well?

  Break up the blessing. Multiply it.

  The only thing Corey could think of
was to break the staff in half. He brought the staff down over his left thigh and snapped the wood in two. Each end tapered into a point. Corey reached as high as he could and shoved one of the pointed ends into the cistern wall. Corey pulled up on that pole and then with his left hand shoved the other staff piece a little farther up the well wall.

  The muddy walls received the staff with hardly any resistance. After a couple of times repeating this pull/shove motion, Corey could barely hold his weight. He managed to pull himself halfway up the well, but he didn’t have the power to go any higher. Suspended there, Corey prayed that he wouldn’t let go, because if he fell back to the bottom, there was no getting out.

  Arms burning, Corey called out for help. He hoped Shem or one of Noah’s other sons could hear. But no one came.

  Corey felt something brush against his hair. He looked up and saw that one of the elephants was dangling its trunk over him. Then the second trunk appeared. Corey knew he’d have only one shot of letting go of the staff pieces and grabbing the trunks.

  His arms were burning.

  Lord, please help me!

  Corey reached out with his right hand to grab the closer trunk. He couldn’t get his hand around it to get a good grip. He couldn’t hang on anymore with his left hand. He let go of the staff and started falling.

  The second trunk rose and caught him. It wrapped around his stomach. Both trunks lifted Corey all the way up and out of the well! They put him down carefully on the ground next to the opening. Even though his muscles were on fire, Corey rejoiced that he had been set free.

  As he sat there catching his breath, a pair of rhinos lumbered forward. The creatures were so huge and intimidating. Corey remembered reading that a male rhino could weigh up to five thousand pounds and charge at up to speeds of thirty-five miles per hour.

  But Corey wasn’t afraid, because for some reason the animals here were loving and tame.

  “Praise the Father, you’re okay!”

  Corey saw his friend step from the shadows.

  “Shem!”

  “We have to hurry. The Nephilim will soon return. Come, use that boulder to climb onto the rhino’s back. Like this…”

  Corey watched the man effortlessly climb from the rock to the animal. Shem straddled the creature and then waved for Corey to do the same.

  When Corey got up on the rhino, he couldn’t believe that he was actually sitting on the back of such a powerful beast.

  “Hold on, brother!”

  CHAPTER 11

  It took a handful of strides for the rhinoceros to get moving, but when it did, Corey couldn’t believe the feeling. He was being carried across the wide-open valley just as if he were riding a horse back home in Texas.

  The animal’s wide back provided enough room for Corey to feel confident that he wouldn’t fall off. The tough leather hide rippled from the mighty muscles pumping up and down. Shem was on the other rhino right behind him.

  Corey felt like he was flying! As he looked around, he saw that many other animals had joined the journey. Tigers, gazelles, giraffes. Even the two elephants that had helped Corey escape from the well were now part of the group. It was like one of those African safaris Corey had seen on the Internet.

  So many animals. No predators. No prey. All simply running together. It was magical.

  Corey couldn’t believe he was really riding on the back of a massive, thundering rhino. The hills and trees flew by and the air rushed across his face.

  “WHERE ARE WE GOING?” Corey yelled over to Shem. The man looked just as excited as Corey to be careening over the landscape on the broad back of a rhinoceros.

  “I WANT TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING UNBELIEVABLE!” Shem yelled from behind him.

  The rhino soon found a rocky path that narrowed as it made its way up from the valley, higher and higher into the hills. Corey turned his head and could see that Shem and the second rhino were close behind. The other animals broke away and headed farther down the valley toward the ark.

  Eventually the path ended. The two rhinos skidded to a stop, very close to the edge of a cliff that overlooked the valley.

  Corey was mesmerized by the weather. The view from high on top of this hill was breathtaking. It looked like a Fourth of July spectacular. Lightning exploded across the dark sky like fireworks. The electric light display was amazing. Bolts of white and blue made jagged paths across the heavens. Epic strikes ripped in a thousand random directions. Like God was drawing in the sky.

  “It’s as if the Father is giving a final sign to the people.” Shem pointed up to the sky. “A beautiful display of His power for the villagers who have thought my family were wild people all these days.”

  Cold air swirled over Corey, and he shivered. The temperature was dropping. The epic storm was getting closer and closer. Time was running out.

  “Shem, would your father let anyone on the ark?”

  “Of course, brother Corey. But as I’ve said before, all the villagers think he is nothing more than a fool. They refuse to believe.”

  Another round of lightning arced throughout the sky. White lines zigzagged from the sky toward the ground in brilliant bursts of energy. Clouds were gathering high above them like spectators waiting to cheer on the approaching flood.

  “Brother, the clouds,” Shem noted as he pointed to the towering gray sky.

  “Yes, clouds.”

  Corey nodded. He held back a chuckle as he recalled his earlier conversation with Shem about the weather. It was still hard to imagine that it had never rained here before. So, of course, Noah and his family would never have witnessed clouds and the rains.

  “Clouds. Wonderful creation. Clouds hold the rain, you said?”

  Now Corey couldn’t hold back the smile. “Yes, Shem, the clouds hold the rain.”

  The lightning seemed to intensify as new bolts shot in every direction, illuminating the evening sky.

  Noah’s son stared at the heavenly display, enthralled by the beauty and intensity of it all.

  Corey kept his eyes on the show but had a question for his friend. “How did you and your brothers escape Elizar?”

  “Just like you, we had help. From the animals.”

  “But I had your staff. How did you call them?” It was hard for Corey to concentrate on the conversation and the feeling he had from his first rhino ride. And the lightning above. And the coming flood. It was all so overwhelming.

  “The staff I gave you was my father’s. He was the one who brought the elephants from the other side of the valley to the ark. Ham slipped away from the Nephilim and made it back to tell Father we needed the elephants to get you out.”

  From their high place on the cliff, Corey saw the animals that had been running with them made it safely to the ark.

  “I could stay and watch this forever, but we must get back.” Shem used his legs to signal his rhino to turn back toward the path.

  Corey tried nudging his rhino to do the same, but his didn’t budge.

  “Kick harder! Trust me, you won’t hurt him.” Now Shem was the one who was smiling.

  Corey mustered all the strength he could and kicked the animal with his legs. The rhino stirred and finally began to move toward Shem and the other rhino.

  “There you go. Now follow me!”

  Corey loved the experience of riding this powerful creature back down the narrow path. As they rode, the lightning kept exploding across the sky, high above them.

  As they were approaching the bottom of the path, where it met the valley, two Nephilim were waiting. Each held a massive club that looked to Corey like the trunks of two old oak trees.

  “RAM THEM, COREY!”

  Corey watched Shem kick his rhino. Corey did the same. Both animals picked up speed and charged the giants with their horns out to attack.

  Corey felt like the giants were going to smash them and the rhinos into the future with those clubs.

  When Corey and Shem were about thirty feet away, the giants lifted their clubs just as Corey feared.


  And the clubs came down at them like they were baseballs served up perfectly over the middle of the plate.

  “JUMP!”

  Shem briefly stood on the back of his rhino before launching himself off the right side of the animal. The club missed its mark, but the charging rhino did not. Its horn rammed straight into the closest giant’s knee, causing him to fall like a bowling pin.

  Corey managed to push himself to his knees. The second giant was already swinging his club. Corey jumped. As he went airborne, Corey saw that his rhino’s horn also connected. The second giant went down just like the first one did.

  Corey landed on his feet, but because of the speed, he barrel-rolled through the tall grass that bordered the path. As he stood and got his bearings, Corey noticed that Shem was standing over him.

  “You are strong, young man! Don’t ever fear. Now we must hurry.”

  “Not so fast!” The voice belonged to the wicked Elizar. “I will be joining you on the ark.”

  CHAPTER 12

  The dark one moved toward Corey as more Nephilim came over the crest of the surrounding hills. The two giants who had been toppled by the rhinos had gotten back on their feet and trudged up on either side of Elizar.

  Shem started running and Corey followed, but a row of giants blocked their path.

  “It’s no use, son of Noah. If you really believe that your father is following directions from God, then you’ll listen to me. Carefully.”

  More of the mighty Nephilim came forward and circled around Corey and Shem. There were no animals around to save them. Now they were completely at the mercy of the one called Elizar.

  “I want a place on that thing you call an ark. I want my people to have a place, too. These wild things happening in the heavens are obvious signs from the gods.”

  Corey looked at Shem, then at Elizar. Even the giants held his attention. There wasn’t any way out.

  Shem looked at the one cloaked in black and, as he began to speak, pointed at the roiling sky. “The ark is there because my father believes in the one true God. You and everyone else laughed at him. Now that you see the end is near, you have a change of heart?”