Read Online Rapture Practice by Aaron Hartzler - Free Book Online

heaven when you die is pray and ask Jesus to forgive your sins.”
    I ask all the boys and girls to bow their heads and close their eyes.
    “If Jesus came back right this minute, would he leave you behind or take you to heaven?” I ask. “If you don’t know whether you’re going to heaven or hell when you die, you can be certain before you crawl into your sleeping bag,” I assure them. “If you’d like to talk to a counselor about accepting Jesus as your savior, raise your hand right now.”
    In the orange glow of the flames at the center of our circle, I see hands fly into the air all around; little hands reaching up toward me to ask for help, to find comfort, to be saved from the fire.

    When the boys in our covered wagons are settled into their bunks for the night, Jason finds me by the dying campfire and sits down on the log next to me.
    “Nice work tonight,” he says.
    “Thanks.” I smile and peer back into the flames.
    “You really got into that story. The kids loved it. You’re good at that.”
    He’s right. I
am
good at it. More than once Dad has toldentire churches full of people how proud he is of me when I help Mom teach Good News Club, how I win boys and girls to Christ; how if you train your kids right, they’ll be able to train others.
    But what am I good at, exactly?
    This is the question that nags at me as I sit in the dark next to Jason, staring into the low flames. The story of Speckles hasn’t changed since the first time I told it in Good News Club several years ago, but I have changed. Tonight as I looked into the eyes of the boys and girls watching me talk about flames and hell, I realized Speckles’s sacrifice isn’t beautiful.
    It’s horrible.
    I must’ve really scared the little kids around the campfire. If
I’m
afraid of hell, imagine how terrified they must be of it. Eternal torment and crucifixion are heavy issues to raise with first- and second-grade campers. That’s why I was trained to do it with an object lesson about a little boy, his pet hen, and the day she became an extra-crispy value meal in order to save her offspring.
    I know it’s dark enough that Jason probably can’t see the tears streaming down my face, but I keep staring into the fire just in case. I don’t really care if he sees me crying, but I am glad that if he’s noticed, he hasn’t said anything. If he asks me what’s wrong, I don’t think I can tell him.
    The truly sad part of the Speckles story—the part I realize now has always made me cry—isn’t her selfless act; that’s the basic instinct of an animal protecting its young. The heartbreak I feel is because we never find out what happens to Jimmy. Allwe know is that he loses the thing that is most precious to him in the whole world. From his perspective, the idea of atonement seems horrifying. It seems like the worst idea ever.
    I feel like everyone else is satisfied with the leap comparing Speckles to Jesus, but I’m not. A rope of fear tightens around my stomach—fear that His atonement doesn’t apply to me. I desperately want to feel the comfort of that psalm about being covered with big wings. There seems to be a promise of safety nestled in those feathers, or maybe it’s a promise of flight.
    As I stare into the fire, I say a silent prayer to that God with the big wings of protection:
Help thou my unbelief.
    But it feels silly, like a spark from the popping logs that shoots into the darkened sky, then vanishes into nothingness.
    The air between Jason and me feels electric. I am sitting on a log at a campfire in the middle of the woods, next to a college student who is so much cooler than I am. I am crying, and he is pretending not to notice, and I think this may be the nicest thing any guy has ever done for me.
    I remember how last Friday night as we sped home from the State Theater it had started to rain, and Jason turned up the music. As Wilson Phillips sang about arrows through hearts drawn on a misty window, I held on to my