The Ravine (27 page)

“Hello, Carolyn, my name is Joanna, Joanna Larson, and I am so happy to meet you!”

“Do I know you, Joanna? I think I do! You look familiar and I could swear I’ve heard your voice before.”

“Actually, no, we’ve never personally met until just now, but I’ve been thinking about you a great deal.” Joanna’s beatific smile put Carolyn at ease. Logically, she at least should have been apprehensive; instead, she was burning with curiosity. Something important was happening here, but she didn’t know what it was.

“I don’t mean to be rude, Joanna, but—”

“Why am I here? And why have I been thinking about you given that we don’t know each other?”

Carolyn nodded her head, and Joanna replied, “Well that’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask someone who comes knocking at your back door, imploring you to let them in!” The absurdity of the whole situation suddenly struck both women as so totally ridiculous, they were both reduced to uncontrollable laughter. It reminded Carolyn of being a teenager with Rachel and how they would laugh at the most ludicrous situations without a care. When they were finished, Joanna said, “Well, since I’m now in your house, may I sit down?”

Slightly embarrassed, but still reeling from the sense of absolute joy, Carolyn said, “Oh, of course. How thoughtless of me; can I get you something, Joanna?”

“I would like a glass of water if you don’t mind. It sweltering outside.”

Joanna sat down at the kitchen table, folded her hands, and shut her eyes for a minute. Then she reached into her handbag and started searching for something.

While Carolyn poured the water, she glanced at her guest, trying not to appear too conspicuous. She couldn’t take her eyes off of her, however. She thought Joanna to be one of the most exceptionally beautiful people she had ever seen. Aside from the color of her hair, which was pulled back into a ponytail and almost reached the small of her back, there was something distinctive about her smooth, olive skin, and her extraordinarily wide and brilliant green eyes. Though she had the demeanor of a cleric, she was fashionably dressed in jeans and a bright
pink T-shirt, accompanied by an open flannel shirt that was tied at her belt buckle.

She was one of those people who looked much younger than her actual age, or perhaps her hair made her appear older than she actually was. Carolyn guessed she might be around thirty-eight or forty at most.

Just as Carolyn sat down at the table, Joanna found her wallet, produced her driver’s license, and slid it across the table toward Carolyn.

“Everyone always wonders how old I am, and no one believes me when I tell them,” Joanna said with a laugh, accompanied by a girlish grin and just a hint of smugness.

Carolyn pretended she hadn’t just been pondering that very question as she scanned the license for the date of birth.

“You were born in 1950! That can’t be, Joanna! That would make you . . . fifty-five!”

“You’re so right! But don’t say it that way! That’s not so old! She said, pretending to be offended.

Carolyn went on to make a fuss about how young Joanna looked; she then talked about her own age, her religious upbringing, and how she was married with three kids, born and raised in Cuyahoga County, and had gone to John Carroll. She concluded by confiding that she and her husband had been going through an exceedingly difficult time of late.

She was normally a very private person, particularly with strangers, so she was a bit bemused and surprised by her candor. Carolyn thought perhaps she had said too much, too soon, but she felt so comfortable with Joanna. However, she backed off a bit and tried to change the subject.

“I don’t know why I just dumped all that on you, Joanna. I just met you!”

Joanna answered with her angelic smile and said the words that truly stunned Carolyn, but were intended to allow them to shift to the true purpose of her visit.

“Oh, please don’t worry about that. Haven’t you figured it out yet? I was sent here to help you.” She looked down at the row of prescription medications that Joanna had lined up like soldiers and completely forgotten about.

“Oh those? I was just looking at them. I really wasn’t going to take them. The doctor said they would make me feel better. . .” She scooped them up and put them on the counter behind a loaf of bread, and cursed herself for leaving the pills out on the table and for announcing that a doctor had prescribed them for her. But then how was she to know all this would happen when she innocently sat down in Mitch’s chair just a few minutes ago? And what was that Joanna had said about being sent here to help her? Things were happening very quickly.

She looked at Joanna quizzically. “What do you mean sent here to help me? Who sent you?”

Mitch shook his head in an attempt to clear the cobwebs. The last thing he remembered was sitting in the rental car and praying intensely, and then he must have fallen into a deep sleep. He recalled having an incredibly powerful dream. He had a vague recollection of a woman speaking to him and telling him something important. What was it? He saw himself walking through a forest, lying in a clearing, staring into the sun—but before that, he had plunged through the earth to some secret place.

“Whew! Man, was that ever something.” He strived to recall the details, but they eluded him. However, he was brimming over with a sensation of having just been freed, but from what he didn’t know. He felt lighter. There seemed to be a wire running from his forehead directly
to the tips of his fingers and toes. He didn’t know what had happened, but whatever it was, it felt fantastic. When he glanced outside the car, at the ground, trees, and sky, the colors were vibrant and rich. Some inner source directed him to sit still, and simply observe things and wait.

The scent of freshly mowed grass wafted into the car. He could smell summer. He could hear summer. The array of dissimilar sounds that burst forth from the city street coalesced into a rhythmic symphony that was perfectly in pitch. Mitch had practiced meditation and prayer throughout his life, and at those times he felt a connection to his soul, but this was distinctly different. He successfully ignored his natural desire to understand what was happening and basked in the experience of utter calm until it started to dissipate.

He was about to turn on the ignition when a butterfly fluttered past the windshield, disappeared out of view, reappeared, and perched on the steering wheel. He leaned in closer to study this gorgeous creature, who simply stood her ground and observed the incredulous human before her.

Her wings were a brilliant orange, tipped in strokes of black, against a powdery white background that was daubed with blue speckles. Mitch was astounded.

“Boy, you sure are beautiful! I never realized . . .”

Then his inner voice gently interrupted: “Now would be a good time for silence.”

When she finished showcasing her remarkable good looks, the butterfly zipped back out the window and into the ether.

Mitch shook his head, looked straight up, and shouted, “All right, God. I get it! Caterpillar to butterfly! You really
don’t
have to make things
that
obvious!” He’d heard that God had a sense of humor and now he had proof of that.

As he drove to the hotel he mused about the many stories of transformation that were in the Bible. Doubting Thomas; Saul, who was
knocked from his horse and became Paul; Jacob, who wrestled with the angel all night and was transformed into Israel by the morning. He chortled and thought,
You know, Mitch, perhaps you should learn how to receive a gift graciously instead of always being so suspicious! Just say, “Thank you, Lord!”

He desperately wanted to speak with Carolyn. He had so much to tell her, but he didn’t know what to say or where to begin. He doubted he would be able to pull her out of the funk she was mired in back in Ohio. He also had to admit that he was afraid that talking out loud to anyone about this experience would somehow shatter it.
What if she laughs at me?
he thought.

But now his new inner voice pounced with a ready dose of wisdom, interrupting the thought pattern that had been his companion for so many years. “Stop trying to figure everything out,” it advised. “Stop doubting and fearing and start healing!” Mitch loosened his grip on the steering wheel and began his journey home.

Joanna knew she had to choose her words carefully when answering Carolyn’s question regarding the identity of the person who had directed her to come knocking on her door that morning. She knew that sometimes even faithful people could be frightened by the authentic presence of God in their lives.

“Carolyn, haven’t you been speaking to God every day, several times a day, asking for help?” Joanna leaned forward and for the first time Carolyn noticed the cross dangling from the chain around her neck.

“Yes, that’s true. I’ve been going through a very difficult time for months. It all started last Nov—”

“I know about the pain that you and so many others have suffered since that terrible day—”

“It was all over the news,” Carolyn interjected.

“It was, my dear, but I’m speaking about a deeper knowing. Tell me, when you are upstairs, in your sacred spot, on your knees, you believe that God hears you, don’t you?”

“That’s what I’d like to believe, but every day I just fall right back into sadness and grief and I can’t stop all those horrible thoughts.” Then Carolyn looked at Joanna quizzically.

“Wait a minute. How do you know where I pray upstairs?” She felt a little insulted at the invasion of her privacy. “Who are you really, Joanna?”

Joanna threw back her head and laughed. “You are too polite, Carolyn. I was wondering when you would get around to asking that! Let’s just say that I have a very special gift. Sometimes I think of it as more of a responsibility that I have been given. But I believe—no, I know—that God has selected me to help where I can. Though sometimes I’m not able to help, which, I’m sorry to say, was the case with Danny. I just couldn’t reach him. He was beyond my ability to help that night.” She looked away and thought about the moment she was literally driven to her knees that morning in November.

“So, you’re telling me that you knew Danny, and tried to stop him from doing what he did?”

“Yes and no, Carolyn. I’m sorry if I’m confusing matters. Let me start by answering your first question. What I’m going to tell you will sound very strange, but I know that you too are a woman of faith, and that we share the belief that Jesus is our Lord and Savior, is that right?”

“Absolutely!” Carolyn said. They each felt their connection deepen.

“So to answer your first question: God sent me. And to answer your second question . . . I know about your going into your bedroom, and speaking to your Lord in the quiet and privacy of your closet, because God has shown this to me for a purpose.”

Carolyn began to allow herself to feel some sense of relief. Was it really possible that this stranger could help her, or was she so desperate for relief that she would allow herself to believe even something this preposterous? It occurred to her that Mitch would probably have her committed if he could hear this conversation.

“I truly want to believe what you’re saying, Joanna, but I think you can imagine that this is a little much to take in. Who are you really, and how could you possibly know these things?”

So Joanna talked about her childhood and told her the story of her father dying on his birthday, and the blue bubble rising to the sky, and the shoes and the bare feet. She recounted those extraordinary and bleak February days in 1962 when she discovered what she later came to describe as “the knowing.” She shared her stories of stumbling as she learned how to use her abilities, and the battle that she had raged with her ego. She talked a little about being called to ministry—how at first her personal calling had directed her to work with women who were in danger from abusive men, and how then, after she’d met and married Richard, together they had decided to minister to young men, to try to stop the problems before they began.

“So you see, Carolyn, I am just a simple woman who has the ability to help sometimes, but not always. For instance, I can look at someone and know that he is at risk because Satan or evil spirits have him in their grip. Sometimes I can help, as I did with a young man earlier this morning, and other times, free will takes over and then a person may make the very worst decision.”