The scream came from somewhere in her soul.  She didn’t even know that she made the sound, it just came from her. Shanda dropped her phone and fell to her office floor, her soul bleeding profusely from a mortal wound. A bullet shot through the telephone and hit smack, into her heart. The entire office just sat in stunned silence for a second.

Shanda was not a diva given to public hysterics, one of the office dramatics seeking attention. In fact, she was the opposite. If priorities aligned, Shanda could be quite public with microphone in hand and facing hundreds of intimidating faces, speaking to with panache, humor, intelligence, convincing and motivating, always building teams. But normally she was a strategist, a planner, a worker operating backstage. So when Shanda, or actually, Shanda’s soul made its’ death scream, the entire office came running after the initial shock. The first to reach her cube was her assistant. Choua had become like a sister to her.

When they first met, Choua had difficulty speaking English and was about to get laid off. She was over in “Contract Manufacturing” and Steve, (Choua’s boss back then), was complaining about her. Shanda had Choua’s job once so she knew that since Choua talked to engineers all day, a great command of spoken English, complete with technical jargon, was necessary. Choua knew English as a weak second language so Shanda had a good guess why she was in trouble. Choua was desperate because she was the only real income source in her entire, extended, recently-immigrated, family. Shanda, being Shanda, did a bit of investigation. Steve had given her a clue.

“I don’t want to let her go because I never saw a faster person on the key board.”

“H-m-m-m” Shanda thought, because the unit Shanda managed desperately needed much paperwork done quickly.

Choua’s first week in Shanda’s unit ended up with the three person “Reporting” group sitting around with nothing to do. Choua would slam through a report in fifteen minutes that took a regular worker at least three hours to do. Shanda reassigned the two other people to other areas where bodies were needed, to be used in “Reporting” only to back up Choua. Once Choua actually figured out her job and got really efficient, Shanda had to find more work for her because Choua would accomplish a formerly three person team’s daily work in half a morning. That is how Choua became Shanda’s assistant. Today, Choua could only kneel next to Shanda and desperately wrap her arms around her, sobbing wrenchingly.

The next person in the cube was Javier. He was a body builder so he was strong enough to lift both Shanda and Choua from the floor. By then Shanda was in complete emotional shock, unable to work her arms and legs. Elaine and Dave were the next in Shanda’s cube. Dave helped Javier move the ladies so Elaine scooped up the phone. “Please,” she spoke into it. “Our boss just fainted, how can we help?”

“This is the Chicago Police.”

“Yeah?”

“We just informed Miss Shanda Washington that her son has been killed.”

“Oh my God!” Elaine thought fast. “Where is he now?”

“Madam, we can only release that information to Miss Washington.”

“Ok, Shanda is obviously unable to speak right now. What number do we call back to?”

There were others in the cubical that day, others beyond Shanda, Javier, Elaine, Dave and Choua, unseen but otherwise just as real. There is a matter of humans and God that we people almost never acknowledge except in times of extreme stress and that matter was now at hand. Elaine sensed the other beings as she rushed from the cubical with a phone number scribbled on a “post it” note. She hesitated and glanced back. Then Elaine breathed a prayer.

“Oh God, please help. Please help now!”

Elaine rushed after the gathering team. Shanda had come out of her faint and started screaming.

“Oh my God! Oh my God! Michael! Michael!”

All that her team could do was gather around Shanda and cry with her as Elaine tearfully explained what happened. Elliot, the day janitor had the best response. Even though, most of the office would make fun of him because his always talking about “Je-e-e-e-sus” (they would mimic his voice), they still respected him because he kept a spotless and well run building and always had a needed word. The company President once asked him for a benediction during a formal event when it became generally known that Elliot was an ordained lay pastor of a tiny, storefront church. Elliot surprised the whole company with the “Our Father” in perfect King James English. Today, Elliot placed his giant hands on the small, grieving group and in a fantastic bass, sang his prayer.

1. When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
   When sorrows like sea billows roll;
   Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
   It is well, it is well with my soul.

• Refrain:
  It is well with my soul,
  It is well, it is well with my soul.

2. Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
   Let this blest assurance control,
   That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
   And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

(“It is Well with my Soul”: Horatio G. Spafford).

No one was unmoved, not even Chris the office cynic. The song helped Shanda regain herself though she continued hiccupping tears. When the ambulance arrived and the EMTs helped, everyone knew that this was only the beginning for Shanda. For those other beings in the office, it already had been a struggle for quite a while. Had Shanda known, their negotiations looked as if they were most desperately unfair. No one asked her about the negotiations that went on ABOUT HER!

“Where have you been?”

(It was the one on the throne. Light and warmth radiated from Him.)

“Oh, I was wandering here and there.”

(It was the one that was life freezing evil itself, stifling more than night fog.)

They had once been on the same side. The evil one had once been the jewelry of the heavens, the music of creation that taught the stars to sing together. But now after his rebellion, he was an anti-of whatever glory that he had been. The angels had come to present themselves before the Lord as they occasionally must.

“Did you see my servant, Shanda Washington?”

The evil one snickered. “Hah, you pay her to be good.” (He also is known as the accuser).

“You are accusing me?”

“Well – aren’t you giving her wealth, health, family, friends, respect and honor? You even have not just angels, but archangels protecting her.”

“Ok, since I must answer your claim of my lack of justice, I will call you on this one.  You may attack even the most treasured parts of her life, but you may not touch her body.”

The anti-good one smiled evilly. “The most treasured?”

“Yes, the most treasured.”

“Hm-m-m.”

The local media called the hit “senseless.” Michael Washington was playing basketball in a neighborhood park, doing what he loved to do. A passing car whose occupants had absolutely no interaction with of any people playing there, simply “decided” to shoot at them. Michael went up for a lay-up very much alive with a fantastic future and came down dead before his young body even hit the ground. Later, when the police interviewed the kids riding in the car, they really couldn’t give a reason why they shot. The “reason” stood, an unseen place of chilling cold, watching from the bushes nearby as the yellow police tape fluttered in the wind.

An honest question is never unacceptable. Why does God seem to punish the innocent? Isn’t this whole negotiation fundamentally unfair? In the court room of public opinion there were those who would object.  

Job 9:14 - How then can I dispute with Him?

How can I find words to argue with Him?

15: Though I were innocent, I could not answer Him;

I could only plead with my Judge for mercy. (NIV)

Shanda had her heart completely broken before, but never like this. Life had suddenly become a burning and horror, a twisting and ripping. Her family would not allow her to see Michael’s body until the funeral. In the middle of the daze called Michael’s memorial service Shanda thought that her heart couldn’t take it. Sitting with her family as the preacher droned on, a stab of fear came to her. Shanda was certain that her heart would just explode inside her chest and she would die. Then again, the thought actually was comforting. Death sounded better than the pain that she was experiencing.

As the funeral progressed, Shanda tried but she just couldn’t look into the casket. She knew that the sight would destroy her. She had demanded to see Michael’s body earlier but now that she actually had that chance, she couldn’t do it. The Michael that she remembered and wanted to treasure was a loving, very much alive, reason for everything, not the still, empty hull laying there now.

“Mom” he said, when? It was a life time ago but actually only a month ago! “Mom, thank you.”

“What? What!” She was angrily focused on an email from an idiot.

“Just, Mom, thank you.”

Shanda was so thankful now that she snapped out of focusing on her job.

“Michael, what? Did something happen to you?”

“No mom, I just realized how hard you work to make our home possible. All of the other kids are jealous.”

“Aw-w-w Mickie!” (There was a time when he hated the nick name and he still refused to wear anything with the iconic Disney character on it.)

“Mom, no really. I’m not saying this to butter you up for anything. Just, thank you.”

Laptop forgotten, Shanda jumped up and grabbed her kid that now was much bigger than her. “Good God Mickie, it all was, AND IS, very worth it.”

“Thanks Mom.”

“Hey! You want to go to Osti’s for pizza?” (She knew Mickie loved pizza, especially Osti’s.)

“Ah, you got me in an arm lock. I guess I just have to go.”

That was an inside joke from one of the last times that Shanda tried to spank the huge giant that now was Michael. They both laughed until they cried. Osti’s never tasted as good. Tears welled from Shanda’s eyes there in the church, but she was smiling. Oh God, these are treasures that she would always remember. Now he was gone.

“Oh God! Help! I can’t breathe!”

Then Shanda prayed something right there in the church pew with her dead son’s body just a few steps away. Most people just wouldn’t understand it.

“God, you give and you take away. When you give I open my hands thankfully so if you have to take for your higher reasons, I do so as well. Blessed be your name!”

“God!” She screamed. Even in anguish she looked great. “God isn’t!” Shanda’s cousin was a tenured and well paid professor, she had the thickest afro in the world, her beauty often stopped men dead in their tracks and she had a thoroughly twisted soul. Though she would fight to the death against any such accusation, she was a complete racist, an angry female chauvinist and politically a fascist. They loved each other but now were screaming at each other.

“No” Shanda insisted. “This funeral is about Michael not you. I am not making his passing a time to insult my friends so we can pour out your hate and yes, there is a God, and yes, He is in control!” 

“Shanda, you are pathetic!”

“No Atrei’a, you are pathetic!”

“I am not coming to the funeral.”

“Do what you have to do.”

“Are you satisfied?” (It was the shining one on the throne.)

“Hah” He snickered. (It was the evil freezer of life.)

“Shanda Washington’s love is verified to not simply being purchased.”

“Skin for skin, she is healthy and vibrant. Take her health and she will reject you.”

“You are testing my patience!”(The evil one cowered.)

“Shanda is innocent and still you accuse but since you make a claim, this also will be allowed you. You may touch her but you cannot take her life.”

“Hah” the evil one rejoiced as he left the presence of the throne.

It was her Mom of all people! It was her church loving, always do right, no exceptions to the rule, Mom.

“Shanda, what did you do that makes God punish you like this?”

“Mom, no, I swear!”

“Shanda!” She had THAT Mom look. Surprisingly, Shanda had to suppress a surge of anger.

“Mom, I swear! I am not perfect of course but, no, unless God is punishing me for not tipping the waitress enough.”

“Well, God is just.”

“Yeah Mom, He is.”

“You need to make it right with God, that’s all.” She left the hospital room in a huff. Shanda waited until her Mom was gone before she started to cry. The doctors just couldn’t figure it out. Shanda looked horrible. She was as bloated as an over filled water bag. She refused to look into any mirror. It was possible that she would lose her job because she hadn’t been there for a month and Shanda was a proud woman. She had never been on welfare, ever, by God’s grace. It was this last “grace” thought that stopped Shanda from going into an emotional panic.

When Shanda was a kid and was stupid, getting pregnant with Michael from a guy that refused to even acknowledge him let alone marry her, God had reached in. Somehow Shanda always stepped on the correct spot. Often without a snowflake’s chance on a hot, summer, Chicago sidewalk, she still won out.

Life was tough even with help. Good looking guys came along but Shanda knew that she would trade her son in exchange for immediate gratification if she let them into her life. God always gave her wisdom. He supplied.

“Blessed be the name of the Lord” she whispered from her hospital bed. Again, very few people understand this prayer. “Hiss” said the cold spot menacing on one side of Shanda’s hospital room. Shanda remembered a once meaningless sermon. 

“Sometimes, for no perceived reason, like refined gold, we must go through a refining fire. Our western church doesn’t like the doctrine of sometimes needing to suffer. Hard times can define us or refine us. I recommend refining.”

“But what about Michael, huh? What about him?” Atrei’a roared when Shanda shared her concept of occasionally being called to suffer.

“I don’t know Atrei’a.”

“Do you know how unacceptable your answer is?”

“Well, there’s much that we accept in life though we don’t understand. You don’t understand how your lungs work but you are still sucking air right now.”

“That’s not the same.”

“Yes it is.”

Epilogue

When he came into her bedroom, she quickly wiped away her tears. Proud women don’t let strangers see them crying. He simply was a medical technician, checking up on her. There was nothing important about him, almost just a needed appliance to be ignored but Shanda just couldn’t treat people that way. She smiled to be polite. As she watched him do his job, the gentle way that the man moved immediately attracted her to him. She was looking horrible at the time so she made no plans. His job required that he keep visiting her though.

Over time she found that he had two kids, (a daughter and a son), and that he was bravely trying to raise them as a single parent. But, he was emotionally scarred because of a drawn out, down-ward spiraling marriage and then divorce. Maybe it was due to his care and maybe it wasn’t but suddenly Shanda began to improve. Before she finished her stay at the hospital they would spend time together, talking, praying, and laughing. She gave him her personal phone number when he swallowed hard and asked for it. Shanda could tell that based on his experience, it was one of the bravest things that he could do. There were other beings in the room that they didn’t see but sometimes sensed. These warm and unseen beings very much approved.

"I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten-- the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm -- my great army that I sent among you. Joel 2: 25 (NIV)