Faith III

Make sure to check out Faith I and Faith II.

He pressed his elbows into his knees for balance, ducking down level with me. “Alright, here we are, father and son. What is it you want to say to me, as my son?”

A beat passed as nerves bustled through every inch of my body. This was a moment of which I had dreamed for millennia, and now I was dumbstruck.

“I don’t know. I guess, despite everything I’ve done, I want you to know that I always wanted to do right by you.”

“I know."

“I know you know. You always know. You know everything, but I feel like it needs to be said." I inhaled to steady the tempest within. “This is all I ever wanted, Dad. I just wanted to be your son. I became another one of your soldiers lost on the battlefield, but I wanted to be so much more than that.”

He rested his fist on his chin. “Is that really what you think? That you were only a soldier to me?”

As he considered this, his aura of majesty shrank until only a lowly human sat before me. Rather than godly wrath or unprecedented composure, he appeared devastated, or perhaps defeated.

He said, “You are my son. I created the entire universe, but none of my creations could compare to you. And I had to sit back and watch as you took your own life.”

Gripping beneath my maimed forearms, he caressed the cuts that no longer brought me pain. Yet, based on his mournful eyes that threatened to overrun with mortal tears, the lacerations still sliced him deeply.

He surrendered to the grief. “I lost my son. I have felt the heartbreak of every war and disaster that has taken place on Earth, but this is, by far, the hardest thing that I have ever had to go through.”

Still too prideful to accept emotion, he rose from his seat and strode away. He turned his back to me, trying to conceal his anguish. “Don’t ever think that you were just another soldier. You were the only one that mattered.”

I remained seated, petrified. I had disarmed God of his own, infallible stolidity. I had wished for this genuine display of sentiment for eternity, yet it disconcerted me. He was the commander of the universe. He could not allow himself to show this sort of weakness. He needed to be perfect. There was no hope for anyone if the Creator himself had flaws.

After a long silence, I managed to ask, “Why would you feel this way about me?”

With his strength mostly returned, he faced me once more, cocking his head. “What do you mean?”

Humiliation tugged at my heart. “As much as I want this to be true, why would you value me over anyone else? Is this real? Are you trying to manipulate me?”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Then why do you care so much? The only remarkable thing about me is that you are my father. And obviously I failed to live up to expectations. I’m not perfect and never have been.”

He gripped my shoulder. “I never meant for you to be.”

I knocked him aside, as shocked as him by my sudden outburst. “That’s a lie. I am supposed to be an extension of you, or at least that’s what we preached. But you made a mistake. You decided to make me mortal and send me down as your representative. You chose a human to represent an omnipotent being. I was destined to fail from the moment I was conceived.”

“You didn’t fail.” He reseated himself across from me in his usual, calm manner. “You did exactly what you were supposed to do. You showed humanity that they can be good, despite their inclinations toward temptation and sin. No, you weren’t perfect, but that was the point. You were as close to perfection as a human could ever hope to be.”

Now that I had his praise, I supplied my own disapproval. Guilt twisted my insides. I stretched my arms toward him, accentuating the damage I had done. With self disdain and hopelessness, I asked, “How about now? Can you still sit there and say that I’m perfect?”

He reached forward and placed his hands overtop of my wounds and blood stains. With a comforting smile, he said, “You are still my son. Nothing you do will ever sully that fact.”

As I gazed at him, assessing his sincerity and finding that it rang true, a warmth spread from his touch. I first believed it to be a manifestation of my own emotion, having received acceptance from my father as I had always dreamed, but the heat intensified to the point of emanating a dim radiance from his fingertips. I flinched away, but he held me fast, insistent. Only a few moments passed before the light faded and the heat of his hold returned to normal.

When he withdrew his hands, all signs of self destruction on my skin had been cleared away. I ran my fingers across my forearms, the surface soft, smooth, and unscarred. The cells seemed brand new.

As he pulled away, God gave the slightest flinch, but within a blink, he reverted to his usual, unbothered air. I attributed his minor lapse to the usage of his power. He rarely utilized his omnipotence to intervene in petty affairs. The exertion must have tired him.

I bit my lip to suppress the overwhelming relief of my healed wounds. My unblemished body could almost convince me that my sins were expunged as well.

“Thank you,” I mumbled. “But this doesn’t change anything. I can’t come back to heaven with you.”

He nodded in agreement. “And I won’t make you.”

“Then that leaves only one option, doesn’t it?” A shiver vibrated through my voice.

Resigned, he said, “Yes, it does.”

I peeked over my shoulder at the side door, the mere thought of the darkness causing a drowning sensation throughout my body. My extremities flooded cold, my stomach lurched, and I attempted to breathe, but my lungs refused to function.

I faced God in order to put the torment behind me for a few more blissful seconds. I offered a hand to him, forcing a brave face. “Then this is goodbye.”

Stoic, he accepted and shook with his mighty grip.“Yes. Take care of yourself, my son.”

Once our handshake came to an end, my time would be up. I lingered with our hands locked together. Every second ticked by too quickly, drawing me closer to my fate. The suspense and inevitably bore down on me with a fury. My nails dug into my father’s grasp.

The uneasiness proved too much. “Father?”

“Yes?”

Quaking so violently that I threatened to fall from my perch on the chair, I confessed, “I am afraid.”

“I know." His comforting smile returned. “But you don’t have to be.”

He unbuttoned the cuff of his dress shirt protruding from his jacket sleeve, then rolled both up to his elbow, presenting his bare forearm. An array of gashes colored his skin in red, the layout identical to my previous self-harm. I extended a finger from our persisting handshake to alight on the nearest laceration. The texture was an exact replica to mine.

To be concluded in Faith IV...

© 2020 by Kelsey Garber