It took quite a few minutes for him to pull it together enough to get his day going again. It was and it was time to kick start the family. Though he felt with every fiber of his being that he did not want to go to work, he knew that he must return to the battle. He had a job to do, a world to impact. Determination filled his soul as he climbed the stairs to make coffee for Corrina and make breakfast. This was just an ordinary morning of an ordinary day and regardless of how he felt inside, he would not let fear own him today.
The car was cold but at least he didn’t have to scrape the windows. Most of the snow from the day before was gone but he could still see some in the shadows. Less than a block from the house he heard the sound of his cell phone. Thoughtfully, John reached instinctively for his cell phone. “I know I’m not supposed to answer this while driving, but I should see who it is and put it on speaker if it seems to be important.” Casually he looked at the number on the phone. “Hmm, it’s the Mission
He flipped open the phone and pushed the speaker button. “Good morning!” John nearly sang his welcome. There was complete silence on the other end. “Hello… hello? …is anybody there? …I guess it wasn’t that important.” John smiled as he turned the audio book back on.
Pulling into the parking lot, tension and fear crawled all over him. Looking around the empty parking lot he took a deep breath, carefully opened the door, got out of the vehicle, opened the back door and took out his computer and backpack.
Suddenly a large woman with a large black bag appeared seemingly from nowhere. “I need to talk to you.”
“OK. What’s going on?” John hid his frustration from not even getting in the door of the office before he was accosted.
“I need to go to the hospital.” She put her bag on her shoulder as if to go.
“Oh man. What’s going on?”
“I think I got food poisoning or something.”
“Would you like me to pray for you?” John offered.
“You can, but I need to go now,” she said abruptly.
“I understand, I hope you’ll be better soon.”
The woman glared at him with an increasingly searching stare. “What if I don’t get back on time?”
John looked at his watch casually. “It’s not quite in the morning. I am sure that you’ll be back by five tonight.”
“So if I’m not back by five, you’re kicking me out for going to the hospital for food poisoning that you most likely gave me.”
The thought going through John’s mind was, ‘I haven’t even gotten to my office yet.’ What he said out loud was, “I’ll tell you what. I think that you’ll be back on time. If it looks like you will be late, give us a call. We will want you to bring paperwork from the hospital as proof that’s where you were.”
“But I need to go to the store first and then I have to watch my sister’s kids in the valley. I won’t get to the hospital before three at best.” Her story began to change, John noticed.
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