Zion's Angel

By Cristy Upchurch

Zion Carver is handsome, well built and tough as they come…until he meets an angel who seems to see right through him. He's running from his past but he keeps running back to her. Can he trust himself to be with someone so innocent? Angel Hamilton knows she's nothing special but no one believes her, especially the mysterious stranger who she feels led to pray for. For the first time since losing her precious mother, Angel isn't alone anymore but will God give her His blessing for true love?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781597053631

Book preview

Dedication

In memory of my little brother, Jonathan Paul Gilliam. Jonathan, if by some small miracle you can see all of us from Heaven, then you know that William and I now have another baby on the way, this one is a baby boy who we will name after you. We all miss you but just as in the very last sentence in this book, The Lord giveth, and the Lord hath taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Jonathan, we will all spend the rest of our days looking forward to meeting you just inside those gates.

One

Angel Rose Hamilton closed the worn, black leather cover of the old Bible and thought about the words that she’d read. It had been a year since she’d last opened the Bible, the ancient testimony of all the promises God had made, unfailing, faithful and true. So many times her mother had referred to it as her roadmap. The Bible that had once been such a huge part of Angel’s life had gone from the coffee table to the nightstand. Not being able to stand the guilt, she’d placed it down inside the drawer. No longer did she want to see a reminder of what she’d left behind or to feel the burden of guilt of knowing that she’d given up her hope and faith in God Almighty.

For some odd reason, out of the blue, this had been the morning she’d felt irresistibly compelled to slide out the drawer. She’d been drawn to it. Her fingers took hold of the cold leather binding, which warmed almost instantly to her touch. Familiar, yet so far away, were those times when she’d felt the presence of her Lord as He blessed her with understanding and wisdom. Solomon had only prayed for wisdom, but God had blessed him with so much more. She thought about the scripture that Solomon had written down in those pages that were once so precious to her. Could they ever be again?

A time to kill, a time to heal, a time to be born, and a time to die... she’d read the passage from Ecclesiastes time and now, a year later, she’d known she’d made a huge mistake when she’d turned her back on the Lord. But she kept asking herself how long was she supposed to wait for Him to come through for her? She’d given up everything she’d ever known, and now the question seeped into her brain. These days it seemed so much more persistent than before.

Had it all been for nothing?

There. She’d said it. Her prayers had gone unheard. She’d given up everything and received nothing in return, regardless of the prayers that she’d prayed. Regardless of the years that she’d served the Lord, He had done absolutely nothing to help her this past year, at least that’s the way it seemed.

Guilt gnawed at her insides over her ungrateful attitude and she could plainly hear her mother’s reassuring words, pointing out all the times in the past year that God had indeed answered her prayers. She could hear her gently guiding her to remember the fact that God always hears our prayers, but doesn’t always answer them in the way we expect. She’d always tell her... There comes a time when we must look at the past in order to see the future. The past is the promise that He’s never let us down.

Her mother’s warm eyes had always seemed to sparkle. Even in her last days, it amazed Angel the way her mother’s smile never left her eyes. When Angel asked her mother if she was afraid to die, her mother just smiled and said, I’d be more scared if I thought I’d have to cross death’s river by myself. I know that Jesus is with me now and I know He’ll take me over when the day comes. That’s just what I want you to remember, Angel. Annie took a deep, shaky breath and continued, "Jesus will never leave you. That’s a promise that you can count on. I’ve always found that I could trust completely in that fact.

After I’m gone, there’s no family. Of course, there are friends whom we’ve had a lifetime to know, but you and I are the last of our family alive. I want you to make a life for yourself, even if that means moving away from this place.

Momma, where am I supposed to go? You know I’ve never been anywhere except for the short time that I went away to college and even then, I always came home for the weekends.

That leads me to this, my sweet girl. She took Angel’s hands into her own. Though her mother was still a young woman, the cancer had aged her, weakening her body and her hands were more feeble now than they had been six months ago. I once had a dear friend, Mary Beth. I’d like you to find her.

Angel listened as her mother took a journey back in time, as she recollected the dusty old memories from her childhood days. She had gone to stay with her grandparents for a month every summer in their little hometown, Rogersville, Tennessee. Great-grandpa and young Annie walked hand in hand down the streets of the historic little town, past the red brick buildings and by the old historic courthouse. He was taking her for a very special treat, a double scooped chocolate ice cream cone that was meant to calm a distraught five year old little girl. She’d never been without her momma, not since the day she’d been born.

She remembered the way her mother described that day so well. The blooms had already fallen off the pretty dogwoods but the leaves were just the greenest of green. The little blue birds were hopping along the twisted branches of the history-telling tree. They whistled a tune, giving praise to the One who’d created them so perfectly. A little brown-haired boy was sitting on a bench licking his own ice cream cone. His father, just a young man, was kneeling in front of the chubby child, tying the loose shoe string. He said How do? as they walked by. Great-grandpa replied with a nod and a smile, God Bless.

That’s the way folks greeted one another back then, Angel could hear her mother say as if it were yesterday.

They walked a little further up the street, when suddenly this mean old ugly dog walked out onto the street in front of them. Annie, already upset over her mother, went from distraught to terrified, went from a trembling lip to screaming all in about two seconds of time. That huge, furry looking creature stood there looking at her, those big brown eyes boring into her very soul. There wasn’t a thing Great-grandpa could do to calm the frightened little Annie.

That is, until Mary Beth came along.

To make a long story short, Mary Beth was the shopkeeper’s daughter just down the street from the old fashioned diner where Annie was going to get her ice cream cone. She showed Annie that the mean old dog, whose name was Grumpy, wasn’t grumpy at all and the two five year old girls became instant friends. For one month a year, eight summers in a row, those two girls had a blast. They always somehow managed to go down to Henry’s and sit there on that bench outside and lick on a double scooped chocolate ice cream cone until their tongues were frozen and their lips were blue.

Why only eight summers, Momma? Angel remembered asking.

Well, because Grandpa had a stroke and passed on outta this world. After that, Grandma just wasn’t much good without him. She died within a month’s time. They said she had a heart attack, but I think it was a broken heart. How can you spend over sixty years with someone and then just be okay after they’re gone? Why, seems to me, a piece of you’d be missin’! You can’t survive with half your heart gone. Momma shook her head like it was the craziest thing in the world for them to say Great-grandma had a heart attack.

But Momma, what’s that got anything to do with me leavin’ here?

Angel, this is where I want you to go. I want you to leave this place when I’m gone. I don’t want you comin’ down to the graveyard and weepin’ over something that’s just not there. Go to Rogersville. This here... she held out a news paper clipping, this here is a job I think you might be interested in. It seems to be a good job and if it’s meant to be, you’ll get it. I know how you like to crochet and I thought the job would be perfect for ya. They’d like to have someone to help manage this little knit shop. I already called. The pay’s not that good, but it’ll be a start for you.

Angel looked at the clipping. But Momma, how did you know about this?

Don’t worry about it. Just know that if the Lord’s in it like I believe He is, it’ll all work out for the best. And yes, you’ll get discouraged along the way, but you can rest assured that He’ll go with you all the way, but only as long as you want Him by your side.

Momma, I don’t want you to leave. Angel’s heart was so heavy that even all the crying she’d done hadn’t taken away the burden of knowing that her mother wasn’t going to be here for another week. The last days would only be a few, a precious few.

Momma swept a stray curl away from Angel’s face. I know you don’t, dear. That’s just the way life is. The day we’re born, we begin to die. These bodies are made to fail, not last forever. That’s why I have to go, she pointed upward. He’s got me a new body over there, one that’ll never wear out. It’s like those pretty butterflies you liked to chase around so much when you were just a wee thing. We have to lay off this old body so that we can spread our wings and fly.

Angel reached up automatically to swipe the invisible tears away wishing she could cry, just one more time. She felt dead inside. It was as though all her emotions, even the bad ones, were there, but locked away inside this dry room, causing her to feel so empty. She had longed to feel alive so much that sometimes she felt as if she couldn’t bear it any longer. What was wrong with her? Why had every time one thing went right, everything else around her had fallen apart?

She sat down on the bed again, pulled her mother’s handmade quilt a little closer and wallowed in her deep, empty hole of self pity for a few more moments. What’s next? What was she supposed to do now?

Her job working at the telephone company as a temporary had ended and her money wouldn’t hold up for another month, which was most likely how long it would be before the temporary agency found her another job. How was she supposed to get ahead if her life continued on this path to nothingness? How much more could she stand? What had happened to her? What had happened to her life?

She threw the pillow across the room childishly. It hit the closet door with a soft thud before it landed on the carpeted floor with another thump. She knew exactly why her life was like it was but she was too stubborn to admit any of it had been of her own doing. Instead, she looked up past the ceiling and held her hands out helplessly. Lord? Where are you? I tried, I really tried. But where are you? Where have you been?

She waited for an answer. Nothing.

She looked around the room in search of something else to toss across the bed, something to relieve her state of anguish. It was bare of the decorative items that she was so used to living with. There were no pictures; no flowers in pretty vases, not even curtains covered the mini-blinds. The only things that reminded her of her previous life were all the boxes that stood along the edge of the wall containing all her mother’s precious items, now hers.

There was only one thing left to do. She would pack up her few belongings and move back to Houston, Texas. She shrugged her shoulders, took a deep breath and then slowly exhaled and frowned in defeat. What else was there to do? She didn’t have anything more to lose, and she wasn’t about to give up any more of her mother’s things.

After parallel parking her sputtering, sun-faded red convertible Volkswagen bug on Main Street, Angel began what she should have named her box-hunting adventure, smiling in spite of the gloomy mood that seemed to rain on her for the past year.

She visited shop after shop to no avail. She had nearly been wet on at Crossway Pet Store when the store owner thrust an excited puppy into her arms. She watched helplessly as he tried to stop a four year old boy from tying a bunny’s long, spotted ears together. She’d almost gotten run over by a speeding car; a cup of scalding latte was almost spilled on her at Mel’s Coffee Shop when an elderly man ran into her, and at Quick Stop and Go Shop she nearly slipped and fell when she stepped in a puddle of baby wash that hadn’t been cleaned up.

The only box that she’d seen since her box-hunting adventure was the box of doughnuts that had miraculously landed at her feet instead of on her head when an angry customer