The Rapture

It happened again. I was certain the Rapture had come. For those of you who don't know what the "Rapture" is, it is when Jesus returns and all the believers on earth are "caught up with Him in the air" and carried away, presumably to eternal joy and bliss. The people left behind will endure some mighty unpleasant events, not the least of which would be what would happen to all those airplanes and cars whose drivers have suddenly been raptured.

Anyway, I had been out getting a haircut (my hairdresser said with my tiny head and frame, I needed short hair, so it is all chopped off Pixie style. I feel like an elf.) When I returned, I knew Asherel was home doing her school work. I called her name. No answer. I checked every room, including her bedroom. No Asherel. Both dogs were here so I knew she hadn't gone on a walk as she always takes at least one dog.

I hate that, I thought. Here I am *certain* I am a believer, and the rapture has come and taken my daughter, and left me behind! I guess I better get ready for airplanes to fall out of the sky now, I thought, looking up. Then I heard a small voice, coming from the closet in Asherel's room. I opened the closet door. There she was, in a nice cozy corner with her booklight pointed at her study cards.

"It's quiet in here," she said, "Would you please bring me some icecream?"

I don't blame her for hiding away for a little peace and quiet. I have felt vaguely ill for a few days, probably mostly just exhaustion but maybe a touch of some bug. It is not a bad idea to take a closet sabbatical. When you are all alone in the dark corner, where no one but God can see you or hear you, it is easier to be who you are, to settle the chaotic call of conflicting voices around you. I suppose that is why in the Bible, Jesus tells us to go to our closet to pray to our Father. The main point of that passage is not to pray ostentatiously, not to pray before others just to be seen and revered for our holiness. However, I think the surest antidote to hypocrisy, and any other sin you might name, is to get alone in a closet, and try to listen very hard for what God is saying to you. I don't think it is nearly as important to come out of the closet as to go in.

I brought her the icecream and knocked on the closet door. She opened it a crack and took the icecream.
"Thank you," she said, closing the door and pushing the rancorous voices of the world away.
"I'm just glad she wasn't 'raptured'," I said, walking away, "I would have really missed her."

Matthew 24: 36-44
"But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left. "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. (Matthew 24:36-44 NIV)

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