Wearying the Worship Leader - part 3

PLEASE READ PART 1 & Part 2 before reading the following story...

"Mr. Joe?" A teenager had forced her way through the crowd of complainers. Eventually, her parents found her and stood by her side.

"Mr. Joe, we just wanted to tell you how much we love and appreciate you. Last week, I was on the edge of making a bad decision..." Joe noticed a tear form in the corner of her father's eye. "I was lonely." The teenager continued. "I didn't feel I had a friend in the world. To make a long story short, I went to the bathroom and found some pills. I could almost hear the voices in my head saying, no one cares.. no one cares... But then... " she paused, staring in the distance as if she was watching her life on a movie screen. A weak and pained smile began to form on her space. "Then I began to hear something else... a song in my heart... 'who am I that you are mindful of me, that you hear me when I call?' I recognized it. It was that Friend of God song you like so much that you sing over and over."

RJ, still smirking and giggling under a nearby pew, noticed something. What? Suddenly, he realized that something in the tone of the voices had changed. What was going on? He opened his eyes only to find himself surrounded by lots of bare and sandaled feet. He peeked out from under the pew and was startled by an entire squad of armed, smiling angels; and every tip of every sword was pointed at him. "Don't move." charged the lead angel. RJ didn't move. But he could hear. And what he heard was weeks of work wearing down this worship leader going down the toilet!

"I started singing," she continued..."the only part I could really remember... I am a friend of God... He calls me friend. And I started to cry so I sung it again... and again and again for over an hour. When my parents came home, they found me lying on the floor of my room, crying and singing with a spilled bottle of pills to the left of me. I had realized that I had a friend and that He loved me. So I asked him to make the words real to me. To be my friend. To come into my heart. And He did. I'm different.. changed. I sometimes still feel the loneliness, but I know that He is there. I just had to say... thank you."

The parents and teenager moved closer and wrapped their arms around the worship leader. He could feel himself breaking. He felt the tears fall, not just theirs, but his as well. He felt the discouragement began to drain from him with one that fell. Sensing the need, each member of the congregation made their way to Joe and the family until a large huddle of compassion and encouragement had formed in the center of the room.

The lead angel smiled at RJ. "I'm guessing that this wasn't part of your plan?" RJ just glared back at him and hissed.

"Why do you guys always show up? I almost had him! He would have been bitter! Quit the ministry! Stopped doing music. Blamed the church! It would have been a glorious victory." RJ's shoulders drooped. "But instead I've suffered this horribly ignoble defeat at your hands!" In response, all the angels began laughing! "What's so funny?"

"You weren't defeated by us!"

"Oh really," RJ started to stand but was immediately met by a huge gleaming angel with a extremely powerful looking broadsword daringly pointed at his face. "Well then, tell me what defeated me? What had the power to dismantle all of my carefully made plans? I had him! I had him! How could I lose when I was so close?"

The angels all glance over their shoulders at the tearful crowd holding the young teenage girl, her family and the once discouraged worship leader. "Simple, John. You were defeated by a kind word... spoken in due season." He smiles at the young teenager..." And a child shall lead them..."

The End?