The Heavenly Fugitive by Gilbert Morris

could she be anything else being brought up in the home of missionaries? Most of her friends had been the children of ministers, and the Bible had been a primary textbook in her education. She had a good memory—not as good as her brother’s, but the verses she had soaked up in her childhood still remained alive in her. Now this verse had risen to her mind, and the more she tried to shake it off, the more she found she could not. She started to hurry away but had taken no more than a dozen steps when the impulse grew even more importunate.
    “I’m not even a real believer. It can’t be God,” she muttered.
    The woman grew ever larger in her imagination, and Amelia could no longer ignore the image. It was like a magnet drawing her back, and finally, half angrily, she whirled and said, “All right, I’ll go back. She’s probably not there anymore. It’s just my crazy thinking and hearing too many sermons.”
    She retraced her steps, half hoping to find the woman gone and thus proving that it was not God speaking at all, but when she was a block away she saw the woman still standing there. Amelia considered turning and walking away, but she could not do it. The urge to help the woman was so strong she could not dismiss it. And somehow a feeling of dread held her—that perhaps one day she would be miserable andhungry and someone would turn away from her. Crossing the street, she pulled the twenty-dollar bill from her purse and extended it to the woman.
    The woman stared at her in disbelief. She reached out a trembling hand and took the bill, clutching the infant tighter to her breast. The child at her side looked up at Amelia with big eyes, saying nothing.
    “Why are you giving this to me?” the woman asked.
    The words came out of Amelia’s mouth before she could think. “God told me to do it.”
    Tears formed in the poor woman’s eyes as she clasped the bill. “Thank you,” she whispered. “May God repay you a thousandfold.”
    Amelia turned away then, touched by the woman’s gratitude. She made her way back across the street and had not gone a block when she began to berate herself. That’s what you get for being a preacher’s kid! Now what are you going to eat? You’ve been a fool. That’s what you’ve been!
    ****
    Keeping a smile on one’s face was part of the secret of success in the entertainment business. Amelia had learned that quickly. She was dressed well enough, and that was another part of the challenge. But being confident was the most important. People who produced Broadway shows did not want to hire failures. Amelia had learned to enter each interview with a smile on her lips and her eyes wide open as if she had not a care in the world.
    As she exited from the offices of talent agent Alan Mosgrove, she allowed the smile to slip from her face, however. There was no one to see her now except strangers passing by on the street, and they could not help her. The agent said they weren’t hiring people to sing or be on the stage right now. It was that simple. Mosgrove had been nice enough, nicer than most of the agents she’d seen. The diminutive man had listened to her sing one song, but at the end of the auditionhe’d said almost with pity, “Leave me your name and phone number. I don’t have an opening right now, but who knows what will happen.”
    Amelia had smiled brightly as if he had just announced she had won a million dollars and left him one of her newly printed business cards. But now as she rejoined those who hurried down the streets on their ceaseless errands, the smile was nowhere to be seen, and her shoulders slumped slightly. Slowly she walked along. She had one more stop to make, but it seemed almost hopeless to her now. She was hungry and she had no money left. A cynical smirk twisted her lips. Go hungry if you’re going to be a fool! You deserve it!
    Five minutes later she heard someone call her name, and turning, she saw Dom Costello hurrying to catch up with her. The big