The Rising: Antichrist Is Born by Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins Page A

I was you, dear! My parents had fun with tarot and clairvoyance and even Ouija at first. And then they discovered the truth of it all. By the time I was six years old, they had me communicating with spirits through the Ouija board every day. It took me a few years, but eventually I realized that the spirits on the other side of the messages knew me, cared for me, loved me. I had been chosen to be a channel, a communicator, an advocate to the mortal world of the skeptics and the cautious.”
    “You believe I have been similarly chosen?”
    “No! You have been chosen to bear a child! Why would they care whether you became a mother unless that child was destined for greatness? Yes, they love and care about you and want you fulfilled, but that would be easy. They could help you bear a child. But they care so much, it goes deeper. And I sense you’re not getting it.”
    Marilena found a park bench and sat, looking up at Viviana. “And if and when I get it, as you say, what will that mean to me?”
    “That is the question I was waiting for,” Viviana said. “First, you will be the mother of a special child, one close to the hearts and minds of the spirits. And second—and this is my deepest desire for you—it should make you love the spirits as much as they love you.”
    “Love the spirits?”
    “It hits you as foreign, doesn’t it?”
      “It does,” Marilena said. “They have not struck me as personal beings to this point.”
    “I know. I can tell. That’s what I am driving at.”
    “But they aren’t human, are they? Are they ghosts, the departed?”
    Viviana sat next to Marilena, and the younger woman could see her breath. “No. No, they are not. They are angels.”
    “Angels.”
    “Angels. And they love you.”
    “But if I am to believe in angels, I must also believe in God.”
    “Yes.”
    “I can’t say that I do.”
    “Perhaps it is not the God you think,” Viviana said.
    “Then who?”
    “This is not the God of the Christians. Not the God of the Jews. Not Allah. But he loves you and has chosen you and longs
    for you to love him.”
    Marilena shook her head. “Whoever he is, he remains too remote. I want to see him, touch him, communicate with him.”
    “If you could see him, you would no longer need faith. But, Marilena, you should require little faith, because he has communicated so directly to you through me. Can you so quickly forget that he has given me the power to know your history, read your thoughts, predict your future?”
    “I know. I know. But he seems too impersonal for me to love.”
    “He’s telling me that this is what he wants.”
    “Fair enough, but I must be honest. I will not express love I don’t feel.”
    “He demands allegiance.”
    “I suppose that is fair too. Perhaps I am unworthy.”
    “Of course you are, dear. That’s what should make you love him all the more.”
    “And if I don’t find it within myself?”
    Viviana stood and stepped away, briefly turning her back. When she spun to face Marilena, her jaw was set, her eyes cold in the faint light from a distant streetlamp. “I shouldn’t speak for him unless he tells me something specific.”
    “And he’s not telling you?”
    “He is silent for now. Perhaps offended.”
    “This is all so alien to me.”
    “Of course. But imagine how many people, how many barren women, would give anything to be in your place. I shudder when you ask the consequences of not finding it within yourself to love and respect and show allegiance to one who offers you the desire of your heart. For what if his response is that in that case you may not find a child within you either?”
    Marilena stood. She wanted to escape, to run, but to where? She had to think. If there was someone she loved, it was Viviana, and yet at this moment she wanted to be alone. “I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I certainly must be true enough to myself not to express love and devotion to someone merely because I want something from him