The Righteous Perish!

By David Bergsland

This is an exciting story about a pastor and her husband who are called to finish the harvest in Santa Fe and then move on to Monaco. In the process, we find out how the Lord may work in the process of correcting the earth in preparation for the coming of the King of kings.
We are asked to open our hearts and minds to accept the very real possibility that Jesus meant what He said by telling us that no one knows the day nor the hour. All we need to do is remember how the religious of the day missed it when Jesus came to the manger. In fact, as you know, few figured it out until after He had risen back to be with the Father.
Parts of this scenario may look outrageous but they fit biblical prophecy and are possible!
We must be open to the very real possibility that we really do not know how it’s going to happen.
We only know that the King is coming soon!

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Bergsland
• Release date: Nov 8, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301264230

David Bergsland

For me, my early life culminated with the great rebellion of the sixties. Ending up as a fine artist and heavy user of pot and acid, I needed help. I met Jesus in 1974, and my life began, for real. The Lord gave me an amazing Godly woman for my wife in 1976. I became a graphic designer, font designer, and desktop publisher. In 1991, I began teaching printing and digital publishing. That resulted in writing dozens of books and booklets about the practical processes, using InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator. In 2009, I began the transformation into an author of fiction. By the end of 2022, I had 17 novels in five series, as I have developed my craft. This book is #20, and is the third book of the sixth series. I’m using Christian contemporary speculative fiction with some Biblical romance to share stories about the reality of how Jesus touches our day-to-day lives, while being strongly focused upon Biblical truth. I put the stereotypical Bible quoters in the same category as robo-callers. I attempt to reveal Jesus within a realistic world sharing my experiences. The goal is to reveal Jesus as a loving Creator building people into what they are designed to be. I currently assume time is running short, and the final harvest is here.

Book preview

Prologue

Sunday Evening, February 19, 1989: Worship and prayer service at Chelwood Park Foursquare, Albuquerque, New Mexico

It was a good service. The core of the church was there again. Only the serious members of this large Foursquare church bothered to show up on Sunday Evenings. This was not an evangelistic service but a gathering of mature believers to worship their Lord and seek His guidance.

So far, there’d been a couple of prophecies, but nothing earth-shattering. Isaac Nordlander and his wife, Sarah, were sitting there. Sarah was upset. Why can’t she shut up, she whispered to her husband. How could we hear the Lord if He spoke—with all the jabbering going on?

Mary Turnquist was on a roll tonight. The praise you, Jesus, and thank you, Jesus, phrases flew out of her mouth in steady stream. She was of the school which believed that quantity was as good as quality when it came to praise. She was better than most. At least she regularly got into real worship, talking to Jesus directly, thanking Him for what He was doing in her life. But between Mary, Jim, Hank, and Gloria it was a constant din of meaningless drivel.

Isaac chuckled. He remembered when Sarah had temporarily stopped the nonsense with a prophecy a couple of weeks earlier. It went something like, How could you hear me if I spoke, my children? You need to be still and listen. I’m not going to try to shout over your voices. The words in your mind are even louder. You must come to me and open your ears to hear. Then I’ll speak to you.

Of course, that had gone over like a lead balloon. But at least they had gotten two weeks of true worship and some powerful words from the Lord. Tonight, all was forgotten and they were back to the continual barrage of praise and babble.

After the service, Isaac and Sarah drove up through Tijeras Canyon on the old Route 66 next to I-40 to their home in Cedar Crest. Actually, it was a trailer. But, it was what the Lord had supplied and they were content.

Sarah had suggested that they be quiet for a bit and listen to see if the Lord had wanted to say anything. So, they rode through the dark up the canyon.

Finally, Isaac had something. My children, do not be frustrated. I have a work for you to do that you will enjoy. It is time for you to prepare. Do not be fooled. The end is coming soon, but no one has it figured out. None of the prophecy teachers has it right. Remember, I fooled everyone the first time. It will be the same when your King comes.

After a moment of intense silence, Isaac muttered, Boy, that was strong.

It sure sounded like the Lord to me, Sarah said.

I wonder how it will all work out? I wonder what He has for us to do? Isaac thought out loud. What do you think we should be preparing for?

I have no idea… Sarah looked out her window at the darkness.

The righteous perishes,

and no man takes it to heart:

and devout, merciful people are taken away,

no one understanding

that the righteous are taken away

from the evil to come

[Isaiah 57:1]

Great day in Minneapolis

Thursday Evening, June 3, near future: Highway 100 headed south passing through Edina, Minnesota

What an incredible day! Karl Lindahl was on the edge of ecstasy. He’d been invited to what he thought was a simple meeting with a new client. His latest new house had been mentioned in an article in the Star last week. Shortly after that he had gotten a call from this man.

Thinking little of it, Karl had set up a luncheon date at the Nicollet Island Inn on the southern tip of Nicollet Island in the middle of the Mississippi, downtown. He’d heard wonderful things about it and he might want to take Carol there next weekend. He’d met her in Uptown Tuesday night at one of the bars he’d been crawling.

He started to get aroused just thinking of her shape and smell. The melody of her voice was still singing in his mind. Now that Harriet had left, he was free again. That nasty piece of work had not even been able to nail him too bad for alimony. Carol had cleansed his mind. The old things were past. He was a new metrosexual on the prowl.

His life had been going really well lately. Now that the economy had recovered, his world was becoming truly exciting. The possibilities seemed endless. But even that had not prepared him for lunch.

Henry Lavalier turned out to be a developer working over some of the lesser areas of Edina west of Lake Calhoun and Lake Harriet. It turned out that he had ended up with two complete blocks fronting France Avenue just north of 44th Avenue. His plan was for an ultra-luxurious gated Community. He had offered the design of it to Karl because of what he saw in the Bjornquist house report he’d seen in the paper.

Karl couldn’t hardly believe it. Suddenly he was in the big leagues. This was nearly a billion dollar project and it would have his name on it. Here he was headed down Highway 100 toward his little apartment, thinking about the house he was going to buy on the shores of Lake of the Isles. Those gorgeous old mansions from the end of the nineteenth century were now within reach. He’d only been able to dream of such a thing in his wildest fantasies. They were some of the best-built, most luxurious homes in the country—let alone the Twin Cities.

He didn’t even notice that the world had gotten dark. He was barely paying attention to the road. The iPod was blaring through the sound system of his barely affordable, black Lexus GS F Sport. He was in another world and he was king of that world.

Finally he noticed the dark clouds—extremely dark. They had that deep viridian green glow around the edges of the inky black and boiling masses. The afternoon had stopped into a dead calm in the heat of a late May day. Karl didn’t even have time to react as the huge F5 funnel appeared over the tall bank behind the soundproofing barriers next to the highway.

The noise was so intense the car shook violently. He watched in horror as his windows crumbled into shards of glass blown through the car, sucked out the now howling driver-side window. The car became airborne, flipping end over end, until he saw the front end of a dirty semi tractor rushing at his windshield less than two feet from his terrified eyes. Blackness claimed him. The pain never left, but intensified.

The tornado certainly never noticed Karl while it slashed through Edina, across 50th and France, and over Lake Harriet. It was nearly a half mile wide and totally devastated thousands of multi-million-dollar homes, chic boutiques, trendy bars, upscale grocers, artisan bakers, and the like while killing 327 one-percenters and horribly injuring thousands as they indulged the whims of lust in one of the richest areas of a very rich city. When it finally lifted and dissipated just short of Lyndale and Lake, a huge area over seven miles long looked like the battle of Britain had been fought overhead—but all the bombers had gotten through.

The rest of the country hardly noticed. Talk about peace and prosperity! The country was riding the coattails of the greatest [or worst] president who ever lived, President Milton (MJ) Armandale. In the late teens of the 21st century America had finally decided that nothing mattered but the economy.

After all the troops had been brought home from Afghanistan, Iraq, and finally Korea, a new president had converted the defense portion of the military budget to the new reality. The people were tired of being the peace police of the world. There was no offensive strike force left. The archaic concept of beating your neighbor into submission because you were simply bigger and stronger was no longer acceptable. Mature people negotiated peace, and MJ was a master negotiator.

But the Occupy movement had become a real force to be reckoned with. They had finally come out in the open with their real agenda—bread and circuses. All that mattered to them was free access to their entertainment and an understanding that it was not fair for them to be forced to work much. President Milton (MJ) Armandale had slipped into his place in history with a masterful display of political legerdemain. Bread and circuses were his specialty.

He was an old-fashioned crony-capitalist, and he knew what Wall Street wanted. After he showed them that they could get rich supplying what the Occupy group was demanding, his election was assured. America had no idea what they were getting, but they were sure it would make them all rich or entitled. Either option was fine with them.

They hadn’t even had the sense to protest when the Euro was made the new global currency. No one cared about the third world except as a manufacturing base to produce the goods needed to support Americans in the life to which they were entitled.

The new catalytic ruthium convertors which made clean coal a reality enabled the United States to completely cut off the Middle East and even the rest of the Americas. It looked like Canada might even join the new America in its prosperity. There was a lot of talk about a new United America of the combined United States and Canada. The new Prime Minister of Canada was an old business partner of MJ Armandale

Wall street had not seen such a high since the dot com boom. But this was real. There was no way this would crash. There were too many protective measures in place for that to happen any more.

It gets strange in Santa Fe

Wednesday evening, September 25: headed home

Something was wrong. The times were turning evil, but this feeling was irrational to the extreme. The little knot in his stomach was a nearly forgotten reminder of the terror of hiding—afraid they’d see him high in the tree next to the road in front of his home in rural Minnesota when he was a little boy. Why did he have this irrational dread of discovery?

Too many books with stories far too adult for a nine year old was the likely answer. Voracious readers in the 1950s quickly got into adult books. A forced chuckle escaped his lips—but it didn’t help much. As a mature believer, this was stupid!

Isaac Nordlander looked off to his right as he drove south out of Santa Fe on St. Francis Drive. The sky was still glowing that deep purple blue often seen in late summer just before night became believable.

As he glanced he almost did a double take. The sky was gorgeous, as is usual in Northern New Mexico. But tonight there was a black arrow of very stormy looking clouds pointing north out of a huge mass of black clouds in the distant south, over the Estancia Valley down east of Albuquerque.

As it rushed north, the storm was tearing the still blue of the sky apart. The lightning looked positively angry. Huge, ripping gashes of white brilliance were occurring so rapidly that his eyes could hardly clear the retinal remains before a new one occurred. All in all it was a fairly normal thunderstorm, on the high desert.

What caught his attention was the scene in the high plains below. Moving swiftly north across the front of the Ortiz Mountains and blotting them out behind sheets of black rain, a squall line of low black clouds were angrily screaming across the high plains.

In front of the clouds he could see tendrils of flying dust glowing faintly in the remnants of the sunset reaching out toward the city. It looked like the angel of death in the Ten Commandments magnified by Stephen King. There was an evil black cloud boiling across the plain, reaching for the piñon and cedar woods nestled on the southern edge of Santa Fe. It matched the arrow point above, two black fingers reaching out of the storm. He could hardly see the lights of the freeway through the murk. Between the fingers of black the clear, deep blue looked reassuring; but something was wrong. This black rolling squall seemed to be directly grasping for Santa Fe.

Suddenly his tire hit the shoulder and the wheel pulled hard to the right. He jerked his eye back to the road and shook his head to clear it. He could hear Sarah, his wife, If you don’t start paying attention, I am going to drive. What’s the matter with you? She was right, he was becoming one of those cantankerous, old codgers that he always joked he was. His mind was so overwhelmed lately. He really needed to pay more attention to the world around him.

Lord, Isaac thought, what is going on? What do you want me to do? His heart was torn by the desire to hear clearly. Sometimes this faith walk was real tiring. He listened intently for a couple of miles, until he had to turn east, but he heard nothing. Again he was filled with the familiar longing. If only he could sit down and talk with Jesus.

Plenty of time for that later. He chuckled. Boy, that had been a start! Only now was the adrenaline rush fading. He could not understand why anyone would seek out that horrid feeling. The mind of an adrenaline junkie was almost beyond his comprehension. Of course, a drug was a drug. He knew enough to know that a drug high had little to do with the actual drug consumed. The popular church was so ignorant. Why couldn’t they see that adrenaline was no better than cocaine if pursued as a high. His mind resumed more pleasant wanderings.

The storm was really gorgeous. The entire sky in back of him flashed like the sky over Baghdad at the beginning of Desert Storm. He almost had to flip the lever on his rear view mirror to dim the glare. Why did he get so excited when he saw things like this? He still felt guilty for the excitement that filled his spirit when the latest disaster filled the news.

Larry’s new Revelation series at Victory Corps probably wouldn’t even mention what was really going on. Since Larry was one of those popular pastors, Isaac expected that this Revelation series would be another of those seven year tribulation, pre-trib Rapture, hopeful thinking events to pump up the people. It would be popular, but would it be accurate?

Isaac grew momentarily sad while considering the popular preachers who were so entertaining as they offered personal opinions instead of anointed words from Father. The Lord had clearly indicated that He was not entertained, but then the popular preachers rarely asked Him.

The Word he had received several decades before had made it clear that no one, angel or human, had it figured out. How He kept that secret Isaac didn’t know. Father is much more subtle than most people remember, he thought. Why was the great delusion and the falling away not taught any more? I sure hope it’s not because popular Christianity is part of it.

As he slowed to turn south again, his thoughts temporarily stopped their wandering. This was probably where the fear of discovery came from today. It was a strange game of hide and seek they played with their home. First, he was always careful that there were no lights coming in front or back. Second, the driving was tricky for the first hundred yards. He was amazed at the cunning of the builder. From the road, it simply looked like a concreted arroyo. It was a little more elaborate than the washes to the east and west, but not noticeably. Just before the end of the concrete he cut right, over the lip of the arroyo, onto his driveway. Actually, it was a field of gravel. He was careful to take a different route, driving slowly to avoid disturbing the rock. Soon he drove out of the rock under the Ponderosa pines at the south end.

He gently accelerated through the trees, rolling silently over the bed of pine needles that blanketed the floor of the small dense grove of tall, straight, old growth timber. From the road it was impossible to see that the trees were well spaced and carefully pruned to leave the floor open enough to drive through. The grove was surrounded on the south and west by centuries old piñons. Their dark masses converted the much taller Ponderosas into a welcoming company of sentries.

Once he slipped back out through the guardian trees on the southern edge of the woods, he could see the lights of Albuquerque silhouetting the Sandia mountains far off to the west, looming over the northern edge of the Ortiz mountains in the mid foreground. The storm had slid past and the air was crisp and clear. He hardly noticed them tonight.

The pressures of work seemed to increase every week. Each goal attained at the office contained the promise of comfort and even vacation time for the family, but the reality was that the Lord was giving ever briefer times of refreshment. It seemed like he could almost feel the rush to Judgment recently.

As he looked forward to seeing his wife, Sarah, the familiar joy filled his spirit. What a woman my wife is! He often tried to express to her his pride in her position. After 25 years, it was immensely satisfying to see her finally fulfill her calling. The male harrassment had no place in her church now. The man who oversaw her ministry was the most godly man they had ever known. The pastorate fit her like a tailor-made dress.

He wondered how their daughter, Hannah, would react when she saw Sarah in action on Friday night. She had missed last Friday. Sarah’s real anointing was leadership. The Friday night, bible study free-for-alls were an amazing blessing under her leadership. New Covenant Fellowship was beginning to move.

Praise God! His mind wandered to the events of this week. He could hardly restrain a shout. After all those years of separation, his daughter was back. Simon Levine, her fiancee, had lured her away several years ago to a world of excitement, luxury, and hedonism. He could easily provide her with anything she wanted, let alone all her needs—real or supposed. Hannah’s choice of Simon had been hard to bear, but the Lord had proven true again.

It was a horrible way to bring about change, but Isaac and Sarah were sincere when they turned her over to the enemy for the destruction of her flesh. Specifically, the prayer had been, Do what ever you need to do Lord to get her attention. Not many parents have the nerve to pray that daringly for their child. Sarah and Isaac both knew how important it was to give the Lord carte blanche—and didn’t hesitate.

If the Lord hadn’t virtually spoken out loud to Sarah, she would have never stood the pain. There was no doubt that Hannah had been enthralled by the excitement of the intellectuals at the University of Chicago. The background in Judaism from her husband-to-be’s family would not hurt, but the rest of it was a real trial, as Hannah wandered away from faith.

Sarah had mentioned that same thing last night in bed just before they had turned out the lights. All we know is enough to know that we do not want to know it all, she had said. I am just bowled over by the Lord’s trustworthiness. We were keeping the faith that what she was taught would resurface, but when He moves, it’s incredible!

Both of them had just laid in the bed, holding each other tight and praising God for several seconds. What a change from a year and a half ago! Hannah’s call back then had been almost totally unexpected. She had cried, Mom, he’s dead! That black bastard just shot him!

Shortly after walking out after an incredible romantic dinner high up in one of the towers in the Magnificent Mile in Chicago, she and Simon had turned and started to walk over to a small pub they knew a block in from the lake. A black SUV had driven by slowly, came back around the block a few minutes later, and stopped.

A huge black man with a shaved head climbed out of the back door with a wicked looking machine gun in his hands. He calmly shredded Simon with over a dozen hollow point bullets.

Simon had pushed Hannah out of the way when the truck stopped and she had only scrapes from the sidewalk, but Simon was reduced to a ghastly carcass of flayed flesh. It was a grisly gangland hit—meant to convey a message.

Hannah was staggered again when she discovered that her fiancée was heavily into drug merchandising. Even though his portion was all pharmaceuticals, that didn’t protect him from the turf wars.

Evidently Simon was tied up with a large group of modern thugs called the New North Side Gang who were muscling out the countless gangs, cartels, and remnants from the thirties who had pieces of the North Side. This new organization was trying to take over a large part of the North Side. No one group had ever controlled the entire area but the NNSG was working it hard. One of the gangs from the South Side decided that enough was enough and picked Simon as an easy way to send a message.

Talk about a reassessment! Hannah had fallen into a deep depression. She’d started drinking heavily. She tried suicide once. However, a neighbor heard her yelling and throwing things for weeks in her apartment and got suspicious when it suddenly was real quiet. He convinced the super that someone had to check it out, and they found her unconscious in the middle of the living room rug. She was angry that she had survived. All Isaac and Sarah could do was pray.

Two months ago, she had started watching Jesse DuPlantis. The Lord used him to get their daughter’s attention. Isaac could hardly believe the change. He knew the Lord was powerful, but it’s always amazing to see the Holy Spirit work in such power.

He couldn’t help smiling as he remembered how she looked in the airport two weeks ago. He could hardly believe it was his daughter—a tall, statuesque redhead with a hint of the voluptuousness that had attracted him to her mother. They’d hardly even seen her for the past six or seven years.

She had grown into a stunning woman. Her clear, green eyes made her hair glow. There had been an edge of hardness growing on her the last time they had seen her, but that seemed to be gone now that she had come to the Lord. Like her mother, she knew how to put herself together. As Sarah was fond of saying, She cleans up real good!

They had never given up on her, but there had been nothing they could do but pray. It was indescribable. Not only did he have a new sister in the Lord, but his daughter had come home. Sarah and he had been increasingly concerned that their authority and spiritual protection were of little use to protect a thirty year old scientist. Their prayers had finally boiled down to, Lord, have mercy!

He always did—and He had!

Both Sarah and he, in fact all of their church, were firm believers in laying out the Gospel in reality. They were not interested in quick, cheap converts. They blatantly asked anyone interested in salvation to sit down and seriously contemplate their willingness to give up everything for Jesus. They wanted no wishy-washy believers.

As the time of Jacob’s Trouble neared, the warfare was too serious for lukewarm believers. There was too much anti-Christian persecution, and it was increasing exponentially. Santa Fe was thoroughly in the enemy camp. Half-hearted commitment usually turned to re-entanglement with the world—at the least. Sarah wanted no more believers who were choking in the thorns and thistles of the cares of the flesh.

When Hannah called about her new faith, they were so excited they could hardly speak through the tears. Isaac had called Sarah to the phone so he could get himself composed. While he was sniveling, Sarah quickly got the whole story. The truly exciting thing was Hannah’s enthusiasm. They were both blubbering like little children. Hannah couldn’t believe it and neither could they. It quickly became apparent that the conversion was real. She had been reborn and was a new creature—obviously. What a night!

The result of all of this was their complete reconciliation with Hannah. Sarah and Hannah seemed to be as close as they had been before Simon’s entrance. But they had no clue what the Lord had in mind. Hannah stunned them again when she called to let them know she had made a decision. That’s it, she said, I can’t stand it out here any more! The Lord says that I need to be with my mother. I want to help you in your ministry. I’m coming home if it’s all right with you!

Now, the Nordlanders were a family again. The Lord had redeemed what the enemy meant for evil. Hannah was home. No longer a little girl, she was a strong woman with deep convictions. She was simply on fire for the Lord. They were ecstatic.

Praise the Lord! Isaac shouted loud enough to startle the crows from the trees next to the driveway. He smiled and eased a little faster through the piñons. The storm had slid past to the west, and he wanted to get home to see his wife and his kid.

As he pulled up to the house, Isaac was again momentarily overcome with thanks. He could hardly come home without bursting into praise. After all those years of struggle, poverty, and pain, the results were certainly worth it.

Their home was only a small portion of the material blessing, but it was a real joy. When the Lord had called them to move to Santa Fe, their assumption had been that they would be forced into a double-wide trailer. However, the Lord had better ideas.

Neither of them could remember how they first heard about this rambling adobe on a hill near the edge of the piñons. There were rumors of a multiple murder and a suicide in the late seventies.

Whatever the reason, the home had been vacant for almost eleven years when they saw it for the first time. No one would touch it. Spirits were said to roam the grounds. Isaac was surprised that it hadn’t been snatched up by some new-age spiritual groupies sniffing out power.

Sarah had been a little nervous, but Isaac was ready to jump right in, as usual. He reminded her of the old practice by Christians in England. They looked for haunted houses that people were afraid to buy. After the purchase they simply cleaned house spiritually (a simple round of prayer was sufficient), and they had a new home cheap.

In this case, the rancher’s representative sole concern was getting the old debt paid off. So, by paying off a defaulted $85,000 real estate contract, the Lord gave them more than they could imagine.

There were some real differences from normal living, however. Even though they had clear title, their place was not on any map. The best he could figure out, the home had been built by some radical right-wingers, back in the sixties. They evidently had some genuine connections. The home was owned by an rancher, but the ranch was separated from the house by several sections of state land and 5 difficult miles. The edge of the property was three miles from the road as far as anyone knew. The secret entrance led through national forest land.

Since the murders, no one came near the place. There was no real access—just a track through the grassland. What passed as a driveway came across the miles of state land after passing through the ranch headquarters. By the time they looked at it, that driveway had almost completely reverted to the native prairie. The ranch hands drove next to the fence that was stretched a half mile south, but they went by fast. Supposedly, even the murders barely made the news. It wasn’t until after they moved in that they discovered the extent of the property development.

They had thought that the only electricity was from the solar cells covering the roof. Everything else was from propane. There was a 5000 gallon tank of that out back. It was still almost full when they arrived.

Later he discovered the large branch pipe under the tank. By tracing it back into the woods, he discovered an underground power generating station! According to the gauges in there, they still had well over 90,000 gallons of propane available and an efficient 1.5 MW generator with a huge bank of storage batteries.

In addition, there was a stock of gasoline, a room of arms and ammunition, plus enough MREs to keep a good sized group alive and healthy for a long time. He sometimes shuddered when he wondered why the Lord had Sarah and him in a place like this. Why would He think they needed resources like this?

He had discovered a map to the true driveway (the one he had just used) in the generating station. That made their home a wonderful place to live. They still used the road across the ranch occasionally—but just for cover and visitors.

It was a gorgeous place. The piñons were cleared from before the walled patio on the westsouthwest side giving a clear view of the gold mines on the northern side of the Ortiz Mountains to the west over by the old mining towns of Madrid and Cerillos. The patio was covered with vigas and latillas. This framework of weathered poles was beautiful in the winter and covered with some unknown variety of the sweetest grapes they had ever tasted.

The home itself was not huge, but it surrounded an interior courtyard that the original owners had filled with many of their favorite plants from back East.

There was an old stone fountain in the middle of the courtyard which still worked. It was rumored to be from an old church in Guadalajara, Mexico. The only remnant from former days was the large area of rust colored sandstone next to the fountain. They assumed it was a blood stain, but thought little about it. Those days were gone and the home is now filled with the Presence of the Lord.

Next to the propane tank was the well house. According to the geological surveys that he received with the deed, the well tapped into a reservoir of water trapped by a fault block. As far as he had been able to ascertain, discretely, there was no one else using this water. It was delicious, half-grain water. He had never been able to pump fast enough to lower the level by any measurable amount. Again, he was struck by the thoroughness of the builders of their home. The only conclusion he could come to was that the Lord had it built for them, in the first place. After all, scripture says, The treasures of the wicked are stored up for the righteous. Far be it from Isaac to worry about it at all.

The northern side of the house was used for the kitchen on the west and a huge art studio on the eastern corner. Not only was the light exceptional, but the view was spectacular. During those rare opportunities when they got a chance to relax and paint, Sarah and he could clearly see the side of the Sangre de Christos where the road led past Hyde Park going up to the Santa Fe Ski basin. The entire mountain range seemed to be laid out before the windows with low piñon covered foothills in front of slightly larger hills covered with Ponderosa pine and aspen with the snow covered peaks looming over all.

He parked the car next to the patio gate. This led to the large living room which was walled with glass on the patio and the courtyard sides—with three sets of gorgeous, multi-paned French doors on each wall. On those hot summer nights, everything could be opened and the living room became part of the outdoors.

Its ceiling was supported with huge, rough-cut pine beams. He had never measured them, but he guessed they were 10 x 24 and over 25 feet in length. Tonight, however, the air was nippy and he could smell the piñon smoke. Fall was beginning.

Sarah had spent countless hours decorating the house. She was very good at it, and it was a major source of life’s enjoyment for her. The walls in the living room were a rich hunter green. This made the orangish brown color of the wood beams and the antique furniture glow. The floor was tiled with rich, rust colored Saltillo tiles from Mexico and softened with a collection of used, imitation oriental rugs.

They were convinced that real Persian rugs are an extravagance beyond proper stewardship, but the Lord regularly led Sarah to thrift stores in Santa Fe and Albuquerque where she found good-looking imitations and