Rain in Hell

By Jane Lebak

"If I get to Heaven and find her there, I'd rather be in Hell."

Six years ago, an ultrasound diagnosed baby Annie with an incurable birth defect. She'd be born, and then she'd die. 

Doctor Olivia Thackeray walked into the exam room and did the unforgivable. She lied to Annie's mother, badgered her, and finally yelled to coerce her into an abortion she didn't want.

Today, Doctor Thackeray walks into the mother's church. And she's still unforgivable.

An outraged mother and an embittered doctor stand before the same altar, hear the same words, and need the same mercy. But mercy was the last thing Doctor Thackeray had on baby Annie and her mother. She doesn't even remember them. 

With her husband and best friend as her guides, a bereaved mother has to navigate this invasion of her church community. God doesn't want this. How can God possibly want this?

But sometimes God wants things we never dreamed. In this short story, a protective mother learns how a God who requires us to love our enemies can ask a lot of other impossible things along the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philangelus Press
• Release date: Oct 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781942133285

Book preview

Rain in Hell

A short story by Jane Lebak

If I get to Heaven and find her there, I’d rather be in Hell.

Six years ago, an ultrasound diagnosed baby Annie with an incurable birth defect. She’d be born, and then she’d die.

Doctor Olivia Thackeray walked into the exam room and did the unforgivable. She lied to Annie’s mother, badgered her, and finally yelled to coerce her into an abortion she didn’t want.

Today, Doctor Thackeray walks into the mother’s church. And she’s still unforgivable.

An outraged mother and an embittered doctor stand before the same altar, hear the same words, and need the same mercy. But mercy was the last thing Doctor Thackeray had on baby Annie and her mother. She doesn’t even remember them.

With her husband and best friend as her guides, a bereaved mother has to navigate this invasion of her church community. God doesn’t want this. How can God possibly want this?

But sometimes God wants things we never dreamed, and surely someone who requires us to love our enemies can ask a lot of other impossible things along the way.

Rain in Hell Copyright © 2017, Jane Lebak

All rights reserved. If you think of new rights, those are reserved too.

eBook Edition October 2018

This story first appeared in The Light Leads to Love: A Reflections of Faith Anthology

By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the authors. So there.

Cover design by GermanCreative

Layout: Jane Lebak, http://www.janelebak.com

Published by Philangelus Press

Chapter One

Why did she pick my church to come to? I’m not fit to drive even if I weren’t on my cell phone. I ought to find a place to pull over, but I can’t pull over here, not so close to the church, not on a road where she may drive by and see me. I’ve got the phone on speaker, half because I know it’s dangerous and half because my hands are shaking.

I’m driving anyhow because I need to escape. I snuck out of church early on pretext of needing creamer for the coffee hour, but really I needed an escape.

Mariana’s voice on the speaker is a piercing calm. "It doesn’t matter why she came there. You just have to deal with