God Never Changes: In the Land of the Living

By Elaine M. Thorpe

Since the beginning of time, God has never changed—and neither have we, His human creation. Despite modern comforts, technology, and education, we are still His children. No matter how far we have fallen, He reaches out and pulls us up from the pit of despair into the land of the living.

God Never Changes is a collection of ten stories that transcend cultures and show miracles of faith. These are tales of wounded people, struggling to live in truth and freedom within an imperfect world. Each narrative imparts a Christian, biblical theme using modern day people, places, and events. We are reminded that God calls everyday people to be unwitting evangelists in His salvation plan for the world.

Author Elaine Thorpe is a Catholic laywoman who draws her stories from personal encounters experienced in service to the needy, disenfranchised, and lonely. She creates fictionalized characters that mimic reality and reveal the presence of God within people struggling to find truth and inspire faith in today’s fractured world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Aug 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781973669340

Elaine M. Thorpe

Elaine Thorpe was born and raised in Niagara Falls, New York, attended the University at Buffalo, and lived in Long Beach, California, for thirty-three years while working in the aerospace sector. She and her husband have since resettled to a quiet farm in the Central Valley of California, where they free-range chickens with the help of their dogs, Rollo and Freeia, and their cat, Jean Grey.

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Copyright © 2019 Elaine M. Thorpe.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Cover artwork and interior illustrations by Lauren Nichols.

Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition© 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-6933-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-6935-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-6934-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019910184

WestBow Press rev. date: 08/15/2019

Contents

Man of Living Waters

Eye Has Not Seen

George and the Tomato Truck Girls

Remember Me

Song to My Guardian Angel

Man Born Blind

The Invisible Tattoo

In the Land of the Living

Our Lady of Sorrows

Please Pray for Me

To Monsignor Joseph Greeley, who

saved my life, and Monsignor Patrick McCormick, who put me to work in God’s vineyard.

I shall walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

—Psalm 116:9

Introduction

It is the author’s prayer that these ten fictional stories about wounded people struggling to live in truth and freedom within an imperfect world will touch hearts and enkindle the faithful. Each story imparts a Christian biblical theme using modern-day people, places, and events to strengthen our faith and remind the reader that in every age, God calls everyday people to be unwitting evangelists in His salvation plan for the world. From the beginning of time, God never changes, and neither do we—His human creation—despite modern comforts, technology, and education. No matter how far we have fallen, He reaches out and pulls us up from the dark pit of despair into the land of the living.

All of the characters and their stories are fictitious and were created to dramatize the opening Scripture verse by using representative modern people, behaviors, situations, and vernacular to more clearly impart the Gospel message for today’s reader.

Finally, this book is intended for all Christians who believe in Christ Jesus and for those of other faiths or of no faith who may enjoy the stories at face value and who, by the hand of Providence, may come to believe. Blessed be God forever.

Story Synopses

Man of Living Waters: A virtuous Native American river man fights mightily, and although a knife is thrust into his side, he lives.

Eye Has Not Seen: A troubled teen must learn to see not with the physical eye, but with the eyes of the heart and mind, all the greatness God has in store for her.

George and the Tomato Truck Girls: A story about the vastness of God’s mercy and the assistance of angels.

Remember Me: A faithful mother succumbs to Alzheimer’s disease.

Song to My Guardian Angel: An original poem; a love story to one’s ultimate soul mate.

Man Born Blind: A pride-filled blind man’s heart is hardened to the ways of God.

The Invisible Tattoo: A discouraged orphan girl learns that the Holy Spirit marks us for God at our baptism.

In the Land of the Living: An original poem; we all fall down, but God takes our hand and pulls us up.

Our Lady of Sorrows: The weary mother of an immigrant family endures heartbreak and loss trying to raise her children in the barrios of Los Angeles.

Please Pray for Me: A middle-aged married woman idolizes a single younger man she believes is praying for her.

Man of Living Waters

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I saw water flowing from the temple, toward the east … it empties into the sea, into the salt waters, which it makes fresh. Wherever the river flows, every sort of living creatures that can multiply shall live.

—Ezekiel 47:1, 8–9

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THE HEAVY MIST hung as white as virgin wool from a bright blue April sky as Joseph finished his lunch atop the deck of the Observation Tower. It was a picture-postcard day at Niagara, and from his perch, he could look directly into the gorge and see the American and Bridal Veil Falls on his left and the Horseshoe Falls, dotted with Canadian tour guides in their bright red capes, to his right. A hundred and fifty feet below, in that snarling green water, a tiny white boat filled with tourists in bright yellow raincoats sidled bravely near the roaring waterfalls. A brilliant rainbow arched high over the entire scene, and Joseph wondered if the day was this perfect when Princess Lela-Wala plunged over the Falls in her canoe all those generations ago, a sacrificial act to save her people, which immortalized her as the Maid of the Mist.

Joseph Talltree was a Tuscarora Indian. He was simply known as Joseph, after his father and his grandfather and his grandfather’s father. He lived on the reservation outside the town of Lewiston, New York, which was outside the city of Niagara Falls, which shared a border with Canada separated by the deep Niagara River gorge. In that remote place, Joseph and his father and his grandfather and his grandfather’s father were ironworkers. They had been part of the corps of native peoples who were enlisted to build the hydroelectric power generating plant at mighty Niagara Falls, a place the ancients called Thundering Water. They constructed the supportive meshing that connected the concrete penstocks, shafts that stood shoulder to shoulder like tall warriors as the power generation part of the Niagara Power Plant. Seven miles upstream, water was siphoned from the Niagara River into water intakes by powerful pumps, then transported the length of the Niagara gorge and pumped again, this time 200 feet upward to the top of the penstocks. It then came crashing down with the ferocity of Niagara Falls itself, only, unlike the wild Niagara, this power could be harnessed to create electricity for homes and schools, factories and hospitals. The hydroelectric power plant at Niagara was an engineering marvel and was the life and death of hundreds of dispensable men who came to work on it—newly arrived immigrants from Italy, Ireland, and Poland, as well as prisoners and Native Americans.

It was dangerous work. After the conduit was laid, a vast amount of cement was poured into the molds that would form the tall penstocks. These were the channels down which the water would plunge into turbines to create that awesome amount of raw energy that smart men transformed from mechanical energy into electrical power. Joseph’s grandfather was welding atop a fragile ladder when he slipped and fell into the wet concrete below, his body swallowed instantly by that living pool of cement, which became his eternal tomb. Joseph’s father was electrocuted when a live wire fell into the river where the men were shoring upstream. Three days later, his body was pulled from the banks of the Whirlpool after its swift journey in the narrow lower river gorge. Oh, how many were the men who forfeited their lives and were buried within the walls of that great and awful achievement called the Niagara Power Project.

Joseph lived on the Tuscarora reserve with his son and the memory of his wife, Myrna, who had died during the birth of their only child. She had struggled valiantly to bring the baby into the world, but there was too much blood, and the midwife could do nothing but wrap the baby in his mother’s shawl and hand him to Joseph.

Joseph was stricken with grief over the loss of his beloved Myrna and the responsibility to care for a newborn child who would resemble his mother and break Joseph’s heart anew each day—today, tomorrow, forever. He was tormented by thoughts of giving the baby away, far away, to a couple who could take care of it more ably than he. Worn out by grief, Joseph fell into a deep sleep. He dreamed that he was visited by a carefree and gentle spirit; whether it was Myrna or an angel, he was not sure. The spirit showed him a glimpse into his future. He was standing on Three Sisters Island, that mystical place where Hiawatha united the native tribes, laughing and holding the hands of his child and a woman.

The next day, Joseph brought his own mother, Miriam, into his home to live with them and to care for the baby. After the proscribed time, the baby was presented to the tribal elders and was named Joseph, after his father, his grandfather and his grandfather’s father.

Today, standing atop a newly completed portion of the power project called the Power Vista, owing to its magnificent view of the Niagara River gorge, opening wide into Lake Ontario, Joseph was thinking of Myrna. She was of the Seneca nation and had golden brown hair,