Many Christians believe that prophecy in the Bible points to a soon-coming day when Jesus Christ will appear in the clouds to “rapture” his faithful followers away in a sudden moment, “in the twinkling of an eye.” So begins the story of a Christian family, much like your own or one you know, who unexpectedly find themselves dealing with the aftermath of the rapture and the reality that some among them have gone “somewhere” while yet others remain in a world never to be the same again.

This fictional portrayal of the way things may occur on a day in the very near future stirs faith in some while arousing concern in others. Author, Michelle Simpson creates a believably moving story of a few ordinary people and their extraordinary struggles in the face of end-time realities suddenly thrust upon them.

Prologue

Many Christians believe that prophecy in the Bible points to a soon-coming day when Jesus Christ will appear in the clouds to “rapture” his faithful followers away in a sudden moment, “in the twinkling of an eye.” So begins the story of a Christian family, much like your own or one you know, who unexpectedly find themselves dealing with the aftermath of the rapture and the reality that some among them have gone “somewhere” while yet others remain in a world never to be the same again.

This fictional portrayal of the way things may occur on a day in the very near future stirs faith in some while arousing concern in others. He Came Today, is a believably moving story of a few ordinary people and their extraordinary struggles in the face of end-time realities suddenly thrust upon them.

Chapter One
The Light

“What was that light?” While the thought clearly ran through her mind, Jenna rolled over, pulled the covers over her head and drifted back to sleep. She awakened some minutes later to loud noises outside and sat up.

The quiet in the house was actually quite unusual for that time of morning she thought and figured her husband, Stephen, to be outside jogging and the girls still asleep.

She rubbed her eyes and looked at the clock. “Oh! I forgot to set the alarm clock again.” Off she went down the hall quickly making her way to the girls’ room. “If we get moving now, they shouldn’t be too late for school,” Jenna said aloud, still talking to herself.

This unfortunate oversleeping was becoming all too common an occurrence of late with her and Stephen, especially when they kept company as late as they did the night before. The Murrays, a couple from church, had stopped by after being in the Sutton’s neck of the woods and Stephen and Jenna, well mostly Jenna, had decided to make a night of it.

She loved socializing and playing games and this was yet another opportunity to play with someone other than Stephen. Stephen couldn’t have cared less. He was far more a man of solitude, the happy sort, not anti-social, just more pensive in nature. Jenna knew this about her husband, as well as the fact that he likely played most of the games he did participate in, only to pacify her in what she often referred to as her few little pleasures in life. Stephen has learned from their twelve years of marriage that there was far less of a chill in the air when he played the games rather than when he opted out of all the “fun” altogether.

Stephen decided to take advantage of the Murrays’ visit. The truth was that he was concerned about Jenna and her constant little “pleasures” of late. She hardly went to church anymore and when she did, he had to keep nudging her to keep her awake! Jenna had become bored with the familiar routine and Stephen was afraid the only reason she went to church at all anymore was to pacify him. This was a scary thought for Stephen because secretly he feared she would soon be taking interest in other things the way his own mother had done after his father died. Nobody had ever expected such embarrassing behavior of a preacher’s wife. To top that, his mother had always blamed the regular attention she received from the opposite sex on her “God-given good looks,” which was something else she and Jenna both shared.

Jenna was thirty-four. Stephen was thirty-five. She was a tall, dark beauty of Irish and Jewish heritage. Even after having the two girls, Kristen, now eight and Tessa, five, Jenna hadn’t grown very far from her natural good looks and obsessive self-centeredness, though she did take good care of the girls. She called them her “little princesses.” Stephen had always teased her about being a narcissistic little princess herself. She had won a number of beauty contests in her teens and one more after he’d met “the gorgeous Miss Jenna O’Sullivan” in college. He would complain, “If you put nearly as much energy into anything the way you do your looks, you’d be a famous woman by now Jenna. I guarantee it!” Still naturally he loved that his wife was such a beautiful woman.

Stephen, however, knew Jenna wouldn’t make it to heaven on his prayers and faith alone so without pushing her too much—which would have never worked with a woman like Jenna anyway—he tried every way thinkable to get her plugged in to anything that was “Christian.” There had to be something about the Christian lifestyle that would capture her attention, Stephen believed. Thus he continued to encourage her regarding anything church related. He refused to give up on the woman he loved. Besides, his dad had always taught him that it was his responsibility as “the man” to make sure his family stayed one with God. This evening, he thought, maybe the Murray’s could help.

Aside from the lateness of the hour, turning in that night was like all the rest. Jenna tucked-in and kissed the girls, spent about twenty minutes in the bathroom adhering to her beauty regimen, and plopped herself into bed. Stephen finished praying and before he fell asleep, grabbed his wife’s hand and while half-awake said, “I love you Mrs. Sutton.” She said, “And I love you.” They kissed.

Jenna was secretly glad that Stephen was so sleepy otherwise he may have started in on her with one of his father’s sermons again. He really liked that one about Jesus returning for the church in the “rapture.” He’d always felt it would happen sooner than most people thought, “…and I want you and me and Kristen and Tessa to all be in the same room when it happens,” he’d say. “Maybe we’ll be in the car – but I want us all to be together.” Jenna would pretend she had to go to the bathroom or something just to get him to shut up. But this night, Stephen had fallen off to sleep immediately.

The next thing Jenna remembers was the flashing of the extremely bright light that woke her and then all the noises outside.

“Girls,” she shouted before turning the corner to their room. “Kristen, Tessa, girls,” she hollered looking toward their beds, “get up and get …,” she paused mid-sentence. The girls weren’t in their beds. Jenna let out a heartbreaking scream for Stephen. “STEPHEN!”

“Where is everybody?” Running down the stairs, she screamed out their names again…and again. Stephen would never take the girls out of the house without telling her where they were going first. She was absolutely sure on that point.

Her heart began to palpitate. She could feel it thumping against her chest as she opened the front door. By this time the sirens she’d heard faintly in the girls’ room were so loud it felt like she would be run down by them. Stephen’s car was right there in the driveway. She ran outside, looked toward the side of the house and yelled again, “Stephen!”

Panicked, Jenna ran back into the house where she grabbed the phone to call Stephen’s cell. She knew he never went anywhere without his phone. He even took it with him when he went jogging. She began to relax some. “Yeah, this will surely get to the bottom of all this.

“Two-two-three,” she took a deep breath, “five-one-four-seven,” Jenna recited each number as her fingers touched the dial pad. She heard his phone ring upstairs and threw the phone down. “What’s going on? Steve… where are you? WHERE ARE YOU?” Jenna began to cry.

Stephen’s mom lived one sub-division over. Jenna was angry now. She picked up the phone again. “He’d better be dead or I’m going to kill him for this,” she said. “This is so not funny!” Stephen was known to play some pretty slick tricks on his wife from time to time. It was his way to prove to her that he wasn’t the “stick in the mud” that she had accused him of being so many times. She generally liked the playful side of him. To her, it was a real detour from the norm, but definitely not right now.

Jenna wouldn’t allow herself to acknowledge it, but this was actually very much like a dream she had a few months earlier. She never told Stephen about the dream. She believed Stephen to be the reason she had a dream like that in the first place with his constant preaching to her and the kids. Instead of allowing him to make a big deal of her dream, she just put it out of her mind.

Grandmother Sutton, that’s what the girls called Stephen’s mom, did live only a short distance away but the distance between their homes was the only thing close about Stephen’s family and his mother Anna, except for where Jenna was concerned. Jenna enjoyed talking with Anna on the phone when she was bored. The two of them thought very much alike.

Stephen never wanted to think that he’d married a woman like his mother although he had forgiven her for the disgrace she brought to the family’s reputation in that town. It had been impeccable before his father died. Consequently, the relationship between he and his mom was never the same afterwards. But being the financially successful man that he was, Stephen did take consolation in the fact that his mother depended on him to help her maintain the life of comfort she had known while married to his father. “Of course mother,” he’d say when she would make a fuss over all he did for her. “Any respectable son would do the same.”

He hated the way Anna had tried to pretend that there was no real difference between his profession as an investment broker and the gambling “profession” of the man she took up with after Joseph, Stephen’s father, had died. To Stephen, it was bad enough that this man wasn’t even a Christian, but that Rudy Lawrence owned the area’s biggest gambling casino and the fact that the seven year love affair Rudy had with his mother ended without as much as a wedding proposal was all too much for Stephen to bare.

Anna would often joke that Rudy and Stephen both found wealth gambling with other people’s money. “What’s the big difference,” she’d say smugly. It wasn’t true of course. Stephen felt it was her guilt talking for being with a man like Rudy after Joseph died. Stephen, on the other hand, was absolutely a man of integrity, not perfect, but he did live the word his daddy preached. He was a hardworking, upstanding, God-fearing man. Still, Jenna would always defend his mother saying, “She’s only human, Stephen. She’s only human! Everyone should just mind their own business!”

Anna rose with the sun. She had just finished dressing for the day when a blinding light nearly knocked her over. As soon as she could see clearly, she ran outside to see what the disturbance was about. It sounded like every car in the city had hit one another. Nonetheless, Jenna had slept through most of it.

The phone gave way to a busy signal. “Who could she be talking to,” Jenna thought as she threw the phone again. She’d forgotten that Anna took the phone off the hook each morning until she was ready to meet the day. She was one of the world’s best perfectionists and hated being caught off-guard for anything.

The doorbell rang. Before the bell had completed its last chime, Jenna turned the doorknob. A policeman stood at the door asking if Stephen Sutton was home. “Yes,” Jenna misspoke, “I mean no. I mean…. what’s wrong,” she cried. “Why are you here?”

“Calm down ma’am. Are you Mrs. Sutton,” the policeman asked. “Yes, yes I am,” Jenna composed herself.

“Well, your mother – er, your mother-in-law,” he corrected himself, “Anna Sutton, is in route to the hospital. It seems that she, well, has been hit by a car.”

“Hit by a car,” Jenna repeated to herself. “How – where — but she doesn’t work; I mean, she doesn’t go anywhere this time of day!”

“Yes, ma’am,” the policeman continued. “I witnessed it myself and phoned in the ambulance for her. She was hit,” he was speaking slowly now at the disbelief of his own words, “on her uh… front lawn by a car with…uh… no driver in it.”

Jenna passed out.

Nothing about this was making any sense whatsoever, except that deep down, Jenna knew what was going on. It was too much like her dream.

“This can’t be real,” she thought to herself as she regained consciousness. The policeman was standing over her as she lied there on the couch. Jenna resumed her crying. “But where are my girls? Where are my girls? Kristen? Tessa? STEPHEN!” She screamed.

“STEPHEN!” She cried.