Most families in northeast Alabama checked the weather each morning.
Our family checked the Apocalypse report.

Folks in the Congregational Holiness Church did not say things like
“It might rain today.”
They said
“The Lord may come before supper, best be ready.”

It hung over everything like humidity.
Thick.
Unavoidable.
Always present.

As a boy, I learned early that fear came in two varieties.
There was regular fear, like snakes or thunderstorms.
And then there was holy fear, the kind that could send a shiver down your spine even if you were sittin’ in your own kitchen with a bowl of cereal in hand.

I remember wakin’ up each morning with the same ritual.
First, I checked the hall.
Then I checked the bathroom.
Then I marched into my parents’ bedroom to ensure both of them were still present on this earthly plane and not whisked into glory without givin’ me advance notice.

Mama did not appreciate these inspections.
Daddy appreciated them less.
One morning, he rolled over with such surprise that he nearly knocked me over with a forearm. I don’t know if he thought I was a burglar or an angel, but neither one of us enjoyed that start to the day.

It was not that I expected them to vanish, exactly.
It was that the evangelists had convinced me the Lord preferred to arrive overnight.
While everyone slept.
Quiet as a fox.
Surprising as a firecracker under your chair.

They said the trumpet would wake the dead and the livin’ alike, but I was certain that if I did not keep one eye open, I would miss my cue.

At school, it was just as bad.
Other children talked about bein’ astronauts or firemen or beauty queens.
Some talked about high school football.
But children of my church had no such ambitions.

We were convinced we would not survive long enough to see the eighth grade.

I once asked my teacher why we needed to study long division if the Lord was comin’ any minute. You would think a woman trained to deal with unruly children would have a ready response.
Instead, she froze mid-chalk stroke and stared at me like I had uncovered a loophole in the curriculum.

Recess was also no refuge.
If a friend suggested playin’ tag, somebody else would pipe up and ask if runnin’ around aimlessly was wise when Gabriel might call our names at any moment.
We played anyway, but we kept one ear tilted toward the clouds like anxious barn cats.

At night, the fear grew teeth.

One evening I was sittin’ on the floor watchin’ a nature program when a lightning strike hit so close it shook the house. I leapt to my feet and hollered
“I am ready, Lord, take me.”
Mama ran in thinkin’ I had swallowed a battery.
Daddy ran in thinkin’ I had caught the television on fire.
When I explained the misunderstanding, both parents looked at each other with the quiet despair of adults raisin’ a child who worried more about Revelations than recess.

Even the small pleasures in life tasted like borrowed time.

I remember eatin’ a Moon Pie one afternoon and wonderin’ if the Rapture would interrupt my treat. I imagined myself ascendin’ with chocolate stickin’ to my face. I did not want to appear before the Almighty decorated like a toddler.

Every choice became a moral dilemma.
Should I watch cartoons, or should I go ahead and repent again just to be safe?
Should I read a Hardy Boys mystery, or should I read the red-letter verses that evangelists said were absolutely non-negotiable?

The revival preachers warned us that the world was wicked and tremblin’ on the edge of destruction.
They said the Lord would come like a thief in the night.
What they did not say was that children interpret that literally.

I slept light for years, listenin’ for heavenly footsteps on the roof.
Sometimes a creak in the floorboards would jerk me straight awake.
Sometimes the old water heater would pop, and I would throw myself out of bed, thinkin’ judgment had come for me personally.

Most nights I whispered to the Lord that I was tryin’, I truly was, and that I hoped He wouldn’t hold my shortcomings against me.

What I didn’t understand then, and only began to learn later, was this.

Fear is a poor foundation for faith.
Fear burns hot but not steady.
Fear holds a person tight but never gives them rest.

Yet it colored everything back then.
School.
Family.
Sleep.
Food.
Dreams.

All of it tinted with that constant, quiverin’ question.

What if today is the day?

Looking back, I can smile at it now with a gentle fondness.
But the truth is that fear shaped me.
It carved its initials deep in my young mind.
And it took a long, long while before I learned to sleep without listenin’ for trumpets.

*****

New Yesterdays can be found at: Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon, as well as your favorite bookshops. The Audiobook is available from Libro.fm, as well as Amazon.