Jehovah's Protection...Stems From Obedience! (Part 2)

[Timl1980]

Part Two: Through the Smoke

 

The inside of the SUV reeked of fear...sweat, tears, and the sharp tang of pepper spray clinging to clothes. Maria found herself pressed between a sobbing mother and her teenage son, both captured in a workplace raid. In front of her, an elderly man prayed in Hindi, his voice a threadbare whisper against the engine's growl.

 

"Where are they taking us?" the mother asked.

 

Maria didn't know. But through the heavily tinted windowd, she watched the streets of Minneapolis blur past...smoke rising from trash fires, protesters running alongside their van, pounding on the sides. Every impact made the mother utter another gentle round of comforting words to her son.

 

The van lurched to a stop. Not at a detention center, but in an alley where another ICE unit waited. Maria heard voices outside, one rising above the rest: "We need to process the workplace arrests first. Park this one and wait for Morrison."

 

Morrison. The name meant nothing, but the delay meant everything. Through the window, she watched agents arguing, gesturing at clipboards, overwhelmed by their own inefficiency. The young agent who'd arrested her leaned against the van, satisfaction plain on his face.

 

That's when the back door swung open. A different agent climbed in...older, grayer, moving like his body carried more weight than just his vest. He scanned the faces until he found Maria.

 

"You. The one who helped the injured woman. Step forward."

 

Maria struggled to move with bound hands. The agent..his badge read Morrison...studied her face in the dim light. Something flickered in his eyes. Recognition? Yes...but along with it real confusion.

 

"I remember you from yesterday," he said slowly. "Hennepin Avenue. My unit was blocked by protesters. A woman in a Toyota refused to honk, refused to move, just sat there while they screamed at her." His eyes narrowed. "Said she was one of Jehovah's Witnesses."

 

Maria's voice came out steady despite her racing heart. "That was me."

 

"They called you a traitor. Spit on your car. But you didn't react."

 

"I needed to see my mother."

 

Morrison's phone buzzed. He ignored it, still staring at her like she was a puzzle missing several pieces. It buzzed again. And again.

 

"Sir?" The young agent peered in. "You need to..."

 

"I know my job, Rodriguez." But Morrison pulled out his phone, and Maria watched his face transform.

 

Text after text filled his screen. Photos. Sitting just inches away from him, Maria recognized them instantly...Sophia in her hospital bed, Maria beside her, helping her document symptoms. The last image showed Maria holding Sophia's hand when the nurse finally, finally listened and handed her a small cup of water and her new meds 

 

Morrison's voice cracked as he peered back and forth from his phone to Maria's face. "This is you. This is YOU...with my daughter. But how...?"

 

Rodriguez pushed forward. "What? Sir, we need to process..."

 

"Shut up." Morrison's hands shook as he scrolled up and down, up and down, reading and rereading his daughter's texts. "Sophia's had episodes for months. Doctors kept dismissing her. Said it was teenage anxiety. But this woman..." He looked up at Maria, and she thought she saw tears threatening somewhere deep in his eyes. "My daughter says you saved her life. They found an arrhythmia. Her doctor says she's going in for surgery tomorrow!"

 

The van fell silent except for the distant sound of sirens and breaking glass.

 

"Uncuff her," Morrison ordered.

 

"Sir, she had no identification. Protocol states..."

 

"I said uncuff her!" Morrison's voice boomed. "Unless you want to explain to the local news why we arrested the woman who saved an agent's daughter while her own mother lay dying."

 

Rodriguez hesitated, looking between Morrison and Maria. "The protesters will see. They'll say we're playing favorites."

 

"Let them." Morrison personally unlocked Maria's cuffs, his hands gentler than his voice. "Ma'am, do you have someone who can pick you up?"

 

Maria rubbed her wrists, still processing the whiplash of freedom. "I... my car is near the hospital."

 

"Rodriguez will drive you." It wasn't a request. Morrison climbed down from the van, then turned back. "My daughter... she said you told her that her voice matters. That you reminded her she wasn't invisible."

 

"Everyone deserves to be heard," Maria said simply.

 

Morrison nodded slowly. "Even at a protest. When they were calling you a traitor. You could have honked, you could have made your life easier."

 

"Jehovah's witnesses are neutral, we believe Jehovah is the only person who can fix everything." She said simply.

 

The words hung between them, heavy with meaning neither fully grasped. Morrison walked away, leaving Rodriguez to glumly gesture Maria toward a patrol car. As they drove through what looked like war-torn streets, protesters scattered at their approach, and Maria wondered: Was this Jehovah's hand? The perfect timing of Sophia's texts? Or simply the mathematics of actually BEING one of Jehovah's Witnesses...that helping one person creates ripples we never see coming?

 

Rodriguez dropped her at the garage without a word. Maria sat in her car for twenty minutes, hands shaking too hard to drive. When she finally made it back to Mayo, visiting hours were over, but the night nurse recognized her.

 

"Your mother woke up," she said gently. "Just for a few minutes. She asked for you."

 

Maria found her mother sleeping again, but peacefully now. Her handbag sat untouched beside the bed...ID, green card, everything she'd needed to prove her right to exist. But she'd already proven something else, something no document could capture.

 

On the chair lay a folded note: 

 

"The nurses told me you'd be back. Thank you so much for all your help...thank you for listening and being there...thank you for everything!

 

Sophia Morrison. 

 

P.S. Dad says to tell you he's sorry?"

 

Maria held the note and wept...for her mother, for Sophia, for the city burning outside, for the strange protection that came from refusing to see enemies in anyone. She'd walked through the fire by walking straight, helping whoever needed help, claiming no side but human kindness.

 

The words of her favorite scripture came unbidden: "If God is for us, who will be against us?" But tonight she understood it differently. When we choose to be for everyone...protesters and agents, the frightened and the frightening...we walk in a protection deeper than politics, older than nations, stronger than the walls we build between us.

 

Outside, Minneapolis still burned. But Maria Elena Vasquez sat in the cardiac unit's gentle light, holding her mother's hand and Sophia's note, understanding at last what her mother meant: Sometimes Jehovah's protection looks exactly like the thing we feared most...because it transforms our fear into someone else's salvation.

 

She'd driven through a city tearing itself apart. But Maria understood now what her dying mother had always known...Jehovah's principles aren't restrictions, they're armor. 

 

Her neutrality hadn't been weakness or cowardice, as the protesters claimed. It was obedience, and obedience had positioned her exactly where she needed to be: free to help Morrison's daughter, available to aid the injured woman, memorable to the very agent who would later hold her freedom in his hands. 

 

The world had demanded she choose a side, but she'd already chosen...she'd chosen Jehovah's way years ago, and that choice had been choosing her protection before she ever needed it. 

 

Tomorrow, Minneapolis might burn again. But Maria would walk through it the same way she'd walked today: obedient, neutral, and therefore untouchable by any conflict smaller than the Kingdom she'd already claimed as her own.

 

*I really tried to do justice to this small experience. Things are bad and are going to get worse, but by simply choosing each day to follow and apply Jehovah's principles to the best of our ability...we are ALREADY showing the obedience that will save our lives!

Edited 3 hours ago by Timl1980