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Excerpt from chapter 2, "A Strange Visitation"

It was early in the first year that we started getting visits on Sunday afternoons from a woman who had a quiet, but mysterious, demeanor. She rarely spoke and was usually accompanied by her grown son who always appeared to be a bit uncomfortable. He reminded me of a rabbit who had been spooked a number of times. There was no husband.

I knew we were in for trouble when she first introduced herself to me after a service.

"Hello, my name is Mark Fox," I said.

"My name is Miriam White," she replied. (OK, I thought, so far so good.) Then she added, "I am the bride of Christ."

"Excuse me, ma'am, wh-what did you say?" I stammered. I knew full well what I thought she said, but I was hoping I was wrong.

"I am the bride of Christ," she repeated. I caught a glimpse of her son who was fervently studying a mole on the back of his hand. Seeing that he was not going to be any help, I leveled my gaze on the "bride."

"Mrs. White," I began, "You can be a part of the bride of Christ, but you cannot BE the bride of Christ. You see, the Bible is very clear that the church is His bride and He is coming back to get us one day to take us home to heaven. He is not coming back to get just one person, but the whole church."

She smiled at me like she was a sixth grader and I was a kid who had just graduated from kindergarten and was bragging that I could "cipher" all the way up to my sixes.

"The Lord has revealed to me that I am the Bride of Christ," she insisted. I was surprised she didn't reach out and pat me on the head when she said it.

Well, that conversation fizzled out pretty quickly after that, but it was one of those times when you think of all kinds of things you SHOULD have said when you get home that day. I knew we were in for trouble with Mrs. Bride, so I alerted the other elders about it at our next meeting. Sure enough, it wasn't long before it happened.

She showed up at church soon after that wearing a full length, white dress, a flowy thing that looked a lot like something a bride might wear. I whispered a warning to my wife, something like, 'Here comes the bride.'

We had just finished our time of singing praise to the Lord the very next Sunday, when I stood up to ask if anyone in the church had something to share that would encourage the body. There were a few testimonies and thanksgivings, and then the Bride in White stood up. I didn't want to be rude to her, and I didn't really have a clue what she was going to say (that's always the exciting part of having 'open sharing time' at church!), so I nodded that she could speak.

"The time of the Gentiles is over!" she exclaimed. All heads swiveled as one as every person in the congregation turned to look. "God has closed the door on the Gentiles, and they will no longer be allowed to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Yea, I am returning to My people now," she spoke "prophetically," and "Israel will come back to the fold. But the day of the Gentiles is over."

She took a breath, I was hoping along with everyone else that she was finished, but the 'bride' was just getting warmed up.

"Not only that," she said, "The Lord says there will be a plague of ants on the earth."

There goes our church picnic at the park next week, I thought.

About this time, one of the elders (the most experienced among us) was bending over and pulling up his socks. I had no idea what that meant. Maybe he is worried about all those ants that are going to be running wild in here any minute, I thought.

I found out later from his wife that she knew exactly what the sock-pulling was all about. "Some men clear their throats when they are getting ready to stand up and say something," she said after the service. "Some men fidget in their seats or fix their hair. MY husband pulls up his socks!"

He kept pulling and the bride kept talking.

For the rest of chapter 2, please order a copy of Family Integrated Church.

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