Divine Encounters

Chapters 71-80

Mammon. "I can think of a hundred other things I could do with this money," Cameron whined to his sister as they sat in the allergist's office. "A homeopathic approach, customized for each patient," he said, sarcastically, reading from the pamphlet Amaya had given him. He dropped it on the side table and lay his head back on the chair.

"The money means nothing if you're so incapacitated you can't enjoy it. I'm worried about you Cameron, and that asthma attack you had at my house last week really scared me. You've been sick for almost two months straight and that's not normal. So, let's try to be open minded and see what she says. Sometimes just a change in your diet can make a big difference, and many medical doctors know that but they're in bed with these pharmaceutical companies and are therefore, obliged to write prescription after prescription even when they're not seeing positive results."

"Does Chalk know you talk like that?" he joked. Amaya laughed and said, "Probably not."

Cameron sighed loudly and closed his eyes. "I just hate that you're spending so much money, Amaya. This one visit amounts to almost a whole paycheck for me and – "

"Well, thank the good Lord you didn't have to pay," Amaya cut in, and nudged him playfully.

"I was just gonna say that you know they're not gonna let this go at one visit."

"Whatever it takes, Cameron, and I mean it."

He sat up and studied his sibling. Cameron had done everything in his power to get her to cancel this appointment and let him try another doctor within his insurance network, but she was relentless in her belief that they were doing more harm than good. Regardless, this was expensive and though she'd done well with her books, he was hard pressed to believe that she had money to burn as it were. Then he remembered something. "Amaya, when you went to California a couple of weeks back to talk with that cable network about turning one of your books into a series, how did it go?"

Though she did her best to act normal, Amaya glowed. "It went well," she answered, in her best professional voice.

"What? You signed and didn't even tell me?" Cameron said, incredulously.

"I was gonna tell you today at lunch!" she exclaimed, bursting with excitement. Amaya remembered where she was and lowered her voice. "I just wanted to get all this medical business out of the way first. We only officially sealed the deal yesterday. I got everything I asked for, and since I'm writing the screenplay that will also help keep the movie close to the original storyline. I have to "tone down" the quote unquote religious awakenings, but I can do that and still retain the message in a great way."

"Wow! Congratulations, sis. I'm so proud of you," he said, leaning over for a hug. "How did you manage? I mean, everybody's so squeamish these days when it comes to how Christianity is presented."

"Very true, but Jesus said in Matthew 5, 'You can't serve God and mammon.' So, we have to decide which one is first in our lives, even when it comes to big, lucrative contracts like this one. If it was just a job, it would be different. But this is the ministry God has given me, and if I can't lift up the name of Jesus, then everybody loses. Like Peter said in Acts 4, 'There is no other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved.'"

"Amen," Cameron said, his voice sober. "So, are they really gonna let you say Jesus?"

"Yes, they are, but only at the very end. I get to say, 'Son of God' twice and 'Jesus Christ' once. I will also intersperse some of the Hebraic names of God throughout to make it crystal clear that I'm not saying God in some generic, you- fill-in-the-blank, kind of way. So, an El Shaddai here and an Elohim there, and it will be unmistakable that I speak of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the only true and living God."