Brother Word by Derek Jackson Page A

needed to get back to his personal, private sanctuary.
    “LYNN!”
    “My God! Lynn, are you alright?”
    The voices, faint at first, then growing louder, reached her consciousness and caused her dream to dissipate. In the dream, she had been sitting on a bench in the Swan Lake Iris Gardens, feeding the graceful swans that swam to the water’s edge from her personal bag of bread crumbs. Sumter’s Swan Lake, the only public park in the States to feature all eight species of swans, was the place where Lynn had spent many lazy childhood Saturday afternoons, reading, praying, and passing time. Yet the past few minutes hadn’t seemed like a dream—it had seemed so
real
. And the most glorious part of it all was that she had been able to see!
    But it was just a dream . . .
    “Lynn, are you alright?” Her mother asked again, lifting Lynn slowly from the ground. From the intermingling smells of perfumes and colognes and the whispers, Lynn sensed a crowd forming around her.
    “I waited for you to come out of the restroom, but when you didn’t—”
    “I’m alright, Mom,” Lynn interrupted. “I just went out the wrong door.” She was about to say something else when her eyes fluttered open, as they had done so often during the last six weeks with nothing but blackness greeting them.
    This time, however, a burst of color flashed through her mind like a kaleidoscope. Lynn blinked once, twice.
    I can see!
    She saw the red dress her mother was wearing and the gold pendant swinging from her neck. Looking up, she looked straight into her mother’s eyes. Though her mother had the same Natalie Cole-like eyes as she, they had never looked as beautiful as they did at this moment.
    Jeannette saw her daughter’s eyes, too, and saw that there was no longer a cloudy haze over them.
    “Lynn!” she shrieked. “My God, your eyes!”
    My eyes!
“I can see, Mom! I can see!”
    At once, the crowd began shouting and clapping around her—Lynn saw Arlene, Sister Linda, Sister Margie, Brother Charles, Pastor Gentry, and her father giving praise to God—and to
see
them after six weeks of utter darkness was just . . . amazing!
    Soon, T. R. Smallwood joined the small gathering outdoors and began to give God praise for another miraculous healing. So far, there had been
fifteen
testimonies of healings that had taken place, and with every one Smallwood had rejoiced louder.
    But his expression changed from one of jubilance into one of near shock as he noticed the checkered gray-and-black suit coat Lynn held in her hands.
    “Sister, can I ask where you got that coat?”
    Lynn looked down at the coat in her hands. “I . . . I don’t know where— Oh, it must have come from the man who prayed over me.” She looked up, remembering. “A man laid hands over my eyes while I was out here and prayed that my sight be restored.”
    “Glory to God,” Smallwood whispered, practically in reverence. “That’s the same coat the man who laid hands on my heart was wearing.”
    “And the same coat the man who prayed over my Eddie was wearing,” a woman spoke up. By her voice, Lynn recognized her as Andrea Everett.
    “Glory to God,” Smallwood whispered again.
    “But why does this man . . .
vanish
after these healings?” Jeannette wondered aloud. “It’s as if he wants no recognition at all.”
    “He wants the recognition to go to God,” someone mused.
    “Maybe he’s an angel,” someone else spoke up.
    “What’s
most
important,” Smallwood cut back in, “is that the glory of God is falling around here like never before! It’s just like the pool at Bethesda, with the waters stirred up and the healing of the Lord available for all who believe and receive!”
    Lynn began rejoicing along with everyone else, her eyes taking in the hues and colors of everyone and everything she could. Still, though, in her mind she couldn’t help but wonder—who
was
the man God had used to restore her sight?

Chapter Fifteen
    A FTER PASTORING a Spirit-filled