With no one having any way to choose anything because God is sovereign and all, and with all things working together for the good of the Elect, I wondered if something might fall on where Janet had been sitting that would have split her head open or cut her arms off since all things work together for good for those who love Him, and then we’d know why this had all needed to happen to spare her or something. I knew Janet loved God because her Bible was getting almost as worn out as Mom’s, so she was one of the Elect all right. I knew something good would happen now. But it wasn’t her avoiding anything falling down on her place because nothing did.

In the silence that followed Janet s departure, we ate and I started doing experiments with the salt shaker, which had rice in it to absorb the moisture from the sea air so it would still pour. My experiment was to see if I could do something halfway, then stop or change it so fast that I could get ahead of, or even beat the sovereignty of God. I started to pour out a little salt onto the table but just as more was about to come out, I suddenly stopped and started to shake the rice around in the cellar so God would lose count of the grains of salt. Then I started to put it down but instead yanked it up above my head. And I did it so fast that salt came out all over me. In a way that was good since God is sovereign; He knows your thoughts all the time, so how could I do something He hadn’t planned for since the beginning of time? I was glad when the salt came out all over my head because it was a surprise to me and so it might have been a surprise to God too. But then I figured He knew I was going to do this thing with the salt from before I was born. So He was probably still sovereign and Calvin was right and had God figured. While I was thinking this, Dad said, “What on earth did you do that for?”

And before I thought, I just blurted out, “God made me do it.”

Then Dad turned to Mom and said, “What’s got into them all tonight?” He said to me, “Blasphemy is not something we tolerate, young man, go to your room!”

I knew by the way he said it that when he came to “talk it over” afterward, he’d spank me because blasphemy is taking the Lord’s name in vain. So I walked to my room with that squirmy feeling you get when you are waiting for a spanking while your dad finishes his dessert.