Teachings from the Pulpit II: Thanksgiving

[LACKLAN]

The Queen of Red walks slowly down the halls of the Lacklanland National Museum in the dead of night, slippered feet brushing across the marble tiles with a soft swish. Wearing a robe of red and black velvets, her bright white hair pulled into a loose tail, she looks at pictures and plaques, at articles and monuments, going through the short yet storied history of the land she reigned over. She has made this trip many times, both years ago and nearly daily the last few weeks, and her heart fluttered today as it did that very first time.

-A portrait of a tall man in a waistcoat, a bright-haired woman on his arm wearing a wide smile, a toddler with even brighter hair in her arms-

-1973-

The groundbreaking for the new Lacklan manor, the evidence of success by the second generation of the family who began canning seafood from the Atlantic which would soon branch into many sectors of business. The Queen smirked at seeing the little child and shook her head; he even looked arrogant and cocksure then.

-A picture of a large man, bright white hair falling to his waist, covered in rippling muscles, massive arms stretched to the sky in victory-

-1989-

One of many photos in the section dedicated to the bodybuilding career Lacklanland founder, Jean-Paul Lacklan, this one from winning a state championship. The grandson of the patriarch establishing a new thread in the family tapestry, one of sports dominance. Her body heated some as she looked at her husband’s body, a body clean of the later wounds and scars, a blank canvas before the tattoos. She missed him.

-A selfie, long before the term would be popularized, of Lacklan, a broad smile full of teeth on his face, standing next to a taller Japanese man with a shaved head, and a short woman wearing a red and white robe-

-1991-

The Queen of Red did her best to hold back a pang of jealousy. Her husband had spoken fondly of his time in Japan where the bulk of his wrestling training had come, spoke fondly of his tag team partner, the kickboxer known only as 苦痛, and what was his first follower, the first person to see the Voice of God for who he was, a miko from the local shrine, named Nori. While he had spared her the details, it was clear that they had been lovers, and their relationship only ended because he went back home after his parents perished in the plane crash.

-A newspaper clipping of a black-and-white photo of Lacklan, his hair cut to his shoulders, speaking in front of a large group, a handful of men and women standing behind him as a backdrop-

-1997-

That pang of jealousy ripped through the Queen so hard and fast that it took the breath from her lungs. She recognized several of the faces behind her husband as he preached to the people who would follow him and establish his compound. Tall and lean, the face of Sebastian Hargrave on his right. Short and round, the face of Dexter Severin, his journalist. But that jealous rage was for three feminine faces: Red hair cupped at her chin, Nicole Minor was his first “wife” after leaving Nori. Raven-haired and with a face full of piercings, Selena Jornagen, the future mother of Sarah, and who had only two years left to live. And the tall blonde who would, as the Queen so recently learned, later give birth to a girl named Angelica, Mary Hightower.

While the Demon Child thought of Jean-Paul’s harem of women as “whores,” the Red Queen knew better. Her husband loved all of his wives. He spread his love and his message for years. She could take pride in that he only actually married one of his wives, had only married her towards the end of his life. But that pride was swallowed by the fact that two of the woman in that picture were able to have something special, something she herself was unable to have: His child. Few knew of her own inability, of the miscarriage that sent her to the hospital for a few days. Her husband knew, and that might well be why he married her right after, so that his love could help her heal, but almost no one else did. 

-A medical report from Dr. Andrews on the condition of Lacklan’s body after a horrible accident featuring a blaming table. While in illegible medical terms, the reports speaks of inconsequential burns on parts of his body, but severe burns to the face and scalp. Retirement from sports was strongly recommended-

-2001-

Jealousy melts as pride fills her. Most people would not be able to survive what he had. Driven through a flaming table, his opponent’s henchman’s keeping the medical staff at bay, her future husband had burned for what seemed like hours to onlookers. When later laying in the hospital bed, in pain that morphine could hardly dull, he demanded that his toddler be brought in to see him, demanded that she see what was left of his face. Held in the arms of her godfather Dexter, the odd albino child was given a harsh lesson on God’s grace.

“Do not hate God for the pain, Little One. Thank Him for it.”

The Queen of Red ponders those words for a moment. She had only been a young girl herself when he would have said them, a young girl already causing trouble in the French county of Merovingian, but they called out to her across these years. Thank Him for the pain. Thank Him for the losses. Thank Him for-

With a determined step, the Queen of Red stormed from the museum and to her pulpit.

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Hello, dear children. I bring to you today a lesson about the acceptance of loss, the enjoyment of pain, and the understand of what He wants for you.

There is not a SINGLE man or woman in scripture how does NOT have to deal with the pain of pain of loss and denial. Adam and Eve fell from Eden and never again felt the joy of being at His side. Moses suffered the pains of the world and sacrifice. Soloman watched his empire fall before he found his own sword. Jesus was given the passion of the sins of the world, in their entirety, in but a moment. My husband, Il est ressuscité, saw his body burned, forced to live underneath a mask, until he took his final breath.

We must ENJOY this pain, children! My mistake this past week was to NOT thank the One Lord God for the dark figure of Necron! I understood him...YES! I accepted him...YES! But I did not THANK HIM.

THANK YOU! For sending me Necron to be my David and force me to rest.

THANK YOU! For allowing Mizore to find a reprieve to her failure, if but for only a moment, so that I may understand Your lesson further.

THANK YOU! For allowing L'étreinte de Dieu, the EMBRACE OF GOD, to be so utterly useless against two opponents in a row as to make a mockery of my skills!

I THANK the One Lord God for crushing me when I need to be crushed, and not JUST when I am thrust onto the shoulders of my peers in congratulations. I THANK the One Lord God for sending me into the muck and mire of those who would be ordinary, and not JUST when I am the idol for the wrestling world to pattern themselves after. I THANK the One Lord God for reminding me, with pain and suffering, the WHY of washing the feet of the invalid in oil, and not JUST the what.

This week, I have been given the challenge of wading into some of that muck and mire and bringing out some kind of sparkling gem. I THANK the One Lord God for the pain I will no doubt endure in this match, I THANK Him for the troubles and trials coming. I can only hope that they also thank him for it.

Eden! Do you THANK God for the pain he has given you the last few weeks in the form of Vain?! You SHOULD! Yes! Thank Him for all the pain He has brought you. Thank Him for making your life miserable. Thank Him for setting you on fire. Thank Him for allowing you to lose again...and again...and again...over the last few months. Thank Him for having a sad, lowly 2-7 record since winning the Co Op championship yet somehow still staying relevant and featured even though your run of losses have allowed people like Dynamo and Pierce headline shows. Thank Him for allowing the Court to fall apart at the seams as your personal life turns public and falls apart. Thank Him for giving you such a lackadaisical attitude during Synergy contests that it allowed someone as completely moronic as Dynamo to correctly and accurately show how few of them you have won since we have changed presidents and give you that wonderful nickname. Thank Him for very few on the roster even bothering to prepare for you when matches “do not matter” because they know that you could very well not even end up having the match. Thank Him, Eden! Most of all, thank Him for the beating the Queen of Red shall give you!

Zane! Do YOU thank God for all the pain he has brought you? Do you THANK him for allowing you to reach the highest of heights in this business, that of the TRIPLE champion NEVER before seen, only to have you STRIPPED of not ONLY your championships but the RESPECT of your peers in such a short order that anyone who so much as BLINKED would wonder what could have happened? Do you THANK him for allowing Phrixus to drag you to the bottom of the card in a useless, albeit surprisingly bloody, argument that saw the entire company forget that you mattered but just a few scant months ago? You should! Thank Him, Zane! Thank Him for allowing those who fight you to demolish your leg, to bust it into pieces, to leave you with a wound that I, His Queen of Red, will exploit by attacking it again and again AND AGAIN until it is naught but a limp hunk of flesh. Thank Him, Zane, for allowing you to face and lose to the Queen of Red for a second time!

Blackwell! HAVE you THANKED the One Lord God for your inadequacy as a wrestler? Have you thanked Him for the reality that ALL of your accolades as a professional fighter are only in dead companies and one with TRUE competition has seen you lining up only at the loser’s window? Have you thanked Him yet for being so forgettable by those within UGWC that you must beg and plead to be included in a Synergy? Please do! Thank Him, Blackwell! Thank Him for the crowd’s dueling chants of “No One Cares!” and “It Just Doesn’t Matter!” whenever you stand in the ring with someone who descended from HSW or EWE! Thank Him for throwing you into the ring with three vicious men and women who will set upon you as the hyenas do the sick and lame wildebeest! Thank Him, dear Blackwell, for the pain of utter loss you shall feel on Monday!

Thank the One Lord God, my dear children, for the pain he gives you. Thank Him for the lessons He teaches. Thank Him for allowing you to bask in His glory and His grace. And ultimately thank Him for giving to you the harbinger of His message, the trumpet for the lips of His angels.

Thank Him for giving you me.

The Queen of Red.

Long live the Queen.