{"id":2495,"date":"2014-03-28T00:25:02","date_gmt":"2014-03-28T00:25:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=2495"},"modified":"2017-08-08T20:52:03","modified_gmt":"2017-08-08T20:52:03","slug":"god-help-paul-beckman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/god-help-paul-beckman\/","title":{"rendered":"And God Help You by Paul Beckman"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"sky\"<\/a><\/h2>\n

And God Help You<\/h2>\n

by Paul Beckman<\/p>\n

My chores were piling up and I was behind on my school reports so I kneeled next to my bed as I\u2019d seen kids do on TV and I prayed. \u201cPlease help me, God,\u201d I said with my eyes tightly closed and my hands clasped. \u201cI\u2019m only a boy and can\u2019t do things all alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

God spoke to me in my head. He said, \u201cMy job is not to do your job, Arthur, but to give you confidence and support. With that you can do much more than you think. And by the way, Jews don\u2019t pray on their knees.\u201d<\/p>\n

I got up and stood next to my bed. \u201cOkay, I\u2019ll take the confidence and support from you if that\u2019s all I can get but you\u2019re God and could do more if you wanted to,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

I heard a ping from my Iphone. God texted me: \u201cYou think it\u2019s so easy? It\u2019s not. Do you have any idea how many kids want and need confidence and support? Don\u2019t be greedy or I\u2019ll take one away and you\u2019ll have to choose between confidence and support.\u201d<\/p>\n

I texted back: \u201cBut you\u2019re God. You can do anything, anytime and anywhere. What\u2019s the big deal?\u2019<\/p>\n

I pissed God off\u2014I could tell. My phone rang. It\u2019s a good thing I caught the phone mid-first ring so as not to wake dad up. Another ping. \u201cThink, Arthur, you ingrate. I could have hidden the phone and let it ring a half-dozen times and your father would have been in your room in no time with his belt at the ready. But no,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019m compassionate and understanding and you are neither. You ask me for something every day\u2014sometimes three and four times a day. It\u2019s not my job to see that you hit a baseball or that your mother will have chocolate pudding for desert or that your teacher won\u2019t ask to see the homework you forgot about.\u201d<\/p>\n

I had to defend myself to God but he stopped me. Ping. \u201cDon\u2019t try and defend yourself. I\u2019m losing my temper and if that happens I\u2019m going to get in trouble and what I don\u2019t need is trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

I texted: \u201cBut you\u2019re God\u2014how can you get in trouble? You\u2019re God\u2014and everyone knows God\u2019s on the top.\u201d<\/p>\n

He texted back: \u201cEveryone has a boss. My brothers and sisters are also Gods only elsewhere and they are no different and we all have to answer to our father and him to his father and so on up the line. There is no head honcho in our business no matter what you\u2019ve read or have been told. Everyone has a boss above and there is no way out of it so shut the hell up Arthur and go to bed and you\u2019ll wake up with support and confidence. Be thankful for that or I\u2019ll be forced to put you on report. And may God help you, Arthur, if I have to do that.\u201d
\n###<\/p>\n

Paul Beckman was a pin setter, numbers runner & butcher’s apprentice in his youth. He graduated to air traffic controller, builder & realtor. Now he writes and some of his published stories have appeared in: The Raleigh Review, 5 Trope, The Brooklyner, Metazen, Pure Slush, Playboy & Connotation Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My chores were piling up and I was behind on my school reports so I kneeled next to my bed as I\u2019d seen kids do on TV and I prayed. \u201cPlease help me, God,\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[273],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-short"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2495"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3275,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2495\/revisions\/3275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}