This is a short story in two parts. The first part is posted today and the second part follows on Wednesday. The story tells of the spiritual adventure of the 17 year old Jamie Button and also features Charlie Parker and his new wife Becca.
Jamie is in his first year of an A level course at the local 6th form college. He is a good student, clever – a bit of a geek really. He’s studying Physics, Chemistry and Maths. The one thing missing in his life is a girlfriend. Yet even that seemed a possibility when he woke up this morning. But now things don’t seem to be going according to plan!
Jamie Button and the Lazarus Theory – Part 1
Good coffee! Perhaps the only good thing about this day! Still, the first coffee finished, I can now start on the second one. I must have been very optimistic to buy Lauren a drink even before she arrived. Let’s face it – I didn’t know if she liked coffee – or even if she would turn up! This was to be our first date: Saturday, 10:30 at the new coffee shop just off the village high street. Now here I was at 11.05 and she hadn’t shown up. Her coffee was cold, but I drank it anyway. Can’t waste good coffee.
I was just about to get up and go when the text arrived. “Hi Jamie. So sorry. Something cropped up. Will explain! See you at college.”
I started to compose a reply. I needed to be careful what I wrote. My first reaction was that she had changed her mind. But then maybe something really had happened to stop her coming. Maybe all was not lost. Or maybe that was just the eternal optimist in me. Maybe my reply should just be “See you!” Lots of “maybes”. As I was mulling over my next course of action this bloke plonked himself opposite me.
“Sorry!” he said, ” but the place is full and this is the only seat. Do you mind? Popular here isn’t it?”
I smiled wanly and went back to my texting. But he didn’t give up. “I hear this place has only just opened. Was your coffee good?” He looked down at my two large cups. “Must be, it looks like you’ve managed two.”
Then he looked at me and said: “You’re Jamie aren’t you – and you’re waiting for Lauren. But she hasn’t turned up!”
I stared at him. I didn’t know him, I’d never seen him before. How could he know me, and, more to the point, how did he know about Lauren.
That’s what I asked him. “How do you know about Lauren?” That’s when he said something even more weird. He said something like “Oh before I came and sat here I hadn’t a clue. But the moment I sat down God dropped your names and what’s happened into my mind. He does that sometimes. It’s called a word of knowledge. I wasn’t expecting it, I was on my way to order some flowers for my wife. But here we are – and here Lauren isn’t!”
I was feeling fed up. Fed up with my failure as a potential boyfriend (again) and fed up that some stranger was here to gloat over my misfortune.
I decided attack was the best form of defence. “So are you in a girl’s bad books too – the need for flowers?
He laughed. “Not yet! But if I don’t order these flowers today I will be! It’s our first Wedding Anniversary on Monday. I’ve got the card but I desperately need to order a dozen red roses. By the way my name’s Charlie. I only stopped here because I smelled the coffee – but I think God had it planned all along!”
That got me interested. Until recently I had no time for God, no need for him in my life. I’m in my first year of doing A Levels at college. Physics, Chemistry and Maths. I truly believe that those three subjects together have all the answers. The meaning of life, the meaning of everything.
Except for an explanation for Lauren. And then Charlie said: “You must tell me about Lauren. I think she must be important to you.”
This was getting silly. The direction of this conversation certainly wasn’t my choosing!
Charlie again: “Are you in a rush – I don’t want to hold you up, but I guess you won’t be seeing Lauren now!”
He went on: “Listen! I think God wants to be in this conversation. What if I tell you a bit about myself. Then if you want to, you can tell me about yourself and the unrelationship you have with the lovely Lauren. And then I’ll tell you about my relationship with a loving God.”
This man was serious! I could have shaken my head, got up and left, but for some reason I didn’t. I looked at him. He was perhaps 5 or 6 years older than me, tall and athletic with short brown hair. He had a small beard and wore glasses. He smiled a lot. He seemed to have his act together – unlike me!
“Charlie! This is all weird, it’s a bit like Alice in Wonderland. Are you going to turn into a White Rabbit?”
“Well Jamie, I’m planning to stay plain old Charlie – at least for the moment!”.
He paused, then:
“So! I’ll start! I’m Charlie Parker and I’m married to the lovely Becca. Together we run the Youth Group at the Pentecostal church in town. Before that I had managed to get two thirds of the way through a degree in Forestry before crashing out on drugs in my final year. About 18 months ago now, Becca helped me off a hospital bed and led me first to a Hostel for the homeless and then into a relationship with the risen Lord Jesus Christ. That’s me in a nutshell! Now Becca’s working for a church in town and I’m job hunting. But what about you? And Lauren – I feel she is important in all this.”
I took a deep breath. “My name is Jamie – but you know that already. James Alexander Button is the whole lot.” And then I told him about my plans to go to Cambridge University and become a famous Professor of Theoretical Physics and even win a Nobel Prize.
And then I started to tell him about Lauren. But I was just telling how we had first met when he held a hand up: “Sorry Jamie! Look, our coffees are getting cold and undrinkable. I’ll go and get two more and then we can continue. I need sustenance!”
And he got up and went across to the counter. For a couple of minutes I was alone and thought about getting up and leaving. The conversation was about to get more difficult. But it was as if I was stuck to the chair! I couldn’t stand up! Before I knew it, Charlie had returned with two coffees and a plate containing two muffins and two large slices of Millionaire’s Shortbread. I was staying after all! He helped himself to a muffin and, mouth full, suggested I should carry on.
Lauren! Why had she come into my life? She’d thrown all my charts into confusion. I told Charlie how it was.
“Charlie, I work and study all the time. I chart everything to the last detail. Every bit of reading, essay writing and revision is timetabled. I even record every meal and every hour of sleep. And now Lauren! We aren’t even an item. But now when I have a free period, instead of doing what my timetable says and heading to the library, I find myself joining the group she’s in. I spend my time eating cake and drinking coke so I can be with her. And when we have Maths classes together I can’t concentrate – I spend my time gazing at the back of her head. And then at home when I’m supposed to be working or sleeping I find myself thinking about her all the time. Yesterday I plucked up enough courage to invite her for coffee. And now look what’s happened!
Charlie pulled a face. “Sounds like you’ve got it bad!”
“I know. It wasn’t even something I had planned. I’d resolved to give girls a miss until after A Levels at least. And yet for the last few weeks, until this morning, I thought Lauren was the one! Even though she might affect my chances of a Nobel Prize for Physics! Oh, my emotions! They seem to have upset everything!”
Charlie looked at me. “Powerful thing, emotions! They don’t seem to stick to the natural laws of physics!”
I was beginning to take to Charlie.We seemed on a similar wavelength. And he was so easy to talk to! Perhaps even too easy – because I found myself sharing something I had never meant to.
“Charlie, the interesting thing is that the only real conversation I have had with Lauren was about emotions. She was trying to tell me that they can be explained in a similar way to physical events, just like say gravity, or string theory. I was sceptical, but she was quoting this psychologist Richard Lazarus who she had been studying for her A levels. So late last night I lay on my bed and googled “Lazarus” on my phone. It wasn’t a good search term. All I got was the David Bowie musical and a bloke called Lazarus in the Bible.”
Charlie, who had been looking intently at a piece of Millionaire Shortbread, looked up at me and smiled. I went on.
“Luckily I remembered this psychologist’s first name. So I googled “Richard Lazarus” and then spent ages swatting up on cognitive appraisal – ready to impress Lauren with my new-found knowledge this morning.
But then two things happened. First I fell asleep – and then I had this strange dream. It didn’t last long, but it was as if I had gone back in time to somewhere in the Middle East. I was standing in a rocky place. There was quite a group of people there, some obviously in mourning. I realised we were standing by a grave. Then a man ordered the large stone that lay across the grave’s entrance to be moved out of the way. Then he shouted something in a language I couldn’t understand. And then to my amazement a man wrapped up as if he was dead appeared out of the grave!”
Charlie interrupted: “That’s Lazarus! Dead four days, but brought to life again by the command of the man, Jesus Christ!”
“But Charlie! It wasn’t Lazarus! As I watched, some people rushed to take off the graveclothes. And as they did, I could see who that dead person was. It was me!”
I was about to continue when my phone buzzed. It was another message from Lauren, but even stranger than the last one. It just said “Praying for you! Lauren”
I showed it to Charlie. “What’s going on Charlie?” I almost demanded. The events of the morning seemed to have taken on a life of their own.
Charlie smiled. Again. “So Jamie – you said earlier that until recently you had no time for God. Has that dream changed things then?”
“Charlie, I must admit it did make me think. On top of all these emotions I did not chose to feel and do not understand. Too many unanswered questions for a future Nobel prizewinner in Theoretical Physics! And then you turn up and add to my confusion! Is there an explanation? If there is I need to find it!”
Charlie nodded. He must have sensed some of the anguish I was going through because he reached across and placed a reassuring hand on my arm. Then he said that in his experience dreams were often significant. And that sometimes that significance was obvious and sometimes it wasn’t.
Then he said these words, still etched in my mind. “Jamie, I think that dream contains a message for you from God. And it’s that He loves you and has a new plan for your life. A new chapter is about to unfold that will so far surpass the old that you won’t believe it!”
So I asked him why God, the God I have never acknowledged, would choose this moment to burst into my life.
Then he said something I found even more strange. He said: “Jamie, I think the answer lies in that text you’ve just had from Lauren.” And he paused.
He looked at me and I looked at him, completely not understanding. “What?” was all I could muster.
“Well. How can I explain all this?” He paused, thinking. Then: “When God suddenly reaches into a person’s life, as I am sure God is doing here and now with you, then something has changed in the spiritual dimension. Often people realise their need and they cry out to God and He answers. But this was not what you were doing. This is someone else lifting you into God’s presence. And I think that that person is Lauren!”
He must have seen my mouth opening and closing, but no words came out. I could feel my heart rate rising at the same time as my emotions. I was filled with a strange mixture of panic, yet at the same time a feeling of peace and something, somebody entering my heart. It was almost as if I could feel it softening. I couldn’t really describe it properly but it could only be my first truly supernatural experience.
In the final part of this story, published on the blog on Wednesday, Jamie makes a life-changing decision.
All references are from the NKJV unless specified otherwise.
John Partis
bearing-kingdom-fruit.com
Text copyright © John Partis 2026
John Partis asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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