You Can't Be Good Without God : romantic short stories for married couples

 Jackson and Simon had been friends for a long time. Jackson was married to a beautiful lady named Christina, but Simon wasn’t married.

None of the above where Christians. All of the above where atheists.

One day, Simon said that he had been appointed chairman of the chapter of the group of atheists that he belonged to and he had been given the responsibility of putting up billboards that read, “You can be good without God” around the city.

Simon asked his best friend Jackson to help him.

Jackson asked him that isn’t that going to cost a lot of money. The only thing it would do is annoy Christians and wouldn’t it be better that they spent the money helping the poor or building orphanages for dying children?

Jackson added that if they were putting up billboards to advertise atheist awareness conferences or something it would have been justifiable. But when you put a one – liner that is a conflicting message that clearly disses a group of people, you are only looking for trouble and not trying to help anybody.

Simon was mad and asked Jackson whose side he was on. Besides has he forgotten the story he told him of when he was a little boy and he was an altar boy for a Priest he trusted who ended up molesting him?

Jackson wanted to reply and ask Simon how he can hold the entire catholic church responsible for the acts of only one catholic Priest who did what he did in secret and would have been obviously punished by the catholic church and also expelled from the Priesthood like everybody knows is what happens to Priest who do shameful things that get out in the public.

There is also the question of how one catholic church’s Priest’s actions could be used to condemn the numerous and even growing number of other denominations which have nothing to do with the catholic church?

Jackson wanted to ask his friend these questions but he taught it smart to keep quiet so as not to step on any toes.

Eventually, Jackson agreed to join Simon in his plan even though Simon saw the hesitation in Jackson’s body language at first.

After the first three billboards went up, the Christian community was outraged.

Simon, Jackson and their group started to receive a lot of criticism in their area.

The heat was on but their group thrived on controversy.

Jackson wasn’t so thrilled with the controversy from the bottom of his heart but his wife, Christina supported him. She even began to get involved and she followed him to TV talk shows and web based interview shows all across America.

During one of such voyages, Jackson’s wife gets abused when she is alone. His wife sues, wins a lot of cash, and also swears an allegiance of hated towards Christians.

Christina started her own web comment war against Christians online. She would google the words, “You can be good without God.” She would go to the sites that show up in the search and check if there are any comments or articles that didn’t agree with atheism. When she found them she would lash out and start typing comments that always started with, “How dare you ….? ” or “You ignorant …” or “I can’t believe how dumb you are …”

A few day’s later, Christina’s Mum gets sick and she had to travel alone to her city and sit at her bedside. The doctor gave Christina the bad news that her Mum would never recover and that her Mum would die in a matter of days.

Meanwhile, Christina’s husband; Jackson was touring the country. He was having fun making money from the new demographic of people who believe that Christianity should be destroyed because it is archaic and the source of all the problems in the world so rather than give to the poor and the needy, the give to organizations that aim to destroy Christianity and other people’s belief systems.

Jackson’s friend, Simon; tells Jackson that he would be shuttling to Africa to promote atheism by pasting billboards there. He asked Jackson to come with him but Jackson’s wife called him to come to the hospital her mother was in immediately.

Jackson told her that he can’t but she starts crying over the phone and so Jackson said that he would be there.

Jackson told his friend that he can’t follow him to Africa because he has to be at the hospital his wife’s mum is in to support his wife.

Simon was disappointed. He asked Jackson if there is no way that he can talk his way out of it .Jackson said, No! I’m sorry. He shakes Simon’s hand, wishes him all the best in Africa, and then he turns and goes.

Simon gets on a plane while Jackson gets into a car and starts driving since there were no planes going to the city his wife was in.

Jackson prepared for the worst. He suspected that his wife’s mum had died and now his wife is having a nervous breakdown and therefore needed him to be by her side. He could remember how it felt when he lost his Dad. Oh! It was a terrible thing.

Hours later; while Jackson was still driving, the plane that Simon was in finally enters African airspace.

A Christian group had already stationed themselves at the Airport to protest with writings on cardboards and other things of the sort.

However, a more angry group of Africans who weren’t Christians but where a militant group that were very angry that Americans who are so rich in their country are coming to Africa to spend millions on billboard space while millions of Africans are dying of poverty, took a terrorist approach and they used a powerful but mobile weapon to fire a missile at the plane; destroying it over the desert before it even had the chance to near the Airport and touch African soil.

Meanwhile in America, Jackson who didn’t know his friend was no more; finally arrived at the hospital and as he started to open the door of his wife’s mum’s hospital room he overheard someone say, “In all my years of medical practice, I’ve never seen a miracle like this.”

As Jackson fully opened the door and stepped in, all eyes turned to him. Jackson saw a doctor standing at a corner near the bed talking to a man holding a big fat bible who was obviously a preacher.

Jackson saw that his wife’s mum was not on the hospital bed but was on her knees with her hands up waving them to the heavens, and his wife; Christina sat on a chair with tears flowing down her eyes.

Looking straight at Jackson; Christina said, “I AM NOW A CHRISTIAN. JESUS HEALED MY MOTHER AFTER THIS PREACHER PRAYED FOR HER. JESUS IS GOD AND JESUS IS GOOD.”

The End.