Follow Thou Me

“Sometimes faith isn't certainty. It's holding someone's hand while the ground changes beneath your feet—and stepping forward anyway.”

Approaching the study, my hands firmly planted on my hips, a sense of frustration and exclusion bubbled within me.

Each step down the hallway felt heavier than the last, a dull thud of resentment in my chest that refused to subside. The door loomed ahead — closed, deliberate, and far too quiet on the other side. A physical barrier, yes, but more than that. It stood as a symbol of everything I’d been shut out from lately. The hush. The secrecy. The decisions made without me.

It only served to fuel my agitation.

With a loud squeak, I pushed the door open, the hinges protesting against my intrusion. I didn’t care. I wanted it to be heard. My voice followed immediately, cutting through the hushed atmosphere of the room.

“Are you two done with your secret man's business yet?” I asked, the words laced with a mix of sarcasm and hurt.

I expected startled looks, maybe a few guilty stammers. What I wasn’t prepared for was the image before me — Luke, gripping Noah’s arm with a strange intensity, his knuckles white, his eyes alight with something I couldn’t yet name.

“The New Jerusalem is just beyond the Portal of colour,” he said, his voice filled with a fervour that I had never heard before. “Will you and Mum follow me through?”

A jolt of something cold slid down my spine — surprise, yes, but also fear. A dread I didn’t fully understand.

I stepped into the room, my feet moving before I could stop them, drawn as much by concern as by disbelief. My eyes locked on the space behind them — not a space, not really. A shimmer. A swirl. Colours dancing, pulsing, alive. A kaleidoscope of hues that twisted against the wall like oil on water. It was beautiful. It was wrong.

“What is all this?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, the weight of the moment pressing down upon me like a physical force.

The air in the study felt different now — thick, expectant. Something had changed, and I had the sudden, unshakeable feeling that we had passed a threshold we would not come back from.

Noah’s hand found mine, his fingers intertwining with my own, a gesture of unity and reassurance amidst the unknown that swirled around us.

His touch was steady — warm, familiar — grounding me even as everything else felt as though it was slipping just beyond my grasp. The strange colours still flickered at the edges of my vision, but his hand in mine became the anchor, the only thing that felt truly real in that moment.

“Do you love me?” he asked, his eyes searching mine, a silent plea for trust and understanding.

The question caught me off guard, not because I didn’t know the answer, but because of the way he asked it — so bare, so direct, as though everything now hinged on that truth. His expression was open, vulnerable in a way I rarely saw. And beneath it, something more — a deep urgency, almost reverent.

As I gazed into his eyes, the swirling colours momentarily forgotten, I felt a softening in my heart, a warmth that spread through my entire being.

“You know I do,” I replied, my voice filled with a tenderness that belied the uncertainty that gripped me.

The conviction in his gaze deepened, and his next words came not with hesitation, but with a quiet force that seemed to settle over the room like a spell.

“Then we will follow Luke, and he will lead us to the New Jerusalem,” he said, his voice unwavering. “We must follow him.”

The finality of it struck like a chord — vibrating somewhere deep in my chest. His belief was absolute. It terrified me.

Confusion, sharp and sudden, twisted my features. My brow furrowed, the edges of my thoughts fraying as I tried to hold onto something concrete — something we’d agreed upon, something normal.

“But what about Salt Lake City?” I asked, my voice tinged with a desperation that I could not quite conceal.

The words hung there between us, clashing with everything I was seeing, everything I was feeling. It was the plan. It had always been the plan.

And now, it felt like we were standing on the edge of something else entirely — something I hadn’t chosen.

Noah’s grip on my hand tightened, a silent acknowledgement of the turmoil that raged within me.

His fingers pressed into mine — not forcefully, but with intent — grounding me even as my thoughts spun further from anything familiar. I could feel the tremor in my own hand, a barely contained resistance, the last remnant of doubt clinging to the edges of my conviction.

“I don’t understand everything, Greta,” he admitted, his voice filled with a mix of humility and determination. “But this was in my dream last night. I know that God is calling his elect. We are his elect, Greta.”

His words settled between us like falling ash — soft, but heavy. I stared at him, taking in the lines etched deeper into his face, the unshakeable clarity in his tone. There was no madness in his eyes, only belief — and something gentler too, something like peace.

And then — quiet.

A still, small voice whispered in the depths of my mind, so subtle I might have missed it had I not been listening with every fibre of my being. A gentle nudge, no louder than breath, yet pulsing with something ancient and undeniable.

Follow thou me, it beckoned.

The words stirred something in me, a call that I could not ignore, a summons that tugged at the very core of my being — not from logic, not from duty, but from somewhere else. Somewhere sacred.

With a gentle tug on my hand, Noah encouraged me to follow him — to step into the unknown, to trust in the path that had been laid before us. My feet felt rooted at first, the last threads of reason pulling taut — Salt Lake, the children, the real world — but then something gave.

And so, hand in hand, our hearts beating as one, we walked into the merciful light, the swirling colours enveloping us in a warm embrace.

A tingling energy swept through my entire body — a current that danced across my skin, sharp and electric. It surged up my spine, crackled in my fingertips. It was both exhilarating and terrifying, as if I had been plugged into something ancient, something far beyond comprehension.

The voice that spoke to me — a voice not heard with the ears but felt, resonant and vast — seemed to emanate from the very air around us. It filled my mind, not with understanding, but with presence. Authority. Power.

Welcome to Clivilius, Greta Smith, it intoned.

The words echoed through my thoughts like ripples on a still lake, a declaration that seemed to hold the weight of eternity. My name — spoken not as a question, not as a greeting, but as a recognition. A summons.

I stood there, my hand still clasped tightly in Noah’s, his grip now as much reassurance as anchor. The world around us shifted and changed — subtly at first, then with a boldness I couldn’t ignore. Colours deepened, sharpened. The very air shimmered. The familiar — the hallway, the study, the doubts — fell away, like skin being shed.

The fear that had gripped me, the confusion that had clouded my mind, seemed to melt in the face of this new reality. This divine calling. It pulsed through me now — not entirely understood, but deeply felt.

And yet, even as I surrendered to the path that had been laid before us, even as I stood grounded in the love and faith that had always been the foundation of our marriage, I couldn’t help but feel it — a flicker of doubt, quiet but persistent.

A nagging sense of unease that lurked just beneath the surface, refusing to be silenced.

What did this mean for our family? For the life we had built together — the ordinary, imperfect, sacred life? What sacrifices would we be called upon to make? What trials would we be forced to endure in the name of this sacred mission?

The light around us glowed with promise. But shadows, I knew, always found a way to follow.