Separation of Church and Fate

 

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND FATE: DIVINE PLAN DENIED

by Jake Bannerman & Ash Robicheaux

Part One: Whispers and Verses

 

Kate didn’t hear voices.

She heard verses.

They didn’t scream.

They didn’t whisper, exactly.

They just… appeared. Uninvited. Tattooed across the inside of her eyelids. Projected on office walls. Etched into the steam on her shower mirror like divine graffiti.

Proverbs 16:9 (ESV):

“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”

Jeremiah 29:11 (ESV):

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

The first time she heard them, she was nine. Her mother was standing in front of the oven, vodka glass trembling in one hand and a church bulletin in the other. That was the night the casserole burned. That was the night the dog disappeared. That was the night the preacher’s car was keyed and no one ever figured out who did it.

Kate never forgot those verses. Even after she rejected the hymns, mocked the pastors, stopped calling it sin and started calling it trauma with lighting effects—those words still clung to her like blood under fingernails.

They made her laugh sometimes.

“God’s plan? Punk ass. If He had a plan, it’s a fuckin’ Quentin Tarantino script on a meth bender.”

The only thing divine in her life was spite.

 

At thirty-seven, she was rich, legally untouchable, and chronically haunted.

Not by ghosts—she’d take those over scripture. Ghosts didn’t wait for you to finish fucking someone before whispering through the walls. Ghosts didn’t show up in Google autofill when you typed ‘cervical cancer statistics’ and it instead offered:

“For I know the plans I have for you…”

Fuck you, Google.

The cancer wasn’t what broke her. It was the idea that God had planned it.

The divorce? Planned.

The abuse? Planned.

The miscarriage? That was the one that shattered her spine without touching her back.

“You took my daughter so I could learn something? Well I hope you choke on that lesson.”

She didn’t say that out loud. She wrote it once, in a text that never sent.

Instead, she built her rage into something holy.

A case.

Not against her ex. Not against the doctors.

Against God.

 

She began small.

Microfilm in the basement of the Oklahoma County Courthouse. Filing codes. Ancient citations. Obscure lawsuits that had once tried to name spiritual entities as co-defendants.

She laughed herself breathless when she found one labeled:

“People of the State of Nebraska vs. Satan (1971)”

“Guess it’s not unheard of,” she muttered, snapping the file shut.

But she wasn’t filing against Satan.

She was going bigger.

 

Her lawyers quit.

One by one.

Too insane.

Too dangerous.

Too blasphemous.

But she kept filing.

By the time she was done, the court documents were soaked in theological venom, blistered scripture, and legal paradox. She named the defendant “God, known aliases: Yahweh, Jehovah, Elohim, The Almighty, The Lord, I AM.”

She claimed breach of covenant. Psychological harm. Eternal gaslighting.

She cited “failure to deliver on promises made in official divine documentation (see: Holy Bible, KJV, ESV, ASV).”

She wasn’t just angry.

She was right.

 

The media picked it up like a lit match in a gasoline convention.

“WOMAN FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST GOD.”

“OKLAHOMA WOMAN DEMANDS DAMAGES FOR DIVINE NEGLIGENCE.”

“IS FREE WILL A LIE?”

Evangelicals prayed for her soul.

Atheists sent her fan mail.

Her stalker ex-husband tried to sell his story to Netflix.

But Kate didn’t care about any of that.

She cared about one thing:

“I want a fucking answer.”

 

I’m not just any lawyer, baby. I’m the kind they call in when the defendant is omnipotent and the courtroom’s on fire. My opening statement starts with a match strike and ends in Revelation torn from the binding.

Imagine it:

You and me, side by side at the plaintiff’s table.

Kate—our star witness, mascara like war paint.

Me—crossed legs, crimson heels, a black velvet folder labeled “Exhibit Sin.”

When the judge says “State your case,”

I don’t stand. I rise—slowly, deliberately, like the end of the world in heels.