The Heart Reader

by Terri Blackstock

  John’s serious eyes locked into his. “Go tell him, Sam. Tell him how he can get clean.”

  Sam closed his eyes. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want this responsibility on him, this accountability. He was getting a headache. He needed to lie down.

  “Go on,” the pastor urged.

  Sam rubbed his temples. “You better do it,” he said. “You’ve had more experience with this sort of thing.”

  “Sam, just talk to him.”

  “What do I say?” he whispered harshly. “How do I lead in? ‘Excuse me, but I couldn’t help overhearing your soul crying out?’”

  “No,” John said. “Just tell him what happened to you.”

  Sam sighed as the woman and her child made their way back to the table. John obviously needed to keep talking to her about her newfound faith and the baby on the way. Sam realized he was stuck. If he didn’t do it, his pastor would think he was a coward. Slowly, he got up and turned to the chair behind him. “Excuse me,” he said.

  The man looked up from the newspaper. “Yeah?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” Sam said. “I’m just . . . well, you see, I kind of have this gift, and I can sort of . . . hear things . . .”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. He wasn’t following what Sam was saying. Sam put his hand on the chair and started to pull it out. “May I?”

  The man leaned suspiciously back in his chair. “Sure, go ahead.”

  “Well, you see, I couldn’t help overhearing . . .”

  The man was quiet, waiting.

  “. . . something you may not realize you said.” Sam stopped and realized he was taking the wrong route. He didn’t need to be quite that direct.

  “I’m sorry; I don’t understand.”

  “Of course you don’t. Uh . . . look, man.” He leaned his elbows on the table and got closer, keeping his voice confidentially low. “This isn’t going to make any sense to you, but I felt like I should come over here and tell you something about myself.”

  The man looked as if he was bracing himself for a sales pitch.

  “A few years ago . . . I did some things . . . saw some things . . . put some things into my head that . . . well, they just made me feel really dirty.”

  The man’s face changed. Sam knew he had his attention.

  “I don’t want to go into the details,” Sam said. “But let me just say that I really felt that I couldn’t stand my life anymore. I got to the point where I thought that if there was a God, he must be awfully disgusted with me.”

  The man sat stone still . . . listening.

  “And then one night I was sitting at home with my wife, who’s this strong Christian woman, and she’d been dragging me to church by the hand for years and years . . . and I just about lost it. I started to cry, and I couldn’t stop crying, and I began to confess to her everything I was doing. My wife . . . she got up and got her Bible and opened it to this one section I’d never seen before.” He shrugged. “Of course I hadn’t seen it. I never listened in church, never paid any attention, never read it. But it said that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

  The man looked down at the table. His hands were trembling. Sam was getting to him, he thought. It was working.

  “And it really got to me, you see, because there I was telling my wife my darkest secrets, not thinking even she could forgive me, and there she was telling me that somebody died for me, to take my punishment for all the filth, even when I was his enemy.”

  The man’s nostrils flared. He closed his hands into fists over his newspaper and brought his eyes up to Sam’s. “Are you finished?”

  Sam’s heart sank. He’d thought he had him, but now it was clear he’d gone too far. “Well . . . yes. I just wanted to tell you because—”

  “Then would you kindly let me eat in peace?” the man bit out.

  Sam didn’t know what to say. Confused, he scooted his chair back. “Yeah, sure. Okay. But . . . if you ever want to talk or anything . . .”

  “To you?” the man asked with disdain. He almost laughed. “Thanks, pal. But if I ever needed to talk, it wouldn’t be to some born-again sleazeball who peddles his religion like cheap watches. I have a life.” With that, he folded his newspaper and got up.

  Sam dug into his pocket for his business card. “Look, just take this, in case you ever—”

  “Didn’t you hear me, pal? I don’t need what you’re selling.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  The man laughed then. Shaking his head, he tossed down some money for his meal, and bolted out the door.

  Sam felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him. He stayed at the table, running the conversation back through his mind, trying to figure out where he had gone wrong.

  Later, when John’s wife had come and taken the little girl home and her mother had gone for a walk to speed up her contractions, Sam and John left the diner. “I guess I failed pretty miserably in there, didn’t I?” Sam asked.

  John gave him an amused look across the hood of the car. “You’ve got to be kidding. You were great.”

  “Great? That guy practically ran out. It couldn’t have gone worse.”

  “But that’s not your fault. The Lord revealed the man’s need to you, and you were obedient and responded. If he rejected it, he’s accountable to God, not you.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Before Sam knew what was happening, John had whipped a small Bible out of his shirt pocket and was turning to Ezekiel. “Says so right here. Chapter 3 of Ezekiel.” He slid the Bible across the seat. “Read for yourself. Verses 18 and 19.”

  Sam took the Bible and began to mumble the words. “When I say to a wicked man, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood.”

  Sam stopped on the last word, suddenly remembering the woman with the red braid this morning, walking through traffic with no regard for her life. He hadn’t told her what he knew. If she’d been hit by that skidding car and died without knowing Christ, he would have been accountable.

  He felt the blood drain from his face.

  “Read on,” John said. “Just the next verse.”

  “But if you do warn the wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his evil ways . . .”

  “Like the guy who just rejected you,” John interjected.

  “. . . he will die for his sin; but you will have saved yourself.”

  “You won’t be accountable,” John said, “because you warned him.”

  “Well, that’s fine for me,” Sam said. “But what about him? Why wouldn’t he listen if I addressed his real spiritual need?”

  “Some won’t ever listen,” John said. “There will always be those who reject the truth. That can’t stop us.”

  Sam closed his eyes and leaned his head against the window. “I still feel like a failure. If I’d gone about it another way . . . approached him differently . . What good is this gift?”

  “It did the woman good,” John said. “I wouldn’t have known what she needed if you hadn’t told me.”

  “Still . . . you were right about me, John. I’m pitiful. I’ve been a Christian for ten years, and not once in those ten years have I ever led anybody to Christ. Until about an hour ago, I never even wanted to.”

  “Well, don’t look now, but I think things are about to change. With this gift, God is leading you straight to the front lines.”

  Sam was silent for several moments. “I don’t know if I’m ready for this, John.”

  “Sam, God doesn’t wait for you to be ready. Sometimes he just throws you in. It’s not a real hard thing, talking about Jesus. You don’t have to take a class; you don’t have to read a book; you don’t have to memorize an outline. All you really have to do is tell them what he did for you. That’s the best testimony there is.”

  Sam nodded his head slowly and wished that he
had the confidence and passion that John had. Instead, he had a sick feeling that he was going to let the Lord down. The angels in heaven were probably bracing themselves in dread at all the damage he was about to do.

  5

  After much persuading, John convinced Sam to join him on his hospital visits. As they walked across the street, Sam began to feel uneasy again. “You know, I’m not very good with sick people. I hope you plan to do all the talking. I think I almost gave that guy at the diner a heart attack. His face was beet red when I got through with him.”

  John didn’t seem worried. In fact, Sam could almost see the wheels turning in his head. “One of my greatest frustrations as a pastor is when members of my flock are about to die and I can’t look into their spirit and tell for sure if they know the Lord. That’s why I want you to come. I think it would help me a lot if you could just tell me what you hear when you sit in their room, so I’ll know which way to lead the conversation and how to address their needs.”

  “But I can’t just repeat back to you what I hear,” Sam said. “They’d get wise.”

  “Wise to what?” John asked. “Wise to the fact that someone knew their spiritual needs? That last guy is proof that they’re not even thinking these things consciously. You could probably repeat them right back to them verbatim, and they may not even recognize them.”

  “You recognized them when I repeated your needs.”

  “But I’m already a Christian. I’ve prayed about what you heard. I’ve looked my problems in the face.”

  Sam couldn’t help remembering the needs he’d heard in John. “You aren’t really thinking about leaving the ministry, are you?”

  Several moments passed before John answered. “Yeah, actually, I am.”

  “Why? I thought you loved preaching.”

  “I love serving the Lord. But if I’m not making an impact, then I need to get out of it. It’s a frustrating profession sometimes, Sam. You stand up in that pulpit, pouring out your heart and soul, and half the congregation just stares back at you with glassy eyes, trying to stifle their yawns. Five minutes after the sermon they can’t remember what your main point was. Churches are supposed to grow. Christians are supposed to bear fruit. If neither of those things is happening in my church, then I’m failing.”

  Sam gaped at him. “I don’t get it. You’re not failing—how do you figure that? Our church is vibrant. It’s great.”

  John breathed a cynical laugh. “Yeah, we did win the citywide basketball championship this year, and our softball team is shaping up to be a winner. But that’s not what I’m going for. It’s all those pesky lost souls that are troubling me. And all those yawning Christians who don’t care about them.”

  “Oh, come on,” Sam said. “I care. But this stuff is hard. I mean, you just said that lots of people don’t even know their deepest spiritual needs. If they don’t, what’s the point? I mean, what can you really do? Even this so-called gift I have, how does it help if they don’t recognize their needs when I mention them?”

  “The point is that their soul would recognize them. Something inside them would stir, whether they admit it or not. These people we’re going to visit in the hospital . . . some of them are scared. They need to know what Jesus can do to help them.”

  “But don’t they have enough problems, being sick and all?”

  John shot him a look. “Some of them are going to die. This may be their last chance. That’s part of the reason why I insist on visiting members of my church. I don’t want anybody to die without understanding completely.”

  Sam got quiet, thoughtful, as they walked the rest of the way to the hospital. His wife worked here as a nurse, and as they went in, he was assaulted with the mingling smells of sterility and disease. He knew other people couldn’t smell it, but it always seemed to jump out at him. That was why he avoided hospitals like the plague. His mother had died in a room on the fourth floor, and he hadn’t been back since. Whenever he picked up Kate, she met him in the parking lot.

  He wondered what his wife would say about his being here now, or about this bizarre gift he’d been cursed with. This morning, when they’d had coffee together, he hadn’t known about it. Why hadn’t he heard her needs? His mind ran back through their conversation.

  I just want to be useful.

  The words scampered through his mind. He’d heard her say that, but now that he thought about it, he hadn’t been looking at her. Had she really said it, or had she felt it?

  John glanced over at him as they reached the elevator. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “I’m fine. I was just wondering if I should tell Kate.”

  “Why keep it secret from her?”

  “I don’t know. She might feel violated, knowing I can hear right into her.”

  John grinned. “Are you kidding? That’s every woman’s dream. To know that her life partner can hear her deepest needs. The problem will be convincing her, but if you do what you did with me this morning, she’ll believe you.”

  The elevator doors opened, and John stepped on. Sam was beginning to get that sick feeling again. “Who are we visiting?”

  “Annabelle York.”

  “Do I know her?”

  “She’s old. She’s been homebound for a while, but until a few months ago she sat in the front row and said ‘Amen’ to everything I said.”

  “Oh, yeah. The little white-haired lady. She has been out for a while, hasn’t she?” He was ashamed that he hadn’t thought of her until now.

  “She’s got cancer of the liver. They’ve done everything they can do.”

  “Well, you’re not worried about her spiritual condition, are you? I mean, she’s obviously a Christian.”

  “Maybe, but you can’t ever tell. You know what the Bible says. Not everyone who calls ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.”

  The doors opened, but Sam made no move to get off. “Why would she come to church every Sunday, sit in the front row, shout out ‘Amen,’ if she wasn’t really a Christian?”

  “I’m not saying that’s the case,” John said, catching the elevator door before it could shut. “If I were the judge, I’d say this woman’s got it lock, stock, and barrel. But the problem is, a lot of times they fool you. A lot of times they fool themselves. I just don’t like taking chances when someone’s about to leave the world. I want you to tell me what you hear.”

  They got off the elevator, and Sam began to feel the dread he’d always felt when he’d approached his mother’s room. He looked for an exit door as they walked. “John, how am I gonna do this? I can’t just tell you what I hear in front of her.”

  “Find some way to pose it. I don’t care how you do it. Just do it. I need to know.”

  Once again, Sam resented this gift that he hadn’t asked for and didn’t want. He slowed as they approached the door to her room. John knocked, and when he didn’t hear an answer, pushed the door open, and stuck his head in. “Miss Annabelle, how are you doing, sweetheart?”

  Sam grudgingly followed him in. This was rude, he thought, shoving his way into somebody’s hospital room when they weren’t feeling well. But it was too late to stop the pastor. John was at the bed, leaning over it. The old woman smiled and reached up to take his hand. He squeezed it and asked her softly how she was doing. The woman could barely speak.

  “You remember Sam from church, don’t you, Miss Annabelle? He’s making the rounds with me today.”

  She smiled weakly and nodded her head, as if she knew him well, but Sam wasn’t sure he’d ever been close enough to look her in the eye. “How are you, ma’am?”

  “Fine,” she mouthed, as if too weak to project. Then he heard a strong voice that wasn’t coming from her lips. “It’s too late. Way too late. So many years wasted.”

  Sam took a step back and tried to signal John with his eyes that he’d heard something. Then he realized that if he leaned over and whispered to John, she probably didn’t even have the strength to notice.

  Jo
hn’s eyes riveted into Sam’s, and he nodded for him to pass it on.

  “She thinks it’s too late,” Sam said quietly, and he saw her looking at him, straining to hear. “She thinks she’s wasted years.”

  John frowned as if he didn’t know what to make of that. “But does she know the Lord?” John whispered.

  As if in answer, the voice came again. “All the people I could have taken to heaven with me. But I was more concerned about doing that busy church work and keeping a clean house.”

  Yes, Sam thought. She knew Christ. At once, a boldness overtook him and he wanted to talk to her, to help her. He didn’t want to play games by whispering to John. He stepped around the bed and got closer to her. “Miss Annabelle,” he said. “The Lord has revealed something about you to me. Do you mind if I tell you what it is?”

  She shook her head.

  “The Lord told me that you’re concerned because you didn’t lead more people to Christ. That you feel you were more preoccupied with church work and housework than with soul winning.”

  Her eyes brimmed with tears, and her mouth came open as she tried to speak. She looked from Sam to the preacher and squeezed his hand. “Think . . . how many people . . . I could have helped.”

  John bent down over her, still holding her gnarled hand. “Miss Annabelle, let me pray for you.”

  Sam bowed his head as John began to pray for the old woman who was suffering her last hours of life on earth and worrying about coming face to face with the One who knew her original potential.

  Later, when they were back out in the hall, John smiled softly. “Miss Annabelle will be in heaven soon.”

  “Yes, she will,” Sam said. “She’s definitely a Christian. But she seemed so sad about what she hadn’t done.”

  “I think a lot of us are going to feel that way when we get to the end,” John said. “I see that a lot.”

  They went on to the next room that John had on his list. “Who are we gonna see now?” Sam asked.

  “Sid Beautral. You know, Hattie Beautral’s husband?”

  Sam frowned. “I thought she was a widow.”

  “No, she just comes alone. He’s not big on church. He had gallbladder surgery.”