“Tell her my love is fierce and my promise to those children is true.”
Having surrendered all propriety and boundaries out of sheer panic, Jason just repeated this, even though it sounded a bit…well…inappropriate.
In his last awkward pause, Jason could hear Loretta collecting control over enough of her emotions to respond. “You don’t do this very often do you?” she said, with a small gasping laugh.
Jason’s relief at the motherly tone in that speculation caused him to laugh much louder and longer, his tension leaking with his squeaky chuckles. “Uh, it was pretty obvious, then?”
“Yes, son. It was obvious. But it was all very true. Thank you.”
Jason grinned at Jesus, like a boy showing his father that he could ride his bike without falling over. Jesus laughed this time.
“You are welcomed. Have a good day. And enjoy those grandkids.” This last part was purely spontaneous and natural. The experience had left Jason nearly drunk with emotional release.
When he hung up the call, he pulled his headphones off and swung his chair toward Jesus. He wanted to say something, of course, but exactly what seemed impossible to reach. He stared with wide eyes and a question mark smile.
Jesus helped him sort those questions with a couple of answers. “That was what you might call a word of encouragement, that included a bit of divinely provided knowledge. Folks call that a ‘word of knowledge,’ usually.”
Nodding, and relaxing his face into that of an inquisitive student, Jason’s eyes ventured into their corners for a second. “I’ve heard of things like that. And it’s not something that happens just when Jesus is sitting in your living room, right?”
Jesus grinned and snickered through his nose. He almost seemed proud of that question. He said one big, “Ha!” and then answered. “This visit is unusual, as you know. But what’s not so unusual, is that I would want to get a message to one of my friends, to lift her spirits.”
“This living room part is unusual,” Jason said, summarizing the lesson. “But the tech support call turning into an encouraging word from God is not so unusual.”
Again Jesus grinned big. “Well, that part depends on you. I’m giving you a chance to help people with things like this.”
“But not only as long as you’re sitting here feeding me information?”
Now a more placid visage took over Jesus’s face. “We can work on it, a little bit at a time. Now, you go back to work, and I won’t interrupt you again for a while.”
The feeling that this was all planned—that it had a normality to it, in the context that included Jesus sitting on the couch—comforted Jason, even if he hadn’t yet allowed his imagination to spin out the possible scenarios, as was his penchant. He was part of a church that allowed for the possibility of active divine intervention in everyday life. They didn’t teach much on miracles and visions, or prophetic words and healing, but they didn’t teach against it either. Part of their hesitancy to deny what amounted to very rare occurrences, was how much more common those supernatural interventions seemed to be for missionaries in other countries, other cultures.
Jason had been impressed a few months earlier by a story from a couple operating an orphanage on the border of South Sudan. They needed medical resupply, but had lost their normal channels for the transport of anti-biotics and insulin. They told of receiving a package, which would have taken at least three weeks to travel from the Oklahoma church from which it was sent. A doctor in that U.S. congregation sent medication that hadn’t even been requested yet. When the medicine ran out, and the prayers began, the medicines had already been on the way for over two weeks.
Fascinated and inspired by stories like that, Jason had to decide now whether to bring it closer to home. Was Jesus proposing that miracles might happen right in Jason’s own country, his own town? Apparently.
Chapter 11
Portrait Sitting
An artist in the deepest part of her soul, and all the way out from there to her eyes and fingertips, the most natural thing for Kayla to do was sketch somebody that she loved. The number and variety of her sketches and paintings of Jason was limited only by his busyness and self-consciousness. Even before they left for that summer mission trip, having only just met, Kayla had persuaded Jason to sit still for nearly half an hour, as she filled the page of her ever-present sketchpad with a pencil drawing of his head and shoulders. Of course, his interest in spending time with this intriguing young beauty inspired more than enough patience for that sitting. The biggest difficulty, for Jason, had been not talking the whole time.
Sitting in Kayla’s little studio now, Jesus was the perfect subject. Though he might, arguably, be most likely to have something to say to the artist during the process, he was perfectly still for nearly an hour and spoke only the sparsest sentences and abbreviated answers.
Had Jason not been working in the living room at this point, he would have been at least asking himself about this portrait of Jesus. Would they be allowed to tell people how Kayla had produced this work of art? Would what she produced be inherently supernatural? Would it have some kind of power for its genuine accuracy?
Kayla, on the other hand, simply seized the opportunity, without cluttering her mind with these abstract notions. The experience was enthralling enough to block any speculation about what lay ahead. But it was impossible for her not to feel an undertow of awe, and breathtaking wonder, at this opportunity. She would have never even dreamed that such a thing was possible; yet here she sat on her stool, sketching Jesus.
As with any portrait, the essence of the subject, not merely the length of their nose or shape of their eyes, was the goal. Could anyone capture the true essence of Jesus, in a portrait? Or was it, in fact, easier to portray his heart in a drawing of his face, because he hid nothing inside?
When Kayla was in high school, a fellow student, named Dan Jamison, attended her church youth group. Dan seemed to have a perpetual smile on his face. Someone teased him once that he lips didn’t fit over his teeth, which explained the apparently eternal smile. That cruel barb had been patently untrue, as Kayla had observed. Dan could stop smiling; he just wasn’t inclined to. When Dan wasn’t smiling, Kayla had generally felt as if he was about to begin any second.
Jesus reminded her a bit of Dan Jamison, but with a purer mirth in his face, a face waiting to smile again even as he relaxed from the last expression of loving openness. A person’s face develops curves and lines with habit, the muscles and skin conform to years of practice. Some faces smile against their natural tendency. Jesus’s face was a smiling face, Kayla discovered. It showed no sign of worry, no strain in the gracious expansion of lips and tightening of eyes, that constituted a welcoming smile.
For Kayla, the most disturbing part of sketching Jesus was not seeing Jesus perfectly clearly in her own home studio, it was being seen by him. The way he looked at her, repeatedly blew her mind off course.
She had once hired an undergraduate to sit for her, when she was studying figure drawing. She was determined to use a male model, as opposed to any of her exhibitionist friends. And she had ultimately received a diminished grade, because she drew the young man with most of his clothes on. She had intended for him to remove his shirt, but the way he looked at her, ogling her, made her feel very uncomfortable, even undressed. And this was even before she knew Jason, so it wasn’t a matter of what her fiancé or husband would think. She was just uncomfortable with the piercing stares of that handsome young man.
In some ways, it was worse with Jesus. He not only looked at her without bashfulness or apology, he seemed to be looking right into her, right through her clothes and even through her skin. That was unnerving, especially because he seemed so unanimously pleased with what he saw. This discombobulated Kayla’s thinking repeatedly, as she attempted to capture his image on paper with graphite and charcoal.
Nevertheless, Kayla did accomplish a strong likeness of her guest, stopping in time to feel that she had not ruined the imag
e that seemed to press itself into her mind, through both her heart and her eyes.
He rose to examine it, chuckling and smiling gratefully, one hand resting gently on the small of Kayla’s back, as they examined it together. And then, he surprised her again.
“Now, I shall paint your portrait.” There was no room for discussion in his tone. Kayla stalled, when she heard this proposal.
She had never been a contented model, in spite of her hours sitting in the other seat. She knew, however, that this discontent might be exactly what Jesus hoped to approach with his odd proposition. Without a word of either protest or acceptance, she climbed aboard the stool on which Jesus had been sitting.
Meanwhile, Jesus was selecting a canvas from her pile of freshly primed ones stacked against a nearby wall. Replacing the painting Kayla was currently working on, Jesus arranged a pallet on the table next to it. He pulled six tubes of paint from her store; he did it so quickly, that it seemed he was pulling them randomly, as if in haste. Twisting off their caps and squeezing out large blobs of white and of red, some of umber and of sienna, he swirled out the smooth color in quick succession. Just as quickly, he swirled parts of each creamy cascade a little with one color and a little with another. Stopping to squeeze small dots of darker colors around the edges.
Kayla felt that she was watching a master, learning from his movements, from his selections and his confidence. Then he began to stroke colors onto the canvas, his hands strong and sure. And here she faced her greatest challenge again. He looked at her. Like a good artist, he spent more time studying his subject than contemplating the canvas.
Sitting nearly breathless, Kayla began to cry. Not wracking sobs like before, these tears seemed to ease out of her—leaking, and not heaving, out into the world. Kayla had begun to discover the blessing of being beheld.
As far back as she could remember, Kayla had sought beauty. She had worked to capture that beauty on her pages and on her canvases. Unknown to her, this quest for seeing beauty was driven by a deeper desire to be beautiful. She was attracted to the lovely, the winsome, the stunning, because that is what she longed to be. She longed to be desired the way beautiful people are desired.
Now she submitted to being beheld. She submitted to being studied. She bowed to the will of one who insisted on enjoying her beauty and on capturing it in its artistic perfection.
Thus the tears. But those didn’t last the entire sitting. She began to relax in her seat and to relax in his eyes, even as she struggled to maintain her posture, knowing the temptations of models. Toward the end of what amounted to less than an hour, Kayla developed a case of the giggles. Her emotions had been stretched so thin, that she could no longer command herself to be serious. Jesus just smiled at her barely-contained hysterics. His hand moved more quickly, to finish while he still had his live model.
When Kayla was able to focus on the craft of her painter, she had to resist another urge, to shake her head in wonder. Even as he paused over examining her face, he seemed completely uninhibited with the brush and pallet knives, mixing colors and laying layers on canvas with practiced precision and faultless freedom. She noted that he had not sketched her face on the canvas before beginning to paint, as she would have, as most painters would. And, even as his hands worked like a courtroom sketch artist, he seemed to be enjoying not only his subject, but also his acrylic creation on that 24” x 18” surface
“You can move now,” he said. “I’m nearly finished.”
Kayla slid off the wooden stool and stepped tentatively toward him, still barefoot, as if her day had not yet begun. She gasped when she saw herself, in living color, on Jesus’s canvas. She also stared in wonder as he continued to paint, adding highlights to her hair, and to her skin and eyes.
“But you’re not even looking at me anymore.” She wasn’t sure what she meant by noting that.
Jesus nodded his head. “I have you memorized, my dear. I always have.”
“But,” she paused. “But you were looking at me, and it stirred up something inside. You were studying me like a painter.”
He smiled at her and stopped painting. “That was not for me—as much as I enjoyed it. That was for you.”
Kayla slipped her hands around his neck and rested her head on his chest, his very real collar bone pressing into her forehead. She had no words left to say.
Chapter 12
The Band
The only thing that made it possible for Kayla to step out of the apartment that late morning, was the knowledge that Jesus would be going to work with her. Another fit of giggles, sparked by a moment of eye contact with Jason, almost prevented her from leaving. She had to get a big glass of water to help her calm down and recover from laughter so intense, that it gave her stomach cramps. Both Kayla’s and Jason’s emotions were flapping like an ill-constructed tent in a persistent gale.
Jesus split again, going out the door with Kayla, and staying with Jason, while he put together a small lunch. An hour of studying, and a few finishing touches on his final paper for Early Church History, gave Jason a sense of permission for a break with his band. His friend Donnie had been begging him to come and play his guitar. Now that Jason could see the end of the semester lining up, he knew he could give in and take some time out.
Jason’s band was called Frosty and the Wise Men, after an eclectic Christmas display across the street from the house in which they had lived during their senior year. Before that, they had changed band names more often than a cheerleader changes boyfriends.
Jason played lead guitar, and did so pretty well, especially considering how little he practiced these days. Between graduate school, writing and marriage, the guitar generally collected dust during the week. It was different now, the band no longer living together in a house, no longer free to stay up all night and jam whenever inspired to do so.
“You sure you wanna do this?” Jason said, teasing Jesus. “These guys can be pretty sacrilegious.” They stepped out onto the back porch, feeling the rising warmth of a summer-like day.
“You don’t think I can take it?” Jesus said, pushing right back. He followed Jason down the stairs, allowing an extra step so as not to bump into Jason’s electric guitar, which he carried in a soft case, using the handle briefcase-style.
Jason looked up at Jesus from the landing at the bottom of the stairs. He could hear his downstairs neighbor in her kitchen. Something occurred to him. He realized that he had been speaking aloud to his guest, someone that no one else could see. Jesus watched this realization hatch on Jason’s face and raised his eyebrows, curling a playful grin. To Jason, it felt as if Jesus had just punked him.
Shaking his head, Jason walked down the alley to where his car was parked. He didn’t like carrying his guitar on his bike, even though he could wear it like a backpack. The $1400 instrument was pretty dear, given their limited income. Besides, Jesus would have to run alongside the bicycle, and that was just too strange a picture for Jason to bring to reality.
“You don’t think I could sit on your handlebars,” Jesus said, addressing what was just a passing thought in Jason’s head.
Jason laughed out loud, causing a pretty blonde undergraduate to look suspiciously at him, as she passed him on the sidewalk. Feeling playful, he called after her. “Hey, lighten up, the semester’s almost over.” The girl just shook her head and walked on.
“Karen,” Jesus said.
“What?” said Jason, speaking aloud again. He shook his head at the sound of his own voice, and used his keys to unlock his car.
“Her name is Karen,” Jesus said. “That young woman you just embarrassed yourself in front of.”
Jason glanced up the street before getting in the car. He hit the switch on the driver’s door to allow Jesus into the passenger seat. In his hometown, not far from St. Louis, locking doors was taken for granted, more so than in the little college town where he now lived. He kept up the habit, however, assuming that he and Kayla would be moving to a big city somewhere, as soon as
they found jobs. That was next week’s worry.
“Why are you telling me her name?” Jason said.
“You could pray for her. She seemed stressed about her studies, didn’t she?”
Jason thought about that as he checked his mirror, before turning out of his parking place. “I guess she did seem stressed. I was just teasing her. But, now that you mention it...”
“You sensed it. That’s why you made that joke. Your spirit read something about her, as she passed by, more than just how pretty her face was, etc.”
“Etc.?” Jason said, wonder what all that included.
“I’m not judging you, Jason,” Jesus said with a winning smile. “I’m just trying to help you sort through the messages passing through your brain, such as when you noticed that someone was hearing you apparently talk to yourself.”
Jason focused on getting out of the side street next to his building before pursuing this conversation further. “You want me to pray for her, ‘cause she’s stressed? And I was supposed to know that…how? Intuitively?”
Jesus rolled down his window and rested his elbow on the door. The ease with which he did that distracted Jason and he had to swerve to stay in his lane.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to figure it all out right now,” Jesus said. “Just something to think about in the future.”
Back to driving without hitting anyone, Jason mulled that little exchange. A question occurred to him. “I could just ask you to help her out, couldn’t I?”
“You just did,” Jesus said.
Jason looked at him briefly and then returned his eyes to the road. “I’ve had a feeling that I get these intuitions about people. Sometimes I know what they’re gonna say before they speak.” This was a confession that Jason had kept from everyone, even Kayla. It was not a matter of hiding anything from Kayla, but rather of waiting to get a better understanding of that thing, before trying to describe it to his new wife. He was beginning to feel like he had a better grasp.
Sharing Jesus (Seeing Jesus Book 3) Page 10