Two students, busy with their phones, strolled past, just a few feet behind Kayla. She didn’t recognize them, and doubted they noticed her speaking to the roof of her car. She gave Jesus one quick sideways grin and thought, “oops.”
Walking toward the main entrance, Kayla felt safe with Jesus walking along beside her. Who could harm her with him so close?
Jesus responded to this feeling, projecting his thoughts into her head, to make it easier for her to remember not to speak aloud to him. “I’m glad you trust me to take care of you, Kayla. I’m always with you and always ready to protect you and the people around you.”
Kayla pictured Jesus with a sword and shield. More modern weapons wouldn’t go with his ancient robe and sandals. That made her smile, as she reached the building.
Walking down the broad hallway toward Kayla’s classroom, Jesus offered a different picture. “Actually, you’re the one with the sword and shield. I’m just your armor bearer,” he said, still placing his voice directly into her head.
Because she had just reached her room, and there were dozens of people milling around in the hall, Kayla just glanced a question at Jesus and let it drop. One of her students, Laura, was already in the classroom. This was getting to be a pattern. Kayla hadn’t yet figured out whether Laura was just a zealous student, who loved painting, or whether their little conversations before class were really the point of her student’s early arrival.
“Hello, Kayla,” said Laura.
“Good morning, Laura. How are you today?”
Laura was about twenty years old, but could pass for sixteen. Taller and a bit heavier than Kayla, Laura wore her brunette heir long and straight, with bangs cut along the line of her eyebrows. Her light blue eyes reminded Kayla of a cat she had as a girl. That resemblance might have been more than the physical color, it might have included the feeling that Laura needed a bit of stroking, and wasn’t shy about curling up next to someone to get a rub behind the ears, so to speak.
“I’m doing okay. I love this warmer weather.” Laura was unloading her backpack, pulling out a blue translucent water bottle and setting it on her table. She shook her painting shirt free from the books and papers in her bag.
As Kayla expected, Laura turned from setting up her own workstation to helping with the others. Students would bring their own brushes and paints, but pallets, with pallet paper on them, water jars and paper towels, were all provided. Half-finished paintings stood on most of the easels in the room. They were trying to complete a painting in two three hour classes. This meant keeping the subject pretty simple. Laura helped Kayla carry the table with the still life arrangement they had started painting last week.
Jesus stood by supervising, a smile on his face, when he looked at Kayla and also when he looked at Laura. That smile in her student’s direction made Kayla curious about Jesus’s thoughts and feelings toward the pale young woman.
This curiosity served as all the invitation Jesus needed. “I love Laura. I love her just the way she is, without any growing or learning or accomplishing—all the things she pursues so hard and fast. I love the way she thinks, I love the way she dreams, the things she hopes for, the thoughts she only dares think inside, without letting anyone else know. I have always loved these things about her, and many more.”
Kayla had tried to keep sliding easels and tables, as Jesus spoke, but she soon found herself staring at Laura, listening to Jesus’s caressing voice declaring his love for her. Kayla would see Laura differently from that day forward.
“She doesn’t know any of this,” Jesus said.
Kayla turned toward the sinks, where she would fill the water jars. That is, she would do so if Jesus would stop distracting her with his tantalizing words. Kayla wondered how Laura would ever know all those wonderful things. How would anyone know what Jesus really thinks and feels about them?
“You could tell her.”
Anyone who could have seen both Kayla and Jesus, and heard what was passing between them, would have thought Kayla was angry with him. She refused to look at him, for one thing. And she pressed on to her work, as if trying to escape the obvious implications of what he was saying to her. But she wasn’t angry with him, really. She was a bit confused. She understood what he was saying, and she understood that he would like her to pass his words on to Laura. What she didn’t comprehend was how to do that. She thought of the time in the studio at the Morrisons’ house. Should she tell Laura that she was seeing and hearing Jesus these days?
“That’s not necessary. You could just tell her that I told you how I feel about her. You don’t have to fill in all the details.”
Apparently, Jesus was not concerned about the class preparations, at least not as concerned as Kayla. Laura noted her teacher’s pause next to the sink and thought she needed some kind of help. She scooted one last table next to an easel by the windows, and headed toward the sinks.
“You need some help with something?” Laura said, weaving through the rows of easels, including unused ones at the back of the class. She slowed down next to the long black countertop and the four aluminum sinks.
Part of Kayla knew that, if she just blurted something about what Jesus was saying, then she wouldn’t have time to talk herself out of passing on his message. Another part listed dire warnings against this strategy. The latter part got outvoted.
“Sure, I could use some help,” Kayla said, looking at Laura as she approached. “Have you ever felt like you could see or hear something about somebody, all of a sudden, that you just wouldn’t naturally know?”
Laura slowed her approach, wondering what kind of question that was. Her brow tightened, to form an upside down “T” between her eyes.
Now Kayla had to explain herself. She knew she was a terrible liar, so she wouldn’t be able to crawl out of the hole she had just dug, without telling most of the truth.
Jason had been sitting in his Pauline Literature class for about five minutes, as had Jesus, who made himself at home in the front row next to Jason. Jason had adopted the front row strategy for graduate school, to help him concentrate. The professor would generally be standing too close to ignore, and all of Jason’s moods and movements would be seen by the whole class, seated behind him. This was not how he had operated during high school and college. He was trying to grow up and set those childish days behind him. He also knew himself well enough to know that it would be easy to daydream, to think about stories he wanted to write, or to think about Kayla, if he didn’t insert himself right into the center of the action in each class. Some of his classmates, uninterested in an explanation of this strategy, just called him “Brownie,” a not very complementary title, that assumed he was gleaning favor from the faculty by his front row tactic.
In contrast to Jason’s discipline, Jesus freely turned in his seat and looked at each of the people seated behind them. He limited how much he did this, presumably only to keep Jason from feeling uncomfortable, given the fact that no one else could see him gawking at the other students.
The last day of class was often a throw away, with handing in papers and some apocryphal final notes handed out. But this class had fallen behind the syllabus, due to some vigorous discussions, and the professor’s inability to staunch the bleeding, once those discussions really started to flow. Jason had accumulated some resentment toward certain classmates, who seemed to think that they should have been the one to write up the syllabus, not to mention the one who did most of the talking.
Leonard Siebeck was his arch-enemy in this cause, though Leonard probably didn’t notice how much he annoyed other students, with his constant questions and proffered opinions. He seemed to only be aware of himself and his curiosity. The professor only appeared to play a minor role in Leonard’s class. At least, that’s how Jason thought of it, in his darker moments.
Still early in the class period, Jesus stood up from his seat and moved farther back in the room. Jason glanced over his shoulder to figure out where he was going. Of course, he was h
eaded for Leonard’s desk. Jason didn’t have any brothers, but his impression of Jesus was beginning to resemble a provoking older brother, who makes things hard for the younger sibling, and enjoys himself in the process. He was at it again.
Struggling to focus on the lecture, taking notes on his laptop, Jason finally gave in to wondering what Jesus was doing behind him. The screen on his laptop was glossy, so he minimized his class notes document to get a darker background, and angled the lid in such a way that he could see Jesus standing next to Leonard, looking down on him with a paternal smile. The exact nature of the smile was probably enhanced by Jason’s imagination, because he couldn’t see Jesus that clearly in the reflection on his laptop screen. For a moment, Jason paused to wonder at being able to see Jesus in a reflection, but pulled out of that dive into distraction, when he remembered that it was ghosts you weren’t supposed to be able to see in a mirror. Or was it that you could see ghosts in a mirror?
Physically shaking himself, Jason dragged his mind back into focus on the lecture. Professor Connie Snyder was summarizing her point about the apostle Paul’s relationship to The Letter to the Hebrews, a controversial topic for lots of Christians. But Jason wasn’t finding any excitement in the controversy. When Leonard interrupted Professor Snyder, Jason’s interest slipped back to what Jesus was doing. Leonard taking the floor gave Jason the excuse to investigate why Jesus was standing back there.
Jesus answered Jason’s unspoken question, inserting his voice into Jason’s head. “He really needs encouragement. He needs to feel how much my Father and I love him.” Jesus still rested his eyes on Leonard, as he communicated this to Jason.
Of course, Jason knew that Leonard acted the way he did because he had issues, but that had never factored into any of his less charitable thoughts about his classmate. Initially, Jason assumed that Jesus was telling him about Leonard’s need because Jason was curious.
But Jesus pressed his point. “You could tell him something for me.” He had turned back toward Jason.
Leonard, only a couple of years older than Jason, looked much older somehow. Perhaps it was his choice of plastic rimmed glasses and his side-parted hairstyle which left this impression. Jason was looking more sympathetically at him during this particular monologue, even if not seriously considering telling Leonard how much Jesus loved him. Jason even noted that he agreed with what Leonard was saying. He was draining away the little time left in the course, but Leonard was making a good point, at least.
When he thought about that time waste, Jason shot a thought back at Jesus. “But what about Professor Snyder? Leonard is ruining her class, and she’s pretty new at this. Doesn’t she need encouragement?”
“You can encourage both of them, if you want.” Jesus was back in that role of teasing big brother again, as he grinned at Jason from four rows back.
Jason was beginning to accept that he wasn’t going to be able to escape Jesus’s invitation to help Leonard. He focused on his droning fellow student for a minute. Jason didn’t like the way Leonard’s lips moved in a fishy pucker when he talked—not a bluegill pucker, but a bass kind of pucker.
Maybe all Leonard needed was a friend who wasn’t so cruelly critical as Jason. Where that thought came from, he didn’t stop to wonder, but Jason knew what he had to do.
Back at the community college, all of Kayla’s students were present. This was a bit of a surprise, given the spring weather outside. Kayla was walking around the room, monitoring everyone’s painting. She had demonstrated a more advanced technique for blending acrylic paint to give light and depth to the still life subject. She monitored how each student applied the lesson.
Before class, of course, she had taken a big risk with Laura, and she struggled now to feel comfortable with what she had tried, and how it had gone over with her student.
After introducing the abstract possibility of an intuitive insight into another person’s life, Kayla looked to Jesus to fill in some profound truth that would set Laura free. But all he did was stare lovingly at the young woman. Laura’s face was not helping either. She clouded over, with confusion threatening to break into anger before long.
Kayla felt the need to make something up, in lieu of more promising news from Jesus. “I’m getting this sense of how much you really enjoyed being a little girl, and yet lost some of that joy, when things went bad at home. And it’s like you don’t want to go on and become an adult, for fear of missing out on what was taken from you as a child.”
During what felt to Kayla like inventing a message out of thin air, Jesus kept beaming at Laura. It almost seemed as if he beamed more brightly the more Kayla spoke. As for Laura, something was happening to that dark transformation that had been approaching. Confusion seemed to be turning to profound sadness, instead of anger, and she began to weep quietly, her face red and contorted, as she fought to tame her emotions.
Jesus nodded to Kayla in a gesture that could only mean, “Go on.” So she did.
“I think Jesus is coming up beside you and saying, I want to walk with you, both into your past, and into the future that lies before you. And what really matters to him, is not how much you mature or grow up, or whatever. What matters most to him, is that he gets to be with you through all of it.”
Kayla was trying not to think about what she was saying. She was afraid she was just passing on what Jesus had said to her, and pretending it was for Laura. She was also trying not to worry about the next person who would enter that room, and find her inciting one of her students to tears.
Laura started to nod up and down like she was trying to saw through a log with her head. She seemed to need the longest sweeps of her head to express how right Kayla’s words were. Laura clearly couldn’t speak, still curling into those emotions that Kayla’s words had unleashed.
Against her better judgement, Kayla reached over and held Laura’s shoulder for a few seconds. Laura responded by stepping closer and wrapping her arms around Kayla’s neck. Jesus took the opportunity, to begin stroking Laura’s back, like a mother calming a child after a nightmare.
The minute or two that they stood like this seemed much longer to Kayla, but she didn’t feel like it was fair for her to cut it off. She had started this, after all. And she wasn’t even sure exactly what she had started, let alone what it would mean for her to shut it down for the sake of appearances. One look at Jesus, clearly preoccupied with Laura, released some of that tension for Kayla, who thought to herself, “Well, it’s only a part-time job, and doesn’t pay that well anyway.”
Jesus stopped his stroking, then Laura released her tight grasp, pulling some of Kayla’s hair off of her face, where it had adhered to wet cheeks, during the intense embrace. They all three laughed together. Whether Laura heard Jesus laughing with her, Kayla could only wonder.
Jason hadn’t even begun to worry about having to hold Leonard in his arms, after encouraging him with words from Jesus. He was focused on ramping up his courage to take a stab at delivering a message after class. In his favor, was the fact that Leonard was not in the least intimidating to him, and the reassurance that, if he alienated Leonard by claiming to bring him a word from Jesus, it would be no great loss. Such were the not-so-lofty motivations muddling around in Jason’s head.
True to his word, Jesus came back to Jason, at the end of the class, to help first with encouraging Professor Snyder. “She has plans this summer that she thinks are going to fall through. Encourage her that I am going to help her out, and she is going to have what she hoped for.”
Someone else had stopped to consult with the professor, giving Jason time to decide whether he was going to let Jesus talk him into this. Fear of what Dr. Snyder would think stood at the top of the against list. On Jesus’s side, was the fact that Jason wasn’t going to see her again, and was certain to graduate, even if he made a fool of himself. A confident and content look in Jesus’s eyes, convinced Jason to take a wild shot at it, reserving the possibility of a hasty escape from the room, when he was done.
When she was free, Professor Snyder looked at Jason. In her thirties, with medium length brown hair and caramel colored skin, her brown irises filled most of her almond-shaped eyes. “Hello, Jason. Something I can help you with?” she said, obviously a little surprised that he would stop to talk for more than just a passing “goodbye” or “thanks.”
“Well, actually, I think I might have a sort of encouragement for you that really comes from…” he wasn’t sure how to say this. “…from God, really. Uh, I think you have some plans for this summer, and you’re worrying they’re gonna fall through. But I think God is saying that he’s gonna help you out and give you what you were hoping for.”
They both paused, Jason glancing toward Jesus to check if he forgot anything, and Professor Snyder looking hard at Jason, as if measuring him for some hand-me-downs she had in her closet. In reality, she was trying to remember if she had mentioned anything about her summer plans in class.
Jason answered that unarticulated question. “I believe I just heard about it from Jesus. I don’t have any other way of knowing about your plans.”
Professor Snyder tipped her head slightly and extended her hand. “Well, then that’s how I’ll treat it. And we will just see if his assurance comes true.”
Jason shook her hand and felt a little charge of electricity pass between them, initiated by Jesus touching his shoulder, as if Jason were made of copper and Connie Snyder was a light bulb.
She didn’t say anything, but tipped her head the other way and launched her eyebrows to maximum altitude.
Spreading an uncertain grin, Jason just nodded and headed for the door.
Still standing outside the classroom was, of course, Leonard. He was checking his phone. Jason looked at Jesus to see if he had arranged this. Jesus wasn’t telling.
“I’ll give you the words,” Jesus said.
Jason’s only thought in return was, “You better.”
Sharing Jesus (Seeing Jesus Book 3) Page 17