“Hello, can I help you find something?”
The girls, perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old, both startled at the sudden arrival of help. “Uh, oh, yeah. We could use some help,” said a slender girl with fine features and an air of ironic confidence about her. “We thought we were headed for the music building, but it seems to be missing.”
Kayla laughed just a little nervously. Jason thought of her as the extrovert of the two of them, but his wife was still a bit hesitant when approaching strangers. A hint of her childhood fear of the popular girls in school slowed her reply just slightly.
Kayla played along with the joke. “I can show you where it moved to. It’s on my way.”
“Great, thanks,” said the second girl, a slightly taller, round-faced blonde. “You saved me from having to follow miss know-it-all, here. Might have ended up in Canada, with her directions.”
“Hey, at least I had directions. You couldn’t even find the map on your phone,” the first girl said, with just a little bit of spite.
“I’m Kayla,” she said, interrupting the verbal sparring.
“I’m Bethany, this is Kim,” said the first girl.
“You here for music camp?” Kayla said, guessing they were too young to be college students taking summer classes.
“Piano prodigies at your service,” said Kim, pointing to Bethany. “She’s the star of the camp, not just the pianos.”
Bethany shook her head. “It’s just music camp, not Carnegie Hall.”
“It is a long way from Carnegie Hall,” Kayla said.
Bethany responded with a cynical laugh. “That’s why I chose it. It’s not only out here in the Midwest, but it’s a religious camp. I knew that would drive my mother nuts.”
Kayla didn’t know what to say to that, silently staring with eyebrows raised.
Bethany assessed that surprised look and tried to cover up a bit. “It’s not that I don’t wanna be at this camp, it was just a bonus that it drove my mother crazy.” She checked to see if she had won some of Kayla’s confidence back, with that disclaimer. “My grandmother is really religious. She talks to Jesus like he’s in the room with her, and she’s the most real person I know.”
This intrigued Kayla, especially the part about talking to Jesus. But they had arrived at the music building, and Kim was clearly in a hurry to get inside.
“Gotta use the facilities. Too many sodas,” said the blonde girl.
Bethany waved her on, and hung back with Kayla. “Go on. They probably aren’t started yet.”
Kayla noted Bethany’s lingering and took the opportunity to ask about her choice of this Christian college music camp. “So you do have some kind of faith that makes this a good place for you to come? Or is it just for your grandma?”
“No,” Bethany said, sizing up Kayla the way her mother would have, checking her hair hastily pulled into a curly ponytail, and her baggy summer clothes. She could tell that her mother wouldn’t be very impressed. This made the young woman in front of her even more interesting to Bethany. “I do believe, especially the things my grandma says. She even got her hips healed by some kinda miracle.”
“Your grandma sounds interesting,” Kayla said. They were standing in the shade of a maple tree that had reached its summer fullness. Sheltered from the bright sunlight, she felt that she had a better look at the complex expressions on Bethany’s face.
“She would say she’s just a regular old woman that had this crazy thing happen with Jesus showing up at her house,” Bethany said. She stopped when she saw Kayla’s eyes get big and her eyebrows curl down to meet them.
“Jesus in her house?” Kayla said, trying not to sound shocked.
“Yeah. I know it’s hard to believe. But if you met her, you’d know she’s not some loony church lady making things up.” Bethany defended her grandmother, but sounded to Kayla like she was still working on convincing herself.
“Oh, I don’t have any problem believing it,” Kayla said. “I’m just stunned by the coincidence that I met you. You see, I had the same thing happen to me and my fiancé…I mean, husband.”
“What?”
In about ten minutes, surely keeping Bethany from her camp session, Kayla gave a synopsis of the visit from Jesus, all the things he did, and the ways he brought miracles into her life, as well as, to the people she knew.
“Wow!” Bethany said, her big blue eyes focused on Kayla, as if she had found the treasure she had been looking for. “It is a coincidence that I met you.”
Kayla snickered. “Well, I know you need to get to camp. But maybe we can get together again before it’s over. Let me give you my phone number.”
Bethany pulled her phone out of her pocket. “I would love that.”
That was all it took for the fifteen-year-old to open the door to another meeting with Kayla, and a long talk that led to Bethany moving from talking about what Jesus had done with her grandmother, to what Jesus was doing with her.
When she left that meeting with Bethany, later that week, Kayla had something to tell Jason. But, first, she had to wait for him to tell his news, about the way Steve had accepted an invitation to join the worship band at another area church, one where Jason knew Steve would have a chance to encounter Jesus for himself.
The phrase, “my cup runneth over,” came to Kayla’s mind. Then she told Jason all about her long talk with Bethany.
“I got to hear all about her grandmother, who lives somewhere up in Wisconsin, and had this experience where Jesus like showed up in her house, and just hung out with her for a few days.”
Jason laughed. “Sounds familiar. Maybe we should form a support group.”
Kayla gave him the look intended to discourage his irreverence. He turned more serious.
“Teasing aside, things really have changed for us. Look at my writing,” Jason said, motioning to his computer in reference to the hours he had been spending there, pounding out his new novel. “I didn’t ask Jesus to make me more motivated to write, or anything like that, though I knew deep down I needed it. But what he did with all that healing stuff was exactly what I needed to get motivated.
Kayla stepped forward and curled onto Jason’s lap, her arms around his neck. “It’s like you’re more yourself now. Like the best of what you were before, is the way you are every day.”
He raised his eyebrows and looked up at his smiling wife. “You really think so?”
She nodded a wise affirmation of the truth that had just come spilling out.
“That’s probably the best thing anyone’s ever said to me. Anyone who doesn’t go invisible, I mean.”
Later that night, a warm and breezy Friday in late May, Jason got a call from Donnie.
“Dude! I got a new job. It’s great, and I got it ‘cause I wasn’t nervous or anxious in the interview. I was just chill and right there with what the guy was saying. And I know I wouldn’t have been like that before that crazy time in the basement.”
Jason cheered the good news.
Donnie continued. “I think maybe you saved my life, or something.”
Sobering a bit, Jason said, “Well it was Jesus, really. But it was awesome to do it with him.”
They talked for a bit longer, but Jason had to interrupt. “Well, I gotta go. We’re going to meet with these people who want to do a show for Kayla’s paintings. Dinner and schmoozing tonight.”
“Great,” Donnie said. “Hey, I’ll say a prayer for you guys.”
“Cool. Thanks, man.”
Kayla came out of the bathroom, her hair cinched into a bun, with little ringlets falling in front of each ear. At times like these, Jason struggled with wanting to just keep his beautiful wife at home, where no one else would see her—as opposed to staying by her side, while she charged out to challenge the world. There will be time for both, he assured himself.
“You look magnificent,” he said, finding a good landing place between those competing desires. “They’re gonna love you. But, just remember, I loved you first.”
Making her melting heart noise, Kayla maneuvered in for a hug and kiss, while still preserving her hair and makeup—a move that takes more skill than landing a 747. She pulled it off, and then hooked her hand on Jason’s arm, as they left their little apartment, slaloming between the packed boxes, to face the world, scary, promising and uncertain, all at the same time.
And they did it in confidence that Jesus was right there with both of them, and with the people they were going to meet. Sharing these adventures was, of course, all part of sharing life, but also part of sharing Jesus with each other, and with that big wide world.
Sharing Jesus (Seeing Jesus Book 3) Page 25