by B. D. Riehl
The building was obviously old, with no roof and dozens of pillars spread out. What once must have been a very large and intimidating monument, was now, while still impressive, crumbling and overrun with foliage. It reminded Charlotte of something she would see on the Discovery Channel.
The lotus buds displayed the face of the king on all sides, and she looked with wonder on his curved lips and closed eyes. Meditation, at least the emptying of the mind, was foreign to her. From what she understood, meditation should be the filling of the mind with the word of God.
Megan led her through the temple ruins talking about the Khmer people and the history of that place as she knew it. She pointed to walls still standing, every inch covered in intricate carvings; pictures of what life had been. She explained that the carvings had been done after the stones were set in place. They imagined that if the carvers made mistakes in their work, they probably did not survive to make more.
“The thing I love most about these is that they could have been drawn today.” She pointed to one carving of a woman carrying water, a long pole balanced across her shoulders with buckets on either side. “So many people here still carry things this way. I’ve even seen chairs stacked on either side of a pole like that. It’s amazing what can be done when you don’t have modern conveniences to rely on.”
Charlotte nodded. The walls certainly had a story to tell. Almost like Egyptian hieroglyphics, except these were raised, carved into the stone and very elaborate.
The humid air wrapped around them, heavy and dense, as they explored. Charlotte breathed in the scent of hot stone and moss, the contrast both stale and intoxicating. She closed her eyes for a moment, knowing she would only smell that fragrance in that exact place.
“This is just the main structure of many temples and buildings throughout a vast area,” Megan continued her monologue. “The Khmers were quite brilliant. They created an intricate water system with giant reservoirs designed to help with the rice crop. There is a place in the river where they carved fertility images during the dry seasons into the rock of the riverbed. When the water swelled on its way to a waterfall, and eventually, the canals they had created, it was believed the water was holy and, as a result, produced fertile rice crops. Locals and tourists still pay homage, so to speak, to the source of the water. People, monks included, play and bathe at the base of the waterfall. They think it will cleanse them and bless them. I wish I could tell every one of them that Christ alone is the Living Water.”
Charlotte followed Megan as she hiked up and across stone stairs, one level after another, leading them higher and higher. As the day grew hotter, the water bottles they’d brought grew hot as well. Charlotte imagined that riverbed and longed to bathe in its refreshing flow.
Megan finally stopped at the base of the tallest, steepest stairs yet. “This is it.” She smiled impishly before she began to climb. The steps came up to the middle of her thigh.
Charlotte’s mouth dropped open in disbelief as she watched Megan’s backside hoist her way up each step laboriously. Was she serious?
Charlotte looked around and realized she could either follow and possibly learn something or stay here and pout. She placed one hand on the hot stone and hauled herself up. One step at a time she climbed. Five steps up, she was sure she was going to die. As the mind does when the body is pressed, she began to torture herself with thoughts of her wobbly legs giving out and her body tumbling down the steps. She would never see her girls again. Never know what happened to the little Cambodian baby who held her heart. Never kiss Sam again. She would at last meet her Creator and perhaps finally understand this fog and look back on it with disgust in the glorious light of Christ. A few more steps upward had her fighting back tears.
What was Megan thinking? This wouldn’t help!
Now she would be too sore to even hold Noah, let alone care for him. A couple steps more and she was angry.
Why, Lord? Why am I here? You are so great and powerful. I believe that. So where is Your power over me, Lord? If I am Yours and indwelt with your Spirit, why can’t I get over this? Why can’t I climb out of this fog? Why won’t You help me? Why am I only good enough for nursing babies? Why can’t I live right before You or have more time for things like ministry or missions? I will never be enough.
At the last steps, Charlotte’s body was so tired, her emotions so spent, she could do nothing more than struggle against her screaming muscles, fever-hot brow, wobbly arms, and rollercoaster emotions before she, at last, climbed onto the top of the platform.
She hesitated only a moment before she fell onto her back next to Megan, who had arrived only minutes before her, and sat with her feet on the top step, chugging water from her bottle. The two rested for a moment. The only sound between them was their labored breath and the scattered chatter of tourists throughout the ruins.
Megan passed her a new bottle of water from her backpack. Once the black spots receded from Charlotte’s vision, and she caught her breath, she sat up and took a few large swigs from the warm bottle. She wanted to drain it but was afraid of heaving the contents of her belly right there on the so-called holy place. Instead, Charlotte poured some in her hands and splashed her face and neck, her salty sweat clearing out of her eyes and drying on her shoulders.
Megan kept her eyes trained on the stunning landscape of tropical trees and dotted civilization far beyond the ancient ruins. The two sat side by side on the top step as tourists stepped around them, snapping pictures and pointing to different aspects of the temple. At last, Megan cleared her throat.
“There is a place in this temple where a scene of hell and the final judgment is depicted in a carving. The judge and demons have had their faces jabbed out by locals through the years. In essence they’re saying, ‘Bad, bad, bad’ and getting rid of them. Those stairs we just climbed are a representation of the climb into the heavens into paradise. They are steep and awful to represent the difficult work and dedication required to reach eternity.” She rotated on her hip to face Charlotte.
“Isn’t it interesting that most religions have some form of heaven, some form of hell and judgment? And all—all but God’s way—require works to get to heaven? They require our own actions and thoughts and deeds to refine us and get us through.” Megan paused, looked out again to the landscape.
“Charlotte, I don’t know what it’s like to be a stay-at-home mom. I don’t know if all moms feel the way you do, that you’re just sitting at home making no real difference and no strides to furthering God’s kingdom. I do know I have felt stuck before. Even here working with Deliverance. I come here when I lose my faith because I see evidence of a faithful and everlasting Lord here. I see that He has gone before me, and all I need to do is follow Him.”
“In a Hindu temple?” Charlotte asked, tears of frustration and despair again filling her eyes.
“Look past the temple to what is happening to it. Trees and brush growing throughout, their roots digging in and taking over. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
Indeed, Charlotte saw many trees growing right through the structure, their roots tumbling down and over high walls like giant spidery fingers reaching through and over stone and earth, grabbing on tight. Moss grew on most low surfaces, and there was a vibrant canopy of green shrouding numerous places around them.
“This place was built about one thousand years ago. The land it’s on established by God long before that. For reasons no one really knows, the Khmer’s abandoned the land. This place was taken over by the jungle until a Frenchman discovered it about four hundred years ago. As you see by the scaffolding in places, there is a lot of work going into the preservation of this place. But not by the Cambodians as much as by other countries. They are just not in the mindset to focus on it right now. Nor are they, as a country, preserving themselves. Poverty and despair can do that to people: keep them trapped and helpless. Sometimes others have to come alongside and help for a time. Sometimes you don’t feel the help or see the purpose until you look back
on it. How old are your girls?”
Charlotte blinked at the subject change. “Uh, Leah is five, Joanna is three, and baby Joy is ten months.” Oh, how she missed them.
“I’ll bet Leah has grown so much since she was Joy’s age,” Megan commented, watching Charlotte with one cheek resting in her hand.
“Oh, definitely,” Charlotte smiled fondly. “I remember days when all I got accomplished was making the bed and holding her. I was so overwhelmed as to what to do with her. Do I play with her? Cuddle her? Let her cry? Get on a schedule?” Charlotte scrunched her face at the thought. “Poor Joy is very much a third child. I put her down more, am more relaxed now. Things that would frazzle me with Leah have become no big deal with Joy and Joanna.”
Megan smiled and let Charlotte’s words sink in a little.
The mother grunted a bit in frustration. “I see what you’re saying. I know this will pass. I know my job as a mom is important. I know that God is working His purpose in me, and I just can’t see the big picture. I know—”
“Wait.” Megan interrupted her. “Before you get worked up, I know that you know. Even better, you know that you know the answers to your frustrations. Do you think the problem could be knowledge and not wisdom?”
Charlotte, annoyed, swatted a flying insect away. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, wisdom is applied knowledge. So what good is knowledge, really, if you’re not going to apply it? You know God is good and working His purpose and that these feelings will pass. So maybe focus on that knowledge and apply it over your emotions and feelings. No matter how you feel, apply the knowledge of all that God has already done and of the assurance that He is doing more.”
Megan pointed to the grueling steps at their feet. “We serve a God, Charlotte, which walked down those steps to us, laid us across His shoulders and is bringing us back up. The journey is difficult—impossible even—when we hop off and try to climb ourselves. In God’s world, we can’t even reach the next step without Him. His climb and dedication to us has nothing to do with our strength or feelings. It all has to do with our willingness to rest in His embrace and direction and call out encouragement to others along the way. We only move onward and upward with Him. Only He can see the landscape beyond the next step. We need only to rest in our assurance of Him and follow His lead.”
Charlotte swiped a tear from her cheek. She stared for several minutes at the steps, her muscles still screaming from the climb and chewed on Megan’s words.
Wisdom over knowledge. Fact over feeling.
She thought of the numerous times she had tried to teach similar lessons, on a much smaller scale, to her girls. Could the answer be as simple as this? Wisdom over knowledge. She had the tools. Was she willing to lay aside her emotion and put the tools to good use—in His hands?
“You’re right. So right. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that what we read in Scripture is real and not just words.”
Megan nodded. “I agree. I think God has an answer for that right now too. Ready to walk again?”
Charlotte groaned in protest when Megan stood up and held out her hand. “Right now I like your picture of Christ carrying us across His shoulders. Sure you don’t want to be like Him now and carry me down?” She laughed at the look Megan gave her, took the offered hand, and pulled herself up.
***
Megan led Charlotte down through wood scaffolding, past signs that read something like “Keep Out: Danger!” beneath giant, shady trees, and over monstrous tree roots that infiltrated the sacred space. In a shady, private alcove covered in pictures, Megan pointed to one small, seemingly insignificant block in a stone wall. One of many pictures in a row among dozens of rows.
Charlotte stepped forward and leaned closer. With a squint she turned to Megan in disbelief. “Is that—?”
“A dinosaur? Yes, it is.” Megan smiled.
Charlotte, in disbelief, reached out to touch the carving, as if to assure herself of its presence. A perfectly preserved stone block with a stegosaurus carved into the face. It reminded Charlotte of a glow-in-the dark toy she had as a kid.
“When did you say this place was built?” she turned questioningly to Megan.
“About one thousand years ago.”
“Then how—”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure a lot of people even know it’s here. Some locals showed it to me a few months after I got here. Pretty amazing, right? I’ve since wondered about it. But to me, Charlotte, it just gives validity to this God we serve and His word. Scientists say that dinosaurs lived millions of years before man. But the Bible says just the opposite. We know God created all animals and man at the same time. Adam would have named the dinosaurs, just as he did the other animals. We know they were on the Ark, so they must have lived at least long enough to be here after the fact. I guess the Khmer’s could have found a perfectly preserved fossil, but how would they know exactly what it looked like in life? This isn’t a depiction of a skeleton.”
Charlotte nodded. The picture was so similar to ones she’d seen in science books, it was uncanny. No, they couldn’t have done this based on a fossil.
Megan continued, “I think dinosaurs lived long enough after the flood for there to have been sightings of them. The flood explains why we have so many that died around the same time, but we know from the Bible that many lived afterwards. I think they must have gone extinct in the same way many animals today are going extinct.”
Charlotte stared at the stone for a long time. It was a beautiful carving, so perfectly aligned with others all around it. It wasn’t like discovering the Ark itself or the Ark of the Covenant. Not like something holy and sought after.
But in this shady humid place, with birds singing and the tropical breeze moving through the stones and trees, wafting the hot stone and moss fragrance through her hair, Charlotte felt a shiver of holy assurance—a small glimpse of confirmation of the truth behind God’s word and the care of His people.
Megan pulled a small Bible out of her pack, and Charlotte sat next to her on an ancient tree root as she read aloud from the book of Job:
“Behold now, Behemoth, which I made as well as you;
He eats grass like an ox.
Behold now, his strength in his loins
And his power in the muscles of his belly.
He bends his tail like a cedar;
The sinews of his thighs are knit together.
His bones are tubes of bronze;
His limbs are like bars of iron.
He is the first of the ways of God;
Let his maker bring near his sword.
Surely the mountains bring him food,
And all the beasts of the field play there.
Under the lotus plants, he lies down,
In the covert of the reeds of the marsh.
The lotus plants cover him with shade;
The willows of the brook surround him.”
She closed her Bible and placed a hand over Charlotte’s, which rested on the stone between them. “Charlotte, I know that God’s word is true. I know that if you belong to Him that He will bring glory to His name, through you, however He sees fit, even if it doesn’t feel glorious or glamorous. And He loves you and is powerful enough to override even the most mundane of feelings. Promise me something?”
Charlotte, light and heavy at once, full of assurance in the goodness of God and feeling guilt over her selfish foolishness, wiped a stray tear from the corner of her eye. “What’s that?”
“Don’t ever forget this beautiful secret spoken over you in the shade of these trees. Don’t forget this stone, this undeniable proof of one of creation’s biggest mysteries, hidden in a temple ruin in a land where the lotus flower blooms.”
Charlotte breathed out, eyes on the sunlight streaming through the leaves, warming the stone all around them. She shook her head and sniffed, “I promise.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
After the fire, the threesome went back to the dorms. Luke was invited to bunk
with Kiet, who was out working, they assumed; and Lydia and Michelle waved goodnight to him before they made their way down the hall to their own room. They talked late into the night about everything from Lydia’s experience on the way to that camping trip at school, to Michelle’s job at Chick-fil-A.
“I actually work there to pay for school. There’s no way my parents could afford it, and I think paying the tuition makes me take pride in my schoolwork, you know? I could have worked at a clothing store or something, but this way I never have to work Sundays.”
Lydia was amazed and said so. Michelle shrugged in response. Lydia thought about her job and how often she asked to be scheduled on Sundays so that she could avoid church. Then she used her paychecks to pretty herself up with tans and salon visits, clothes and accessories.
They talked about the girls on Walking Street and what they had seen.
“Why is the world not standing up against this?” Lydia raged. “These are little girls and probably boys. How can so many people come and take advantage of this like it’s no big deal? It makes me sick!”
Michelle agreed. “I don’t understand it either.”
They fell silent for a moment before Lydia said, “Can I ask you something without you getting mad at me?”
“Shoot.”
“How can you believe in a hands-on God after seeing this? If He is as all-powerful as you guys claim He is, why won’t He reach down and pluck them out? I don’t doubt He exists, but to me, this just proves He created the world and stepped back to let us deal with things ourselves.”
The girls sat on twin beds across from each other. Michelle plucked at the strands on the blanket on her bed for a moment before she scooted forward. “When I was about twelve, my parents let me see Schindler’s List. You remember that movie? They had a special showing or something at the dollar theater. I was so shaken up by it. When we left the theater I remember I grabbed my dad’s hand and said, ‘At least that won’t happen to us since we’re Christians.’” She shook her head at the memory. “I’ll never forget what he said to me. He leaned right down in the parking lot next to our car, looked me in the eye, and said, ‘Sweetie, it very well could happen to us because we’re Christians. This world was not accepting of Christ, and it will be no more accepting of His followers.’”