A Story about the Spiritual Journey

by Sharon Garlough Brown

  Hannah sped to her comfort zone. She knew how to be alongside grieving families. “I’ll throw some things in the car and be there in a few hours. When’s the memorial service?”

  “Saturday.” That was okay. Hannah could skip the sacred journey group. It was more important for her to be in Chicago. “Hannah . . . I’ve already talked with Steve this morning. He’s got everything covered here. He thinks it’s important for Heather to have a role to play in this, and she won’t be able to do that if you’re here.” There was silence. “Hannah?”

  “I’ll call Steve.”

  September 25

  9 p.m.

  I spent all day walking the beach. I didn’t know what else to do with myself. Nancy called this morning with the news that George died yesterday. He leaves behind Lindy and four little girls. I feel sick inside. Absolutely sick. The funeral is on Saturday, and I’m tempted to drive down for it. But Steve told me this morning he wants me to think long and hard about my reasons for wanting to come.

  So I’ve been thinking about it today, and I realized that I’d only be going for myself. I’d pretend I was there for Lindy, but Lindy doesn’t need me there. We have no deep personal connection to one another, and there’s nothing I can offer her that other people aren’t offering her right now. I hate admitting that. I hate admitting that my whole reason for going down to Chicago would be entirely selfish—a way of inserting myself back into that world for attention and affirmation. Like a drug. Steve was right. I have a compulsive desire to be needed.

  When did I become a codependent pastor?

  Nancy told me another bit of pastoral news. Mark and Christina Cooper found out yesterday that they’ve lost another baby. I did the funeral for Adelaide, their tiny stillborn daughter, just two years ago. Dear God, why? They’ve had hundreds of people praying for them for years now, and they keep having these losses.

  I hate their suffering. Especially when it’s in your power to give them a child, Lord. And that’s my problem. If I didn’t believe so passionately that you have the power to intervene in people’s lives, then it wouldn’t hurt so much when you don’t.

  There. I said it.

  You know what I realized today? I realized that my very first image of God died a long time ago, and I didn’t even know it.

  My first image of God was the Father who fixed things. Like Dad. Nobody could fix things like Dad. I was thinking today about Brown Bear and how Miss Betty tried to fix him after one of his eyes got lost. I was so upset when she brought him back to me. He wasn’t the same bear, and I cried and cried. Daddy found me crying in my room, and he wrapped his arms around me and said he would find eyes that recognized me. He promised me that everything would be okay. And he was right. I don’t know where he managed to find eyes for my bear, but he restored him, good as new. There wasn’t anything Daddy couldn’t fix.

  Until—

  Until everything imploded, and I realized that even Dad couldn’t fix it. Daddy didn’t have the power to make it all better. And that’s when I started looking to God to fix broken things. And slowly—slowly God mended things. And I trusted him.

  I trusted you, Lord. I watched you heal, fix, and mend so many things that I came to believe there was nothing you couldn’t do. You were my Heavenly Father, who faithfully fixed broken things. That was my first image of you.

  But you don’t fix things, Lord. You don’t. I’ve watched young mothers die of breast cancer. I’ve buried children. I’ve wept with parents whose teenagers got killed by drunk drivers. I’ve sat with a front-row view into their grief and disappointment with you, Lord. I didn’t realize until today how much all that heartache has actually affected me. The cumulative weight of other people’s losses has steadily eroded my own hope and faith. I didn’t even realize it until today. It’s like the disappointment arrived so quietly, I didn’t know it was there until I spoke it out loud.

  I kept thinking about John 11 today. Mary and Martha send word to Jesus that their brother Lazarus is sick. “The one you love is sick, Lord,” they say. They’d watched Jesus heal strangers. They’d heard about him speaking a word from a distance and someone getting healed. So certainly, Jesus would come and heal a friend, right? Or at least send forth God’s healing power with a word of life, right?

  Wrong.

  Jesus loved Lazarus SO he stayed where he was. He didn’t come. Yes, I know the punch line of the story. I know Jesus’ delay was for God’s glory to be made known in raising Lazarus from the dead. But today I was like Martha, confronting Jesus and accusing him with the words, “Lord, if you had been here . . . ”

  Lord, if only you’d been there for Mark and Christina. For George and Lindy. And for all the others I’ve wept with. Yes, I know this world isn’t all we get. I know there’s resurrection. I know you’re there to comfort and weep with us.

  But sometimes I feel so disappointed. So disappointed. It all feels heavy on me right now. Really heavy. And I don’t know what to do about it.

  Help, Lord.

  Please.

  Mara

  Mara tried to hold on to Julie Conner’s hand as tightly as she could. She knew the other team had identified her as the chain’s weakest link, and they would be aiming their runner at her.

  Again.

  As Mara’s team chanted the words, “Red rover, red rover, send Audrey right over!” Mara gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. When Audrey easily broke through Mara’s defense, her team groaned. Mara felt her face get hot as Audrey chose Julie to take back to the other team.

  “Okay, everybody!” the opposing captain yelled. “Brace yourself for The Whale! Red rover, red rover, send Mara right over!”

  Mara lowered her head and shoulders and ran as hard as she could, straight for Denise and Kristie’s clasped hands. But when she reached the other side, Kristie and Denise let go. Mara went tumbling face first into the ground, her dress coming up above her waist to expose dingy gray underwear. The other girls squealed with laughter.

  “She’s so fat I was afraid she was gonna break my arm off!” Denise exclaimed.

  “Good thing you let go, Denise,” Kristie said, still laughing. “You coulda been crushed!”

  Mara picked herself up, smoothed down her dress, and trudged back to her team, bringing Kristie with her. If only Miss Pierce had been watching! But Miss Pierce was deeply engrossed in a conversation with another teacher over by the jungle gym, and they had their backs turned to the field. Mara wasn’t going to tattle this time. That would only make things worse.

  “Hey, Mara!” her captain sneered as Mara wiped her clammy palms on her skirt and gripped Kristie’s hand. “I hope they keep asking for you. That’s the only way you’re ever gonna win us any points! Hey, you guys!” she called over to the other team. “Keep yelling for The Whale, okay? She’s our secret weapon!”

  And everyone laughed again.

  “So, Mara, tell me more about your image of Jesus choosing you.”

  Mara was sitting in Dawn’s office, staring at a frayed patch on the armrest of her chair. She wondered if any of Dawn’s other clients avoided eye contact by staring at the patch. “I don’t know what else to say about it.” She kept counting the individual strands of fiber. “I just wish it were real.”

  “What difference would it make to you if it really had happened—if Jesus really had chosen you to walk with him and be his disciple?”

  Mara pulled at the strands, rubbing them between her fingers. “I’d feel special, I guess. I’ve never been chosen for anything my entire life.” Not even by Tom, she thought. Most women could at least say they had been chosen by their husbands. But not Mara. When she became pregnant with Kevin, Tom had been worried that she would have another abortion. So he married her. He had chosen Kevin—not Mara.

  “If Jesus didn’t choose you, Mara, how did you become his disciple?”

  Mara stopped fiddling with the upholstery strands and began spinning her wedding band. Round and round and round. “I chose him, I guess. And sin
ce Jesus never rejects anybody, he had to say yes.” It was the first time she had ever been quite that blunt about it. “Doesn’t Jesus say somewhere that he never turns anybody away?” She looked up to meet Dawn’s gaze.

  Dawn replied, “Jesus also said, ‘You did not choose me, but I chose you.’ Jesus has chosen you, Mara. You weren’t just the leftover God had to take, simply because you were standing there. God didn’t choose you out of pity. Jesus really has chosen you to be with him because he loves you and wants to be with you.” Mara’s eyes filled with tears, and she looked away. “The moment you truly believe that,” Dawn said quietly, “is the moment everything shifts for you.”

  Mara pushed her shopping cart up and down the supermarket aisles, trying to process what Dawn had said about being loved and chosen. What difference would it make? How would anything change? She would still be stuck in a loveless marriage. She’d still be bearing the consequences of a lifetime of bad choices. What difference would it make?

  As she reached for a box of Raisin Bran, something on her right wrist caught her attention. Over the years her tattoo had become such a familiar part of her physical features that she hardly noticed it. Or perhaps she had learned to ignore it. Now the image stared back at her, unblinking: the image of the all-seeing eye.

  She had gotten the tattoo not long after she had come to faith—a reminder that the God she had encountered in her own wilderness of fear and confusion was the same God that Hagar, the slave-girl, had met in the desert.

  El Roi, the “God who sees.”

  Hagar’s story from Genesis had deeply resonated with Mara when she first heard it preached at the Crossroads House shelter. Hagar had been trying to escape too, running for her life from an abusive mistress. She was pregnant, frightened, and hopeless. But God found her in the desert wasteland and revealed his presence and his promises.

  God had also found Mara and little Jeremy as they wandered in the Kingsbury bus station. God had stopped Mara along her escape route, speaking a message of hope through faithful servants at Crossroads.

  El Roi, the God who saw her.

  What began as a symbol of compassion, however, quickly deteriorated to a sign of judgment. She had marked herself with an indelible reminder that God was watching over her. But without her being aware of the shift, the image had morphed into a stern warning that a holy God was watching her every move, scrutinizing her life with disapproval. She began to hope God’s eye would have the power to frighten her out of temptation and keep her in obedience. She desperately hoped the reminder of God seeing her would arrest her compulsive quest to find love and acceptance in the arms of men who knew the right things to say.

  Instead, the eye accused, condemned, and shamed her whenever she stumbled.

  So she married Tom when he suggested it, hoping Tom would be able to save her from her sin. But Tom had not been the rescuing messiah she had longed for.

  Yes, he had provided a marriage bed, a house, and financial security; but Tom had no remedy for Mara’s guilt, regret, and shame.

  Though he knew the details of her past, he had never thought they were particularly significant. During their fifteen years together, Mara had lost count of the number of times he’d said to her, “Get over it, will you? Lots of women get abortions. Lots of people have affairs and sleep around. If your faith is making you feel guilty about everything, then I wish you’d just dump the God crap and be free.”

  Mara sighed as she loaded her grocery cart with things she shouldn’t eat.

  What did it really mean for her to name God, El Roi? Katherine had asked them to consider their images of God. Maybe she should read Hagar’s story again.

  The days went by, and Mara kept finding excuses. The busyness of the boys’ extra-curricular activities kept her running. By the time she finished shuttling them back and forth between school and football and cross country and scouts, she was exhausted.

  Dawn had insisted that her experience of imagining herself in the Bible story had been a God-sighting. “You encountered Jesus in a really powerful way as you listened to that story about him choosing the disciples,” Dawn said. “Focus on what it means to be chosen by Jesus.”

  But Mara didn’t have the energy for deep thoughts about God. She was tired. So tired. It took every ounce of physical, emotional, and mental strength just to keep the family going.

  She sat one night on the couch after the boys went to bed, watching reality television with a tub of chocolate ice cream on her lap. What was wrong with her? If she could sit for hours in front of mindless entertainment, couldn’t she find time for God? She ought to be reading, praying, seeking. Especially if Dawn was right about Jesus choosing her.

  If Dawn was right.

  Mara stared at the tattoo, and the tattoo stared back. Unwaveringly. Incessantly. El Roi was watching her every move, and El Roi was disappointed in her. Again.

  She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t bear the guilt anymore. If the sacred journey was just going to make her feel guilty, then maybe Tom was right. She didn’t need any more guilt.

  Shifting her position on the couch, Mara reached for the remote and changed the channel.

  Meg

  When Meg got home from first grade on a bright autumn day, the house was locked. She called and called for Mama, but there was no answer. Not knowing what to do, she sat down on the front porch steps and began to cry.

  Where was Mama?

  As long minutes ticked by, she became more and more frantic. Maybe something had happened to Mama. Maybe something terrible had happened, and Mama was never coming back. Like Daddy. Something terrible had happened to Daddy, and Jesus took him away to heaven. She cried harder.

  Just then Mrs. Anderson, their next-door neighbor, arrived home. She came over and sat down next to Meg, putting her arm around her. “It’s okay, honey,” she said. “I’m sure she’s coming soon. Tell you what—let’s go over to my house and wait together, okay? I’ve got some chocolate chip cookies I baked this morning, and I need someone to help me eat them.” Still whimpering, Meg grasped Mrs. Anderson’s hand and followed her to her house, where she kept vigil at the front window.

  When Mama pulled into the driveway fifteen minutes later, Meg flew to her, sobbing. “What on earth is the matter?” Mama asked. Meg clung to her, gulping for air, unable to speak.

  Mrs. Anderson came up from behind and gently patted Meg’s head. “Meg was worried when you weren’t here,” she explained, continuing to stroke Meg’s blonde curls.

  Mama untangled herself from Meg’s arms. “I was only at the store, Meg.” She crisply thanked Mrs. Anderson for her help and then carried her shopping bags inside.

  Mrs. Anderson knelt in front of Meg, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Everything’s okay. How about if I talk to your mama later and set up a time for you to come over and help me bake? Would you like that?” Meg nodded, still sniffling. Mrs. Anderson drew Meg close and kissed her forehead. Then Meg dashed inside after her mother.

  Meg arrived at the New Hope Retreat Center at 8 a.m. on the last Saturday of September, wearing sensible shoes. When she reached the courtyard, she was relieved to be the only one there. She wanted to walk and pray before their ten o’clock group without being observed or scrutinized.

  Standing at the entry of the labyrinth, she tried to summon the courage to take the first step. What if she did it wrong? What if she got lost and confused? What if she didn’t hear anything from God? What if . . . ?

  Unable to stem the tide of her anxious thoughts, Meg tried to pray one of the few Scripture passages she knew by memory: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.”

  Her mind went blank, and she couldn’t remember the rest. Mrs. Anderson had helped her memorize the Twenty-third Psalm when she was a very little girl, and now it was gone.

  Meg stopped, overwhelmed by a sense of disappointment and disapproval. Withou
t bothering to finish the path to the center, she simply left the labyrinth and went over to sit on the corner bench. She was pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. Why had she actually thought she would be able to take a sacred journey? Her mother had been right. There were so many things that were simply too hard for her. She was weak. Too weak. She buried her face in her hands.

  “Well, Meg, here you are in your sensible shoes, ready to walk.”

  Meg was startled. She hadn’t heard anyone approach. Wiping her eyes, she looked up into Katherine’s smiling face.

  “Forgive me,” Katherine said gently, sitting down beside her on the bench. “My office overlooks the courtyard, and I happened to notice you didn’t walk for very long.” She handed Meg a tissue. “I wasn’t going to interrupt, but as I watched you I had the distinct impression that you weren’t meant to be sitting alone.”

  Meg blew her nose as delicately as possible. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she murmured. “I just don’t know. I didn’t know how to turn off all the voices in my head, so I tried to pray some Bible verses I learned when I was a little girl, and I couldn’t remember them. For years I prayed the Twenty-third Psalm every night when I went to bed. And now I can’t remember it past the first couple of lines. How pathetic is that?”

  Katherine lightly touched her shoulder. “Not pathetic at all,” she assured her. “Just take what you already have and meditate on that. Perhaps there’s something in those first lines that the Spirit is inviting you to notice. What do you remember?”

  Meg closed her eyes so she could concentrate. “‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,’” she said. “‘He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.’ That’s it. That’s as far as it goes.” She blew her nose again.

  Katherine said, “You could spend a lifetime contemplating the beauty and richness of just those phrases. Which one speaks to you today?”