A Story about the Spiritual Journey

by Sharon Garlough Brown

  Hearing the door shut behind him, Charissa settled back into bed and stared up at the ceiling. C’mon, pull yourself together, she commanded. She couldn’t afford to waste her energy on futile introspection. She still had to figure out how she was going to handle Dr. Allen, and she was running out of time.

  She got up, got dressed, and removed the vacuum from the closet.

  It was time to clean.

  Mara stood outside at the Crossroads House shelter, listening to the sounds of boisterously happy children at play. For the past year she had been volunteering two Sunday afternoons a month, helping to take care of transitioning and homeless kids while their moms attended a Bible study.

  As she scanned the playground, she noticed one little boy—maybe four or five years old—hiding behind a tree. Every now and again he would poke his dark curly head around the trunk, looking to see if anyone was coming. But the other children didn’t seem to be playing hide-and-seek, and Mara wondered how long he had been waiting for someone to find him. She strolled over toward the tree.

  “I wonder if there’s anyone hiding anywhere around here,” she said with a loud voice.

  The child darted behind the tree again and scrunched himself into a little ball.

  “I have been looking and looking, but I just can’t seem to find anyone,” she said, stooping to look beneath a bush. “Nobody there! Well . . . I wonder if there’s anybody over here under this slide.” She went over to the slide and walked around it several times. “Nope! Nobody under the slide. I wonder if there’s anybody over there near that tree.” She heard him giggle. “I sure hope I find him soon!”

  He jumped out from behind the tree. “Boo!” he exclaimed, throwing his hands up into the air and laughing.

  “Oh! There you are!” She read his name tag. “I have been looking everywhere for you, Jay-Jay! You are such a good hider!”

  He twirled his dark curly hair around his finger. “I know,” he said, clutching her hand happily. “Let’s play again! Close your eyes and count, okay?” Mara half-covered her eyes with her hand, watching him to make sure he didn’t stray too far away.

  Jeremy had loved to play hide-and-seek too. In fact, Mara remembered playing with him on the Crossroads House playground years ago. Years and years ago.

  She could still hear her precious little boy squealing with delight whenever she found him. “You always find me!” Jeremy would exclaim, skipping around her.

  “You’re right, Jer. No matter where you hide, I’ll always find you!”

  “Because I’m your little boy, right?”

  “That’s right, honey.”

  “And you love me very, very much,” he would say before shoving his thumb into his mouth.

  Mara would embrace him and reply, “That’s right, Jeremy! You belong to me, and I love you very, very much.”

  Mara watched Jay-Jay run and hide behind the same tree again. Smiling, she called out, “Ready or not, here I come!”

  As she removed her hand from her face, her gaze landed upon her tattooed wrist: the eye. God’s all-seeing, unblinking eye. Mara stared at the tattoo, and the tattoo stared back. Unwaveringly. Incessantly. El Roi was watching.

  That’s when she heard it: a gentle, tender echo of words spoken with deep feeling and great love.

  No matter where you hide, I’ll always find you. You belong to me, and I love you very, very much.

  As her eyes welled up with healing tears, Mara saw and understood. In that sacred moment, standing on a playground, surrounded by laughing children, she finally understood.

  Love had been seeking and finding her all along.

  Charissa

  Nine-year-old Charissa sat defiantly with her arms crossed and her bottom lip protruding in a perfect pout. “I can’t believe you acted that way,” her mother said. “What will Mrs. Baker think of you?”

  Charissa scowled. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “You were rude to her when she gave you that gift. It was thoughtful of her to buy you a Christmas present. She didn’t need to do that.”

  “Well, I don’t like that shirt. It’s ugly.”

  Mother exhaled slowly. Charissa knew she was in trouble whenever Mother exhaled slowly. “I don’t care what you think of the blouse, young lady. What matters is what other people think of you. You’re going to say ‘thank you’ for the present, and you’re going to tell her what a lovely gift it is. Because that’s what good girls do. And you are a good girl.”

  Sometimes Charissa hated being good.

  By the time John dropped Charissa off on campus early Monday morning, she knew what she had to do. She had to apologize to Dr. Allen for reacting so badly in his office. She had to admit he’d perceived some bit of truth about her life. She didn’t see any other way forward. Kingsbury’s graduate program was simply too small for her to avoid him, and she needed to maintain his good opinion and respect if she was going to succeed—especially if she was going to pursue a dissertation in seventeenth-century literature.

  Her mother had coached her about how to apologize. “If you’re absolutely determined not to wipe the dust off your feet and transfer somewhere else, Charissa, then just tell him you’re sorry if you seemed angry. ‘I’m sorry if I seemed angry’ is different than apologizing for being angry. And given how totally inappropriate he was with you, you certainly don’t owe him any more than that.”

  Her mother was right. Charissa could admit to his perception of her anger and leave it at that. Good enough. Maybe he wouldn’t notice her non-apologetic apology.

  She was walking across the quad toward the library when she heard a voice from behind her. “Good morning, Charissa.”

  Startled, she spun around. “Good morning, Dr. Allen.” She was determined to pitch her voice correctly: congenial, but not too friendly. She would control her tone, her facial expressions, her body language, and her tongue. She was not going to lose control like she did in his office.

  He took a sip from his travel mug. “Did you have a nice weekend?” he asked.

  “Yes, and you?”

  He was smiling, amiable. Maybe he was going to let her off the hook and pretend they’d never had the conversation.

  No. She knew him too well to believe that. Eventually, he would mention it again. At least if she spoke first, she could seize control. She waited for him to finish talking about his sailing outing before she launched her preemptive strike.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said last week. About my perfectionism.” She wasn’t going to use the word sinner. She wasn’t sure she would ever be able to use that word to describe herself. “You were right. I’m sorry if I seemed angry.”

  Amazing, the difference a little word could make.

  “I’ve been a perfectionist all my life,” she continued, trying to convince herself it wasn’t noble, even as she said it. She was like a job applicant, insisting her greatest weakness was being a conscientious workaholic. “I’ve even been a perfectionist about my faith. I just can’t believe I didn’t see it before. I can’t believe I missed it.”

  He was studying her face carefully, looking as if he wasn’t sure how much to say. She braced herself. “The spiritual life is a journey, Charissa, not an exam.” His voice was quiet. “I’m glad that something I said was helpful to you.”

  Wishing her a good day, he turned away to walk to his office. As Charissa watched him go, she felt her shoulders relax. It was done. Over. Nothing more needed to be said. She could move on after a painless conversation. It had all been much easier than she’d imagined.

  So why did she feel compelled to dig deeper when everything was under control? Why couldn’t she leave well enough alone?

  Against her better judgment, she followed him. “Dr. Allen?” He turned around and looked intently at her. “Could I come and see you sometime?”

  He thought for a moment before answering, “Walk with me.”

  When Charissa sat down in his office, she didn’t know what she wanted to say.
At first she thought perhaps she’d take the opportunity to try to manage his impression of her. She considered how she could best demonstrate that she had understood what he had discerned. In fact, she wanted to show him she had already fixed it. She wanted to prove herself an excellent student, even in matters of faith.

  But after she described her revelations about her perfectionism, Dr. Allen asked a probing diagnostic question that changed everything.

  “What troubles you about what you’ve seen in yourself, Charissa?”

  She hesitated and then answered, “I just can’t believe I was so blind. I thought I had things figured out. I thought I was living out my faith the right way and now . . . ” Her voice trailed off. The power of his penetrating eyes had caused her to be far more forthright than she had intended. She sighed. “I guess I’m just disappointed in myself. And I hate that feeling.”

  “So you’re disappointed by your own imperfection.”

  “Yes, I guess that’s right.”

  He nodded slowly. “That’s a start—it’s an important beginning. But there’s more to repentance than feeling shock or disappointment with ourselves. If we don’t glimpse the pain our sin has caused to God’s heart or to others, then our repentance is still very self-centered.”

  His words pierced her before she had a chance to arm herself. “I don’t understand.” Was that her voice? It sounded so small and far away. She waited forever for his reply.

  “You may feel disappointment or shame when you fail or when you’re corrected,” he finally said. “That’s part of being a perfectionist, isn’t it? We perfectionists are governed by our fear of failure. We’re controlled by our highly developed inner critics. So when we sin, the impulse is either to deny it, or beat ourselves up.” He took a long sip from his travel mug before he spoke again. “When I hear you say, ‘I can’t believe I did that!’ it’s a clue that you’re still trying to be good. You’re disappointed in yourself because you didn’t get things right. So you’re still trying to be your own savior and sanctifier. Does that make sense?”

  Did it?

  As she stared into her professor’s earnest face, she saw that everything hinged on understanding what he said. Everything. Intuitively, she knew that Dr. Allen had never taught her anything more important than this. But she was dizzy. He had turned the snow globe of her life upside down, and he was shaking it with gentle violence.

  “Real confession is deeper than seeing our own failure,” he said softly. “We need to see how our sin impacts our communion and intimacy with God and with other people. Sin should break our hearts—not because we discover we’re imperfect—but because we see that our sin has destructive consequences. And the sins of the spirit are particularly treacherous because they can be so easily concealed.”

  His face was shifting in and out of focus. She was going to cry. She was actually going to cry in front of Dr. Allen.

  But this time she wasn’t going to walk away.

  “Can we talk?” Charissa asked.

  John had just finished brushing his teeth and was getting ready to turn out the lamp on his nightstand when Charissa sat down cross-legged on her side of the bed. He seemed startled when she reached for his hand.

  “I had a long talk with Dr. Allen today.”

  John looked surprised. “Did he apologize?”

  Charissa shook her head.

  He bristled. “Then I’m serious, Riss—the next step is the dean’s office. If you won’t make that phone call, I will. This is too important to just let it slide.”

  Charissa was determined to make eye contact even when it would have been much easier to look away. “Dr. Allen never actually called me any names,” she said softly.

  “But you said—”

  “I know. I lied.” John looked utterly confused. “I mean—that’s how I heard what Dr. Allen said to me, but he didn’t actually call me a bitch, John.”

  “But I thought—”

  “I know. I was really angry with him—I was furious that he’d seen some things in me that I didn’t want to see. I didn’t want to hear the truth, John, and he was just telling me the truth.”

  John shook his head. “But it just sounds like you’re making excuses for him now. I don’t get what you’re saying.”

  Charissa breathed deeply, asking God to help her continue the conversation she’d been imagining in her head for the past several hours.

  “I had gone to visit him because I was feeling really unsettled about his class and the sacred journey group, and he ended up talking about Jesus and Nicodemus and the whole born-again thing. When I told him that I just didn’t understand what he was saying, he started pointing out my need for forgiveness and grace. He did say I was a sinner, but it wasn’t an accusation.”

  John raised a single eyebrow.

  “We talked a long time today about sin and repentance,” she went on. “And I saw some new things about myself. Some really ugly stuff.”

  Charissa could tell by the expression on her husband’s face that he was ready to rise to her defense again, eager to protest any suggestion of imperfection. When he opened his mouth to speak, she swiftly interrupted. “I need to say I’m sorry, John.”

  He was taken aback. “For what?”

  She repositioned herself and reached for his other hand. “I’ve been completely self-centered and self-absorbed, and I know I’ve hurt you.”

  He smiled and shrugged. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. You’ve been under a lot of stress lately.”

  “It’s not just stress. And it’s not okay. It hasn’t just been the last week. It’s been our whole life together. You’ve sacrificed yourself for me, and I’ve just taken from you.”

  “That’s not true.” He shook his head emphatically.

  “No, John, it is. And I’m sorry. I have to tell you that it never even occurred to me to ask if you’ve been feeling okay, after the concussion and everything. It’s not that I wasn’t making conversation about it. I actually forgot you were ever in the hospital. I was that self-absorbed.”

  John’s face had contorted into an expression Charissa could not identify.

  She forged ahead, worried she’d lose her courage if she didn’t speak quickly. “Even when we were in bed together on Saturday . . . I . . . I wasn’t loving you then. I was manipulating you.” She touched his cheek, her voice trembling. She had started the confession, and she needed to complete it. “I’ve been so afraid of losing control. I haven’t given myself fully to you, and I’m sorry. I didn’t even see until today how many defenses I’ve had, even with you.”

  She paused, lowering her voice to a whisper. “I want a different way forward, John. Please forgive me. I’m so sorry for any pain I’ve caused you. And please don’t just say it’s okay, that it doesn’t matter. I need you to say that it does matter and that you still forgive me.”

  Charissa had never truly experienced heartache until she saw John’s eyes the moment she confessed her sin. The depth of woundedness in those gentle eyes was beyond language. Entirely inarticulate. And yet, the most perfect articulation Charissa had ever heard.

  She saw. She understood. She broke. She loved.

  “I forgive you, Charissa,” he said quietly, his eyes brimming with tears. “I love you, and I forgive you.”

  That night John and Charissa Sinclair explored the sacred space of union that opened once defenses were removed.

  And it was good.

  It was very good.

  Hannah

  Fourteen-year-old Hannah often babysat Joey, her five-year-old brother, when their parents went out to dinner with clients. “Here’s the number at the restaurant,” Daddy said, kissing Hannah on the forehead. “We’ll be home about nine o’clock.” He turned to Joey. “Be good, Joe! Do what Hannah says, okay?” Joey flashed his cherubic grin and nodded.

  While Joey watched television, Hannah cleaned up the dinner dishes. “I want to go outside and play!” Joey called from the other room.

  “In a minute,
Joe. I need to clean up here first.” Just then the phone rang. Hannah’s heart beat fast when she heard the voice on the other end.

  “Hannah?” It was Brad Sterling. “It’s Brad Sterling . . . you know . . . from Mr. Godwin’s class?” Hannah knew exactly what class he was from. She hoped she sounded more composed than she felt.

  “Hi, Brad!” she said cheerfully. Too cheerfully?

  “Hi . . . um . . . I was wondering . . . ” She was breathless, waiting. “I was wondering if you’d like to go out to a movie or something on Friday night.”

  Her knees buckled, and she sank into the chair. “I’d love to!”

  “Really? Awesome! My mom says she’ll drive us. Maybe we’ll pick you up at about seven o’clock?”

  Hannah was so excited, she could hardly speak. “That sounds great, Brad. Thank you!”

  She hung up the phone and hugged herself. Was it possible? Her very first date! Her mind wandered into daydreams, and she forgot about the dishes. She also forgot about Joey.

  The sound of screaming jolted her back to reality. Stricken with fear, she raced outside, following Joey’s cries. She found him lying on his back underneath his favorite climbing tree. Fortunately, the next-door neighbors also heard the screaming. Mr. and Mrs. Chen were there in an instant, kneeling beside her and trying quickly to assess Joey’s injuries. Hannah was hysterical. “It’s all my fault! It’s all my fault!” she sobbed.

  The next few hours blurred together. Mr. Chen drove Joey to the nearby hospital while Mrs. Chen phoned the restaurant to get a message to the Shepleys. It was well after midnight when Hannah’s parents arrived home with her brother. Joey’s leg was in a cast, but he had no other injuries. Luckily.

  “It’s okay, Hannah,” Daddy reassured her. “Everything’s okay. Joey’s going to be fine.” But Hannah could not be consoled, and she would not forgive herself.