A Story about the Spiritual Journey

by Sharon Garlough Brown

  As she reached into her bag for a tissue, Mara felt the touch of a gentle, strengthening, empowering hand on her shoulder.

  Meg’s hand. No words. Just a hand.

  Mara felt her body relax. She blew her nose and breathed deeply.

  “Dear friends,” Katherine said, her voice full of emotion, “healing can hurt. Deep healing hurts. But if you’re uncovering pain and suffering in your life, the path to healing is not avoidance. You’ve got to go through it and confront it with God’s presence and in the Spirit’s power. And if you find you’re facing something overwhelming, please remember that you aren’t meant to travel the path to healing and transformation by yourself. We are never, ever meant to travel alone. God gives us the gift of his presence through the comfort and companionship of fellow believers—through friends, pastors, counselors, spiritual directors, teachers, and others who help us heal and grow. Don’t walk this road alone. Please.”

  Alone, alone, always alone. Mara was always alone. She had always been alone. She would always be alone.

  No.

  No. No.

  Not alone.

  Somehow, not alone.

  Mara stared at her tattoo, and her tattoo stared back. Unwaveringly. Incessantly. El Roi was watching. El Roi, the God who sees. El Roi, the God who saw her with tenderness and love. El Roi, the God who was still seeking, still finding her in the wilderness of her pain.

  Meg’s hand was still resting gently on Mara’s shoulder.

  Not alone.

  Katherine was looking at the group with deep compassion. “I want to linger here for a while so you can ask questions before you go off to find a quiet place for prayer and reflection,” she said slowly. “I know that for some of you, we are treading on raw and tender places. We’re traveling on holy ground here. Remember that the Lord shepherds gently, always with a loving and steady hand. So just take the journey one step at a time, inviting and trusting God to bring to the surface what is ready to be healed.”

  Mara saw Hannah lean forward, hunch her shoulders, and rub her temples slowly.

  Headache? Mara wondered.

  Reaching into her bag again, she pulled out a bottle of aspirin and tapped Hannah on the shoulder.

  Hannah shook her head and smiled broadly.

  Too broadly, Mara thought.

  “I’m okay,” Hannah whispered, sitting upright in her chair. “Just tired.”

  But Mara didn’t believe her. Help her, Lord, she prayed.

  Help us.

  As soon as everyone left the room to find quiet places to pray, Hannah packed up her things.

  What had she been thinking, trying to come to the sacred journey group when she was still so raw, still so disconnected and distant from God?

  Every word Katherine spoke pierced her, and she could hardly keep from bursting into tears. Determined not to lose control in front of the others, Hannah directed her dwindling reserve of mental and emotional energies into her mask. Then when she realized the mask wouldn’t hold, she fled.

  As she drove away from New Hope, the Spirit’s questions pursued her: Where have you come from? Where are you going? Where have you come from? Where are you going?

  She knew where she’d come from, and she was carefully navigating her way through the broken pieces of her past. She understood with new clarity why she had been stuffing her sorrow for so long: her fear of confronting her grief had been rooted in a fear of disintegrating. As long as she remained a helper and comforter in other people’s suffering, she maintained her equilibrium. Being consumed with others’ pain helped her live in denial about her own. As long as she stayed busy, there was no time to think about the things she wanted to avoid.

  She saw that now.

  But she was still afraid. So afraid.

  Even if Jesus traveled with her into the pain of her past, she still wasn’t convinced she could bear it. What if she discovered that the weight of regret crushed her? What if she discovered that she had walked away from a gift the Lord had wanted to give her in Nathan? What if the decisions she thought had been rooted in obedience had instead been rooted in avoidance and fear?

  What if?

  What if she had missed out on the life God had intended for her? What if she could never recapture all the blessings that might have been? What if she had made different choices?

  The past was hard enough to face without contemplating the future. Where are you going?

  She didn’t have a clue. She had written several different versions of a resignation letter to the church, but she hadn’t mailed one. Yet. She couldn’t imagine ever being able to pastor again. She couldn’t imagine emerging from her grief with restored confidence in who God was. She just couldn’t.

  Hannah had traveled several miles before she realized she had missed her entrance onto the highway. Suddenly surrounded by orange construction barrels and “Road Closed” signs, she became disoriented. Nothing looked familiar. Chiding herself for not carrying a map in the car, she finally turned into a restaurant parking lot. Maybe someone could direct her.

  A smiling hostess greeted her. “One?” the young woman asked, grabbing a menu.

  “No, thanks,” Hannah replied. “I got lost, and I just need to get some directions.”

  “Where are you headed?”

  “I’m trying to get to the highway—I’m heading over to the lakeshore—and I’m totally turned around. All the one way streets and construction got me all confused.”

  “I know. It’s tricky around here,” the hostess replied. “I can draw you a map. You’re actually not too far.” She took a paper napkin and scribbled some directions. Hannah thanked her and hurried back out to the parking lot.

  As she approached her car, she reached into her coat pocket for her keys. Empty. She checked her other pocket. Nothing. Panicked, she pulled on each door handle, hoping she had been careless in locking them. No luck. As her tote bag and keys jeered at her from the front seat, all the emotion she had tried to suppress that morning erupted. Enough! Enough! Enough! I can’t take any more! She pounded her fist on the car again and again, muttering a string of words she wasn’t accustomed to using.

  “Tough day?”

  Hannah froze with her fist in midair. She knew that voice. She spun around to find herself face to face with Nathan Allen.

  “Horrible!” she exclaimed, not sure whether to laugh or cry. She hardly registered the shock of his appearing or the embarrassment of being caught in the middle of a tantrum. She was just grateful to see a familiar face. “I’ve managed to lock my keys in the car.”

  “I hate it when that happens,” he said, smiling.

  Nathan didn’t seem at all surprised by the serendipity of their meeting. Hannah, on the other hand, was beginning to think she was living on the pages of a Jane Austen novel. Talk about funny timing.

  He looked over his shoulder as a teenage boy approached. “Jake, this is an old friend of mine from seminary. Hannah Shepley.”

  Hannah felt her face flush. She desperately hoped Jake hadn’t overheard the content of her colorful outburst.

  “Nice to meet you,” Jake said, making eye contact as he gripped her hand with a firm handshake. He had his father’s ridiculously long eyelashes and penetrating eyes.

  “Nice to meet you too, Jake. I’m sorry I’m so flustered. I’ve managed to lock my keys and my cell phone in the car, and I was just trying to figure out what to do.”

  “Well, it’s too cold to be standing outside, trying to figure it out,” Nathan said. “Come on in with us. Saturday morning breakfasts at the Pancake House are a tradition for the Allen boys, right, Jake?”

  Jake nodded.

  Hannah hesitated.

  “C’mon,” Nathan urged. “You have to wait somewhere for a locksmith. You might as well wait with friends. You can use my phone, okay?”

  Hannah yielded and followed them inside.

  “Two?” the hostess asked, grabbing menus for Nathan and Jake.

  “Three,” Nathan replied, m
otioning toward Hannah.

  Hannah buried her face in her shoulder and pretended to cough.

  “I thought Charissa said there was a sacred journey group this morning,” he commented as they walked together to a corner booth.

  “There was. I left early.”

  He eyed her but didn’t press. Thankfully.

  “I was on my way back to the lake, and I missed a turn,” she quickly explained. “By the time I realized it, I was lost. I came in here for directions and then discovered I’d locked myself out. And that’s when you arrived. Just as I was throwing my tantrum.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry about that. Not a very appropriate way for a pastor to behave, huh?”

  “Effective, though,” Nathan said. “I wouldn’t have noticed you if you hadn’t been assaulting your vehicle.”

  Hannah grinned in spite of herself, contemplating the strange turn of events. What were the chances of her running into him twice in a little more than a week? It seemed a ridiculous coincidence. Then again, Kingsbury was a much smaller place than Chicago.

  Nathan reached into his pocket. “Here—use my phone. Have you got an Auto Club membership or something?”

  “Yes, but my wallet’s in the car.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem.” He pulled out his wallet and handed her his card. “Call the number and explain what happened. And as for breakfast,” he said, opening the menu, “I recommend the blueberry pancakes.”

  Nathan was right: the blueberry pancakes were delicious. For the next hour Hannah relaxed into comfortable conversation. Jake impressed her. Easygoing and articulate, he had his father’s wry sense of humor. With undisguised affection and admiration, Jake talked about some of the adventures the two of them had shared. Hannah watched Nate’s eyes light up with pride every time he looked at his son. What a gift, she thought. What a gift.

  “So, Shep,” Nate began as the waitress cleared away their dishes, “Jake’s going out with friends for the next couple of hours, and I was going to head over to campus for a while. I’d love to give you a tour, if you’re interested.”

  “I-uh . . . I don’t want to take you away from your work.”

  “He’s not working,” Jake teased. “He just hangs out in his office when I’m not around to entertain him.” Nate laughed, tousling Jake’s dark hair.

  “He’s right, actually. I have no good reason to be on campus today. And maybe a tour of Kingsbury isn’t all that exciting for you, especially in the cold.”

  Hannah smiled at him. “It’s been a long time since I walked around a college campus. I wouldn’t mind a tour.”

  “Good!” Nate replied. “The university isn’t far from here, and our house is right near campus. Do you think you can manage following us?” There was a glint of playfulness in his eyes.

  “I should probably program your number into my phone just in case I end up lost again.”

  By the time Hannah and Nathan reached the college, it was raining.

  “Sorry!” he apologized as the two of them ran from the parking lot to Bradley Hall. The three-story brownstone building reminded her of Sullivan Hall, where she and Nate had attended Bible and theology classes together. As he held the door open for her, Hannah experienced a moment of déjà vu.

  “This place reminds me of Sullivan,” she said. “It even smells the same.”

  “I know. Feels like we ought to be heading to New Testament 101, huh?” He led her down the deserted hallway to his office.

  “Have you been back to visit the seminary at all?” she asked, listening to her wet shoes squeak on the linoleum.

  “I went back for a reunion about ten years ago. Most of the professors were still there, and it was fun to reconnect with them. But I’ve lost touch with people now. It was painful after the divorce.” He unlocked his office door and ushered her inside. “Welcome to my home away from home.”

  The office was meticulously clean and well-organized, with a collection of nautical sundries interspersed with books on floor-to-ceiling shelves. Jake’s face beamed from photos on Nathan’s desk.

  “I miss my office,” Hannah said wistfully. “I miss my books.”

  “Well, help yourself to anything you find here. I’m happy to be a lending library during your sabbatical.”

  Hannah thanked him and began browsing the shelves while Nathan went to a file cabinet and shuffled through some papers.

  If only she could spend hours with his books—especially with the pastoral care ones. She had forgotten what a prolific book-marker he was, and his margin notes were undressed windows into his mind and spirit. Reading his scribbling on the pages of his books was like poking around in his journals. Intimate. Revealing. She was peering into his soul, prying into the depths of his heart while he was thoroughly unaware.

  “Hannah?”

  She blushed at the sound of his voice and quickly shoved a book about forgiveness back onto the shelf. “Hmm?” She wasn’t going to turn around until she was sure her face had returned to its proper color.

  “How are you? Really?”

  She kept fingering book bindings, pretending to be wholly absorbed in thought, while fighting the temptation to pull down a book on grieving and loss. Intuitively, she knew this book had been his particular companion, and she couldn’t help herself. She took it and opened it. Not only were the pages filled with his notes, but there was an inscription in the front. A long one.

  “Is this good?” she asked casually, holding up the cover for him to see.

  “Fantastic. Go ahead and take it with you.”

  She felt guilty accepting what he so freely offered; nevertheless, she quickly thrust it into her bag, afraid he might suddenly remember the secrets he had disclosed on the pages and change his mind.

  “The sabbatical has been really hard for me,” she finally said, still scanning the shelves for anything else she might borrow. Steal. “You saw my outburst in the parking lot. What did they teach us in our pastoral care classes? That a ‘disproportionate response reveals underlying sin or sorrow,’ right?”

  “You mean you weren’t actually violently angry at your car?”

  “No,” she laughed, turning to face him. She owed him something in exchange for the book. “I left the group early because it hit too close to home today. And I couldn’t risk breaking down in front of other people.”

  His eyes filled with genuine compassion and concern. “Still wearing the pastor’s mask, huh? That’s a lonely way to live, Shep.”

  You have no idea, she thought.

  He sat down in one of the burgundy armchairs near the window and invited her to take the other. “What was Katherine presenting on today?”

  Hannah stared at the rain pelting the glass and stripping the trees. The lawn outside his window was gilded.

  She sighed as she sat down. “God finding Hagar in the wilderness.”

  “Ah,” he replied knowingly. “Where have you come from? Where are you going? I remember sitting with those questions. They’re complicated to answer under the best of circumstances and especially hard when you’re in the midst of grief and change.”

  She was just beginning to wonder if she could match her skills of re­direction and manipulation against his spiritual gift of discernment when Nathan generously steered the conversation away from her pain.

  “I know from my own journey how hard it is to confront the pain of the past,” he commented gently. “And some days it’s impossible to see where you’re going. But those were important questions for me a few years ago as I processed my own grief and transitions—hard as it was to be honest about it.” He paused, smiling wryly. “I don’t know . . . Maybe when we graduated from seminary, we were all given a pastor’s mask along with the diploma. We’ve got to be strong and steadfast for the congregation, got to be the epitome of faith and hope, got to be perfect and holy. And then the mask just becomes the way of life. We don’t even realize it’s taken over. And it becomes an awful prison, doesn’t it?”

  Even a one-syllable ans
wer seemed too dangerous to risk. Hannah wasn’t going to disintegrate in Nathan’s office. Was not.

  She shouldn’t have come.

  Nathan was staring at his hands in his lap, lacing his fingers together. “My own sacred journey toward transformation and freedom hasn’t been easy, but it’s been good,” he said. “God has been healing me from the inside out in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I know I’ve still got a long way to travel. But when I look back on where I’ve come from, I’m grateful. There’s so much to be grateful for.”

  As she looked into his guileless face, Hannah realized she didn’t need to sneak away with his books to know his heart. He was opening the pages of his life and inviting her to read. She tried to conceal her voraciousness with the measured, steady tone of a journalist. “So how did you answer the wilderness questions?” she asked.

  Nathan settled into his chair, crossing one leg over the other. “It was hard, Shep. Going back into the past was really hard. I had to take an honest look at my own sin and my own regrets.”

  Hannah felt herself stiffen. He had told her there was nothing unresolved between them. But was she a source of regret and pain for him? She hoped he wasn’t going to revisit their past. Please, please no.

  “Katherine was God’s messenger in my wilderness,” he went on. “When I arrived in Kingsbury, I had been on the run for a few years—running from all kinds of pain and regret about Laura. But Katherine helped me see that I wasn’t alone in going back to the pain of the past. I started to see that the Lord went with me and gave me the blessing of his presence and his promises to heal and redeem.”

  Laura.

  Laura was the source of his pain and regret. In that moment Hannah tasted a potent cocktail of relief and disappointment. She rubbed her forehead slowly, avoiding direct eye contact.

  “When Laura walked away from our marriage into an affair, her sin was condemned. Publicly. But for years my sin had been congratulated and affirmed. I was such a good and faithful servant of the church, so passionate in serving God and others.”

  As an intimate silence began to descend, Hannah stared at the window again, watching raindrops compete in a race down the glass. She chose one particular bead against its rivals and cheered it on as it wound its way down, down, down the pane. Go, go, go. Just before reaching the bottom, it blended with another droplet and disappeared.