“I cannot believe Owen has become so indifferent about the search! It’s like he has given up and is merely going through the motions. I wonder if I should hire someone else to take over the investigation.”
“But I thought he said there wasn’t much more they could do without the name of the adopting family?”
Kari practically growled at Ruth. “I’m paying him a lot of money. He needs to do the job and put his whole heart into it!”
“I want to be honest with you, Kari,” her friend answered. “I am less concerned about the condition of Owen’s heart than I am about yours.”
Kari’s response was immediate. And heated. “What do you mean by that?”
“Listen, Cookie. I understand how important finding Elaine and Samuel is to you. I truly do, but it sounds—it feels—like you have shut God out of the equation. Are you are doing this all in your own strength? Are you insisting on doing it your own way? Or are you praying over everything and trusting God to direct you?”
“I figured God would be in whatever I did,” Kari mumbled. “He’s the one who let me remember them, right? So I assume he wants me to find them, and I’m working as hard as I can.”
She added with a derisive sniff, “I wish other people were working as hard,”
“Um, yes, but the Bible talks a lot about how we work to follow the Lord, how we pursue him, Kari. He is always to be first in our lives—not the work he has given us. We must be careful, watching for anything that seeks to usurp that first place and being quick to tear down whatever tries to exalt itself over Jesus as the only King in our hearts.
“I’m describing something of a paradox, an ongoing battle that every believer experiences. The Bible tells us that we have a spirit that longs to do what God desires, that patiently waits for him to speak and guide us. The Bible also tells us we have ‘a flesh,’ our ‘old’ sinful nature, the part of us that demands its own way.
“Our flesh opposes the things of God, Kari. And frustration is one of the key indicators that we are operating out of our flesh rather than our spirit. Tell me, Kari, are you frustrated?”
“Well, of course I am! Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because, Kari, I’m saying that frustration is a symptom that you are doing things under your own steam instead of letting the Lord be your helper and your guide.
“Without realizing it is happening, our hearts can wander or become preoccupied with things other than our relationship with God. How is your heart right now, Kari? Is it fully committed to the Lord? Or is it distracted? Distant from God? Resentful?”
Kari was silent and her jaw clenched. She didn’t like what Ruth was dishing out. Didn’t know how to answer.
“Kari? Are you still there?”
Kari stared out her window. “Yes.”
New Orleans’ weather in late October was still quite warm. Flowers bloomed, died, and bloomed again. Frequent rains kept the lawns lush and green. And the sprawling tree dominating Kari’s view from her office seemed never to change. It was full of years yet ageless.
Not so in RiverBend. According to Søren’s last phone call, he and his neighbors had experienced an early harvest and they anticipated a harsh winter. Nights were cold, and their trees had already shed their leaves.
RiverBend.
Kari’s heart strained toward Søren, toward Max, toward Søren’s farm and the peace she had found in their simple life.
Toward Rose’s homestead.
Rose.
“Kari? Your family waited a long time to find you. Perhaps . . . perhaps you could take a lesson from Rose’s journals about trusting God instead of trusting in your own ideas and that mammoth pot of gold you’re sitting on?”
Kari smarted under Ruth’s last words. She mumbled out a reply. “Yes. Perhaps you’re right. Thanks, Ruth. I’ll talk to you later.”
She sat unmoving for a long while after she hung up, rehashing Ruth’s words and lost in her thoughts, some confusing, others convicting. When she roused herself, she reached inside her pencil drawer for the key to the deep bottom drawer of her desk—the drawer where she kept her Bible and Rose’s journals.
Kari had not read her Bible as faithfully as she had her first month home. As for Rose’s journals? She had not finished reading the first one yet. The harder Kari drove herself and the more invested she became in the search for her siblings, the less time she spent in her Bible and the less interest she had in Rose’s journals.
Is Ruth right? Has my heart . . . gone astray?
She placed Rose’s journals in a stack to one side and opened her Bible. She let it fall open and started reading at the first chapter heading she found: Isaiah 46.
Bel bows down, Nebo stoops low;
their idols are borne by beasts of burden
Kari frowned and closed her eyes. Bel? Nebo? Who were they? What do they have to do with me?
She struggled through the next verses. Verse 5 began to arouse her interest.
With whom will you compare me or count me equal?
To whom will you liken me that we may be compared?
“Who is asking this question?” Kari wondered. “Is it God?” She read on.
Some pour out gold from their bags
and weigh out silver on the scales;
they hire a goldsmith to make it into a god,
and they bow down and worship it.
They lift it to their shoulders and carry it;
they set it up in its place, and there it stands.
From that spot it cannot move.
Even though someone cries out to it,
it cannot answer;
it cannot save them from their troubles.
“Isaiah is talking about idols,” Kari realized. “Idols made from gold and silver—idols that cannot answer. That cannot save these people from their troubles.”
Ruth’s last words thundered in her ears: Perhaps you could take a lesson from Rose’s journals about trusting God instead of trusting in your own ideas and that mammoth pot of gold you’re sitting on?
Kari did not like where her heart and mind directed her next. “Am I, am I like these people? Have I poured out my money to make an idol? To circumvent God’s place in my life?”
With growing dismay, she continued reading.
Remember this, keep it in mind,
take it to heart, you rebels.
Remember the former things,
those of long ago;
I am God,
and there is no other;
I am God,
and there is none like me.
I make known the end from the beginning,
from ancient times, what is still to come.
I say, ‘My purpose will stand,
and I will do all that I please.’
“Oh, no! Am I a rebel against God?”
Thoroughly convicted, Kari slipped from her chair onto her knees. “Lord! Please forgive my rebellion! I have poured out gold and silver and fashioned an idol from my ‘good ideas’ and my desire to find Elaine and Sammie. But, O God! You already know where they are.”
She reached for her Bible and laid it open upon the chair in front of her. “You are God, Lord. There is no other,” she whispered aloud. “You are God, and there is none like you. You know the end from the beginning. Your purposes will stand, Lord, despite all my trying and struggling. You will do all that you please.
“Lord, please forgive me.” She reread the last verse.
What I have said, that I will bring about;
what I have planned, that I will do.
Kari wept then, utterly broken before God. “Lord, I’m sorry, so very sorry! Do what you have planned, Lord. I surrender to you.”
She reread the thirteen short verses of the chapter and then read them again. She spoke them aloud. Each time she read, “They pour out gold from their bags,” she remembered the hundreds of thousands of dollars she had spent on the newspaper ads and call center against the counsel of her friends—friends more mature in t
heir faith than she was—and she wept anew.
“Father, I promised you I would use this money for your kingdom. I have wasted it. I am so sorry! Please forgive me.”
Later, when Kari got up from the floor, she saw the stack of journals on her desk. She sat down, picked up the blue one, opened it to where she had left off weeks ago, and began reading.
Journal Entry, October 27, 1911
Dear Lord, thank you for the work you are doing in my daughter’s heart. Father! How hard it is for us to allow you to nail our flesh to the cross. But how precious the outcome of such a crucifixion.
Joy shared with me this evening that she has been reading in Isaiah, one of her favorite books of the Bible. I recall how you spoke to her from Isaiah when you called her to Corinth, to the work she would undertake, only three short years ago.
Many good things have happened in those three years, Lord. Many hearts have surrendered to you in that time, and I am grateful, despite the cost.
And now you have spoken to her again through this same book, Lord. As we talked, Joy shared with me a passage from Isaiah, Chapter 46.
Remember the former things of old:
for I am God, and there is none else;
I am God, and there is none like me,
Declaring the end from the beginning,
and from ancient times
the things that are not yet done, saying,
My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
Calling a ravenous bird from the east,
the man that executeth my counsel
from a far country: yea, I have spoken it,
I will also bring it to pass;
I have purposed it, I will also do it.
Kari was stunned. “That is the same passage I read a bit ago, but in a different translation!” She devoured the journal’s next paragraphs.
Joy understands now that she must allow you to be God, to have the preeminence in her heart. “I have been very hard on Mr. O’Dell, Mama, very hard, indeed. However, I shall put undue pressure upon him no longer,” she told me.
“I know he, too, is grieving for Grant and is doing all that can be done without my adding to his burden. We will do all we can and, when we have done all we ought to do, it is God himself who will accomplish his purposes, for he alone must receive the glory and honor.
“I must trust more deeply in the Lord rather than my own or Mr. O’Dell’s efforts. I should never relent in prayer, but I must relinquish control of the outcome.”
Kari stood and paced the room. She could not stand or sit for the adrenaline coursing through her veins.
“O God! O God!” she prayed. “You have surely spoken to me—and I must not fail to heed what you have said.”
Kari reached for the telephone and dialed Owen’s number. When he answered, she struggled to make certain her words were gracious, her tone sweet. “Good afternoon, Owen. Would you mind meeting with me? Yes, please. At your earliest convenience.”
She did not miss the reluctance in his response even as they set a time and place for breakfast the following morning. He’s thinking I have come up with another harebrained scheme, Kari thought.
She shook her head. “I am truly sorry, Lord,” she whispered again.
—
“OWEN, THANK YOU FOR MEETING WITH ME,” Kari said when the waitress seated them. She had asked for a small table, and now she reached her hand across the short distance and placed it on top of his. “I have something I need to tell you.”
Owen’s dark eyes met hers. “Okay.”
“I have been a complete fool for weeks, maybe months. The Lord spoke to me yesterday. He showed me that I—” Kari choked a little as she forced the words out, “that I have made an idol of my sister and brother, that I have placed finding them above Jesus, above his lordship in my life. He reminded me that Jesus is the only Lord I should have.”
Owen nodded and his hand tightened a little in hers.
“And Owen, I have treated you terribly. I’ve disrespected you as a friend and as a brother in Christ, and I have slighted your wise counsel. I am so very sorry. I-I ask for your forgiveness. Will you forgive me? Please.”
She saw a little glistening in his eyes before he looked away, but he did not pull his hand back.
Then he cleared his throat and met her imploring gaze. “Yes, I forgive you, Kari. I’m happy the Lord spoke to you.”
“I-I’m glad, too. But it means I . . . I need to stop now. Stop chasing after Elaine and Sammie.”
Tears welled in Kari’s eyes. “I don’t know how to stop, Owen. I don’t know how to give up the search. I don’t know how to let them go.”
Owen’s brow wrinkled in sympathy. “I may know something of your difficulty, Kari.”
She remembered then, Owen standing and leaving the table the Sunday when she had shared the news of her recovered memories. She remembered he had lost his older brother when he was still a child himself.
“Yes, I think you must.”
He placed his other hand atop their joined fingers. “May I pray for you, Kari?”
Kari bowed her head in response. Owen spoke quietly but with firm conviction and firmer faith. “Lord God, you are the Almighty God. You know our hearts, our weaknesses, our frailties, our failures. O Lord, I pray you look down upon this child of yours, Kari. Give her a heart to seek you first and foremost and to always keep you as her greatest desire.
“And you are the Father of compassion, Lord—you understand loss. For you so loved the world, the whole world, O God! You so loved the world that you gave up your Son for us. You sacrificed your Son to gain us, though we often fail you.
“I pray you give Kari the spiritual strength to surrender another piece of her heart into your care—the place in her heart where she holds Elaine and Samuel. I know you will keep that piece safely, Lord, for you understand and love us. We can surrender anything to you, Lord, for you will hold it for us. You will hold it safely and tenderly. Amen.”
Kari clutched Owen’s hand and whispered, “Lord, I give you Elaine and Sammie. I trust them to you.”
Her voice caught. “Please. Please heal my broken heart.”
~~**~~
Chapter 10
IN SPITE OF KARI’S PRAYER OF SURRENDER regarding her sister and brother, the next days were only marginally better. She returned to her morning habit of Bible study, prayer, and reading a single entry from one of Rose’s journals—she then kept to her routine with a tenacity born out of desperation.
Lord, please help me. Sunday our pastor preached on hope being the anchor to our souls, but I feel like I am without that anchor in my emotions. With all you have given me, I have this sense of longing, and it all goes back to Elaine and Sammie. Please help me to find hope again, even if it is without them.
Kari’s Bible study this day started in the book of 2 Corinthians. She pushed through the first chapter’s greeting and stopped to soak in the verses that read,
Praise be to the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of compassion
and the God of all comfort,
who comforts us in all our troubles
“Owen said you were the Father of compassion when he prayed for me, Lord. And I am grateful that you are the God of all comfort,” Kari prayed. “I need me some of that, please.”
She kept reading, but toward the end of the first chapter, she stumbled to a stop.
“What in the world does this mean?” She read the verses aloud to herself, hoping they would make more sense if she heard them.
For no matter how many promises
God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ.
And so through him the “Amen”
is spoken by us to the glory of God.
Kari pondered the passage. “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ?” Although her mind struggled to grasp the passage’s significance, her heart leapt in hopeful response.
“No
matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘yes’? But what does this mean?” Her fingers thrummed a frustrated cadence on the open page of her Bible.
I guess I’ll ask someone at Bible study this morning to help me.
—
SHE PARKED AT THE CHURCH A FEW HOURS LATER, hoping her early arrival would allow her to spend a few minutes with someone more versed in the Bible. The first person she ran into was Julie Cairns, a woman a few years younger than Kari was. She was checking her youngest, a boy of two, into the nursery.
“Hey, Kari!”
“Hi, Julie.”
Kari waited while Julie disentangled herself from her clingy toddler and his diaper bag. The two women walked together toward the fellowship hall where the Bible study would be held.
“Say, Julie, I’m wondering if you could help me with a passage I read this morning. It’s kind of puzzling me.”
“I’d love to, Kari, but I promised the leaders I would make the coffee and set up the serving cart and I’m a little late doing so as it is.”
Julie looked around and brightened. “Say, see that tiny old woman sitting there? That’s Miss Em. She’s practically a fixture in the church, and she really knows her Bible. I’m sure she would love to help you.”
Kari’s eyes followed Julie’s finger and lit upon an imposing elderly woman with a ramrod-straight back already seated at one of the study tables. Her wiry gray hair was pulled into an impossibly tight bun on the top of her head. Her solemn, watchful expression was formidable.
“Um, that woman? The one who looks like she eats small children for breakfast?”
Julie guffawed. “Yes! That’s our Miss Em.”
“Sheesh. She’s kind of scary looking. Sort of reminds me of the actress Margaret Hamilton.”
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