October Joy (Moments In Paradise 1)
Page 21
“You know what my favorite part was?”
“What?”
He leaned against the passenger-side door of the truck and pulled her close to him. “Having you here.”
She smiled, and she felt amazed. What James saw in her, she wasn’t sure, but there was no denying his strong desire to have her in his life. His long and slow kiss only confirmed that.
“I stopped believing in this five years ago,” she said.
“In what?”
“The fairy-tale. Boy meets girl. Falling in love. Getting married.”
“Why?”
“I grew up hearing about it from my mom and dad. They lived it, but then they lost it. I decided I’d rather never have it to begin with.”
“Changing your mind about that?”
“Yes.”
“Are you falling in love with me, Gracie Morgan?”
“Yes.”
“What are you going to do about that?”
“Kick myself for waiting so long to let it happen.”
“I think this is perfect timing,” he said. “Your family has needed you. I knew that.”
“Do you need me?” she asked him seriously. “Or am I going to be a distraction from all the great things you’re doing here with these kids?”
“I need you, Grace. I love my work and the calling God has given me, but I don’t want to do it alone. I want a family. I want to show these kids what a blessed life looks like, not just tell them how they can have it.”
“Why haven’t you been searching for that with someone else?”
“Because I wanted you, and God told me to wait for you.”
She smiled. “My dad’s right about you.”
“About what?”
“He always says, ‘There’s more to James than you see on the surface. A lot of people jump to the wrong conclusions about him, and they completely miss his pure and genuine heart.’”
“He said that?”
“He says it a lot. Usually when you’re facing some kind of opposition, but I think sometimes he said it for me to hear.”
“You have a pure heart too, Gracie. Sometimes cautious, but always pure. I’ve always seen that in you.”
There was something she had wanted to ask him for a long time, and she decided to ask him now. Once when James had been getting some heavy fire from some parents about his earring, she said to her dad, ‘Why doesn’t he just take it out? Is it really that big of a deal to him?’ And her dad said, ‘Yes, I think it is.’ She’d asked him why, and he said, ‘You’ll have to ask James.’
She told James that, and then she said, “It doesn’t bother me you wear one, but why exactly are you so stubborn about it? Why did you get it pierced in the first place?”
He smiled and kissed her sweetly. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“You’ve been waiting for me to ask?”
“Yes. Or hoping you would.”
“Why?”
“Because it has to do with you.”
“What?” she laughed. “You had it before you ever knew me.”
“Yes, but I knew of you.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I’ve been wearing it for me, and for my future wife. And I think that might be you.”
“So it’s like a purity ring?” she asked. She had been wearing one on her right hand since she was sixteen. It was a birthday gift from her mom and dad.
He explained further. “When I went away to college at eighteen, I went to a Christian college, but a lot of the guys I met there weren’t upholding some basic Christian values. Two of my three roommates weren’t virgins, and one of them was in an active relationship at the time, and he wasn’t the only one on campus. It shocked me because I’d come from a church where my youth pastor had always stressed the importance of sexual purity, and yet these guys didn’t see it as any big deal.
“By the time I began dating Sydney, I knew I had to get it all straight in my head before I got into a serious relationship with her, so I read several books and talked to some people, and I realized it was a faith-issue. Either I was going to believe God when He said, ‘Stay away from that. Wait until marriage,’ or I wasn’t.
“I knew I couldn’t pick and choose what I wanted to believe about God. I needed to believe and obey everything He said, not just some of it, so I bought Sydney a purity ring and I wore a bracelet, and we talked about it. She was committed to waiting too, and that worked for us.
But after we went our separate ways, I felt God asking me to do something for any future relationships I had. Something physical, like when God asked Abraham to be circumcised because He had promised to bless him and Abraham gave God that sign of his belief.
“I thought getting my ear pierced would be a way I could have a physical reminder of my commitment to believe in God’s best way for me and His promise to bless me. I knew I would see it every time I looked in the mirror, so I did it, and I’ve been wearing one ever since.”
“Why don’t you tell people that?”
“I tell people who ask.”
“But why not everyone?”
“Because it isn’t about them. It’s about me and God. It’s not like I think every Christian guy should have one, or I think anyone has to have a reason to wear an earring. This is just me. People can either accept me or reject me, and I hope they will look at my heart to make that judgment, but if they choose not to, I’m not going to force it.”
“I’m glad I decided to look closer,” she said. “You’re a very special person, James. I’m sorry it took me so long to see that.”
“I’ll let you make it up to me,” he said, opening the door of his truck and kissing her on the cheek. “You can buy the ice cream tonight.”
Grace had been enjoying every minute she’d spent with James during the last week. He had a pure heart, and he treated her like she had one too. She didn’t always feel like she did. She’d held a lot of resentment in her heart toward God these last five years about losing her mom. She talked about ‘God working all things together for good,’ but she didn’t always believe it. She didn’t see how her life could ever be as good as it once was.
But whether she’d believed it or not, God was filling her heart with joy once again, just like He’d always promised. And somehow James had seen past her doubtful and cautious spirit enough to know she was worth waiting for. She felt bad she had put him off for so long and made judgments about his appearance, but his unspoken forgiveness made her love him all the more.
Chapter Twenty-six
Levi got out of bed and took a shower to start the day. After being here in Paradise for three months, he still marveled at how modern and earth-like it was. He had expected something much different to follow his life on Earth. Something more heavenly and “out of this world”. He hadn’t speculated about it a lot, other than trying to picture the descriptions of Heaven in the Bible. He was more interested in making sure people got there than in what it would be like. He realized now he should have paid more attention to the details God had chosen to reveal. They were more than random “peeks” into the afterlife. They had more to do with his earth-life than he had ever considered.
Stepping into the living area of his apartment in the City, he saw Joshua waiting for him at the table. He had everything ready as usual, and Levi still wasn’t used to being served breakfast by Yeshua. It didn’t seem right, but Joshua insisted, so he thanked Him like always and enjoyed a sip of orange juice before picking up his fork and having some warm eggs, toast, and fresh fruit.
“I have some things for you to do today, Levi,” Joshua said.
Levi was used to getting his morning mail now, and he had been going to all the scheduled appointments Joshua had for him on any given day. Joy-sightings, Pearly Gate Arrivals, meeting various people, spending time with family members and friends. But he wondered if Joshua was hinting at something of a different nature. Something important? Could it be?
Joshua read his thoughts. “I know you’ve bee
n waiting for this, and I think you’re ready. But I want to ask you a question first.”
“Okay,” he said.
Joshua smiled at his casual response. He used to say, ‘Yes, Lord’, every time Joshua had something to tell or ask him, but Joshua didn’t want him to be so formal. ‘Talk to me the way you talk to your good friends, Levi,’ He kept saying, and Levi was slowly becoming comfortable with that.
“I know you’ve been learning a lot of new things here, and I’m proud of you for how far you’ve come in a short time. I’m not surprised because you’ve always been eager to please Me, and I appreciate that, Levi. I really do.”
“Thank you, Lo--Joshua.”
“So my question is--and I want you to think about it: What is the greatest thing you have learned since I brought you here?”
Levi began to think. Nothing came to mind immediately. He had learned so much it was difficult to sort out. Joshua spoke again before he got very far.
“You are going to meet three people today who need some guidance. One of them still can’t see Me. One is too ashamed to look at Me. And one is eager to please Me, like you, only she’s not letting Me lead her.”
“When will I meet them?” he asked.
“After you come up with your answer to My question, your mail will arrive, and then you’ll know where and when. But make sure to keep all of your appointments today, not just those. They’re all important.
Levi nodded and felt eager to get started, but he had some thinking to do, so he decided to go for a walk once he was finished eating. He put on his shoes and grabbed his hat from the rack by the door, but before he went out, he remembered one more thing he needed to take with him.
“I’m going for a walk, Joshua. Want to come?”
***
On Thursday morning Andrew stayed at the house to work on his message for Sunday and then took Sarah to lunch before going into the office to meet with a couple he was doing premarital counseling with, and then to visit some men and women living in a nursing home, saying he was anxious to share about her and what had happened in his life since seeing them two weeks ago.
Sarah kissed him at the door and watched him drive away and then went to the family room to watch the fourth DVD in Andrew’s message series. And that one she found to be especially personal for her and contained several points she had never heard or considered before.
The title of the message was: “Enjoying God Through Suffering,” and Andrew started out by saying, “If you can learn to enjoy God through suffering, you can learn to enjoy Him through anything.” And Sarah thought, If you can teach me that, Andrew, then you can teach me anything.
She wasn’t too sure he could, even with as much as she loved him and what a great teacher he was, and yet she also knew he had suffered a great deal by losing Annika and was also clearly enjoying God, so whatever he had to say had to be from experience. But she was surprised by how easily he changed her thinking.
He shared quite a bit about his loss of Annika and all the emotions he had experienced, the hardships in single-parenting, and the ministry challenges that had been magnified by not having her support and encouragement. As he talked about what he had lost, Sarah could see more of how Andrew needed her now, and knowing she could be a source of encouragement and support to him gave her a joyful, peace-filled heart. She heard God saying, ‘If that’s all you do, Sarah. That’s enough. Andrew needs you. That’s the main reason I brought you here.’
Sarah had experienced the emotions and stages of grief Andrew talked about. Some more than others, and in the same and different ways, but she could definitely relate to what he was talking about.
“The Apostle Paul tells us plainly one of the things we will experience as followers of Christ is we will share in His sufferings. But often we only think in terms of the suffering Christ experienced in His death, rather than in His life. We think of those who have been martyred for their faith or are experiencing great persecution today, but here in America we are not subject to that kind of physical suffering, so we tend to think that doesn’t apply to us.
“But some of you have experienced other physical forms of suffering through a difficult illness or a painful accident. Through your pain you can experience Jesus’ physical pain, and that can be a difficult thing, but it can also be very valuable.”
He went on to talk about a woman he’d known who had suffered physical pain through a long battle with cancer. Through it all he saw her drawing closer to Jesus, and she recognized that and even rejoiced because of it until the day she drew her last breath. “Her reward in heaven is great, I’m sure. But she also experienced many rewards God had for her in the midst of her pain she may never have experienced otherwise.”
Sarah had never endured great physical pain other than childbirth, and she hadn’t had that as bad as she knew some women did, so she couldn’t identify with that part of the message so much, but the next part was about suffering through loss, which Andrew used his experience with losing Annika as an example.
“It’s difficult for us to imagine what God’s pain must be like when He loses those He loves to sin and waywardness, unless we’ve had a similar experience of losing someone close to us. When He sees us being blinded and manipulated into believing and doing things that are contrary to the truth, that has to absolutely break His heart. His love for us is deeper than your love for that person you have lost. And with as much as I loved my wife, I can relate to God’s incredible love for me more. I can know how He would feel if He lost me.”
Sarah paused the DVD to meditate on that and wrote some thoughts in her journal. Going back to the video to watch the remainder of the message, she thought it might be almost over. She was surprised when Andrew had one more major area of suffering to cover.
He started out by saying he wanted to talk about some “secret sufferings”: things we may be experiencing no one knows about. At first she thought he was talking to those who were suffering some kind of secret abuse by a spouse or something along those lines, but he wasn’t. He was talking about things everyone suffers in various ways, for various reasons, and in every phase of life, from childhood to old-age. Things like loneliness, depression, fear, disappointment, discouragement, frustration, despair, feelings of inadequacy, unfruitfulness, rejection, and other personal struggles.
Things that as Christians we may think we shouldn’t experience, and so we pretend we don’t. We smile on Sundays and tell everyone we’re fine, but inside we’re dying and have no idea what to do about it. We pray, we try harder, we put up walls to guard ourselves from being hurt again, we plan and prioritize, we read the Bible more and volunteer for more things, we listen to “experts” and try to take their advice, but nothing really works for long.
“We have some great days and think, ‘I’m okay now. That was just my hormones being out of whack, or my schedule getting too crazy, or me having too much spare time on my hands. I just needed to get into that Bible study God’s been nagging me about or do some good things for others. I’m fine now.’ But then a few days or weeks or months later, it’s all back again. Or someone hurts us. Or life gets crazy, and we realize we never got to the root of the problem, and even worse, we’re still clueless about why we feel that way and how we can break free.
“Well, let me suggest to you those secret-sufferings have one major purpose--to draw you to the heart of God. And not just into a greater dependence on Him, but as a way to know Him more deeply. The writer of Hebrews tells us Jesus understands our weaknesses because He was subject to them too. We often make the mistake of dehumanizing Jesus, but He was fully human with a heart and mind like ours.
“I think Jesus had to be incredibly lonely at times. Lonely for a real friend--a deep, personal connection with someone He could share everything with. That really close brother; a best friend; a wife. Most men his age would have been married by the time he began His public ministry. I doubt He had many buddies to hang around with. I’m sure He was lonely for Heaven.
Andrew went on to share Jesus also likely felt depressed, fearful, rejected, misunderstood, unfruitful--at the end of three years of ministry He only had about one hundred faithful followers. “A little low for the Son of God, don’t you think?” Andrew said.
“Can’t you feel His pain? His discouragement? If you’ve ever been in some kind of ministry or tried to help someone who didn’t want your help, then I’m sure you do.
“We can know what God feels. Can you imagine that? We can not only know about Him and believe in Him, but we can know how He feels. We can understand His pain. We can know His Heart.
“However you’re feeling right now, whatever secret-sufferings are plaguing you, remember that Jesus understands. Suffering with Christ means that ultimately you win--you win Him. You can know the God of the Universe like a trusted, intimate friend who loves you more than you could ever possibly love Him. It’s a relationship that may not come easy, but it’s vital, and it will come if you let it. And believe me, once you know Him in that way, you’ll never want to let go.”
Sarah let the DVD run through the final songs, and they provided good background music for her thoughts. She had thought about receiving God’s comfort and help through her suffering before, and she’d done that in some ways. When Levi died, when they left their beloved church in Kansas City, and when her mother had been very sick a couple of years back. She had asked for God’s strength and peace, and she had often felt His presence with her. But she had never thought of “sharing in Christ’s sufferings” like Andrew talked about.
Thinking about her hurts and difficulties during the last three months, and for the last twenty-five years, three primary conditions of her poor well-being stood out to her: loneliness, fear of rejection, and inadequacy. They had plagued her on an ongoing basis, and she could never overcome them. She tried to be different. She tried to be more social and brave. She tried harder with her tasks at church and forced herself to have a better attitude.