“Well, look at this!” Shelly heard the women exclaim as they entered. “It looks as if they’re expecting company. It wasn’t like this at all last year. Do you think we’re in the right place?”
She kept smiling and greeting the guests, inwardly delighted that they liked the change in their camping experience. As soon as all the women were inside, a short, redheaded woman carrying a clipboard informed Shelly that she was in charge of this group and wanted to know what was going on.
“In the eight years our ladies have come here, we’ve never done it this way. We always check in first.”
Shelly smiled her comforting smile and said, “We thought it might be more relaxing for your ladies to come to dinner first. Our staff will unload all the luggage from the buses. After dinner the women will have an hour to check in, and their luggage will be waiting for them in the lodge.”
A startled look of pleasant surprise came over the coordinator’s face. “How nice. We never thought of doing it that way.”
Over the speaker system, Shelly heard soft harp music begin to play. The women lowered their voices and settled around the dozens of round tables. The lights overhead were dimmed. Shelly turned toward the kitchen door to see her sister standing by the light switches, smiling and waving.
Since Mr. Hadley wasn’t there, Shelly stepped over to the microphone at the front of the dining hall. In her polished, flight attendant voice, she said, “Good evening, ladies. Welcome to Camp Autumn Brook. We realize you have your choice of camping facilities, and we appreciate your choosing to stay with us. To make your flight—” Shelly quickly caught herself, “… your stay more comfortable, we’ve rearranged the schedule slightly.”
Meredith caught Shelly’s eye and covered her mouth to show she was trying to hold back the giggles.
“Your luggage is being unloaded for you by our staff and will be available for you to pick up in the lodge after dinner. At that time you may also check in at the desk and receive your room key. We sincerely hope that you enjoy your visit. Dinner will be served momentarily.”
A slight rumble of voices was followed by a spontaneous round of applause. Shelly slipped into the kitchen, where Meredith caught her by the arms.
“You were terrific! A natural. Listen to them applaud. This is fantastic!”
“People like to be pampered, I tell you.”
“I guess they do,” Jack Hadley said, coming up beside Shelly and Meredith. “I came hoofing it over here to bawl you out after what Emma Jane told me, but that would have been a mighty big mistake. You’re exactly what we need around here, Shelly. Please tell me you’ll come on full-time.”
“I don’t know,” Shelly said. “Right now we need to serve dinner while it’s still hot.”
“I’ll help,” Meredith said, grabbing a white apron off the hook by the door. “So will I,” Shelly said. “Hand me an apron.”
“Oh, why not,” Jack said. “Give me an apron, too, Meredith.”
With six servers working the dining room floor, the dinners were all served hot to the delighted women. Emma Jane used to have them line up cafeteria-style. This seemed to go nearly as fast and allowed the conferees a chance to relax.
The compliments kept coming in, and Jack strutted around like a happy man. The women had spotted the coffee bar and were helping themselves to their choice of hot beverages. Everything ran right on schedule. The luggage was lined up neatly in the lodge, and Jack was in such high spirits he told Shelly he would check in the ladies.
Shelly and Meredith helped the kitchen staff clear the tables and put away the candleholders. “Back to routine tomorrow for breakfast?” Clyde, the cook, asked. “Or do you have some bright ideas about that, too?”
“No. For now we’ll stick with our usual format. Will you let me know if you think of anything that would be helpful to you?” Shelly gave Clyde a friendly hug. “Thanks for being so flexible and willing to make all these last-minute changes.”
“Anytime,” Clyde said. “You are going to replace Emma Jane, aren’t you?”
“I’m thinking about it,” Shelly said.
“You have my vote,” Clyde said. Coming from a somber man who usually said little, Shelly took that as a wonderful compliment.
“Is there any stroganoff left?” Meredith asked.
“Help yourselves,” Clyde said. “And to the apple pie, too.”
“This doesn’t taste like the camp food I remember eating when we used to come here as kids,” Meredith said.
“That’s because Clyde wasn’t the cook then, were you, Clyde?” Shelly said, flashing him a smile.
“I’ve only been here two years.”
“Well, I hope you stay another fifty. You’re the best.”
Clyde seemed to hold his head a little higher as he moved around Shelly and Meredith to start his kitchen cleanup. The two sisters sat on stools and ate their dinners off paper plates.
“I’m going to stick around to hear the speaker,” Meredith said when they had finished. “I met her at dinner, and I’ve read some of her books.”
“Do you think she might want to write a kids’ book for you?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. But that’s not why I’m staying. I’d like to hear what she has to say. Do you want to stay, too?”
“I could. The only thing I didn’t do yet today is chop some kindling.”
“I did it,” Meredith said. “The exercise was just what I needed.”
Shelly couldn’t help but feel content. Here she was, enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime friendship with her younger sister, living in the cottage of her dreams, and finding her niche on staff at this camp. A small corner of her heart, where her treasure chest of love for Jonathan had once stood, still ached. But now nothing was left in that corner except air. It might be that way for quite a while. Shelly wondered if she could live with that. Was she one of those people who was better suited to remaining single? She didn’t know. And she didn’t feel she needed to know right now. Tonight it was enough to bask in the glow of her first success at Camp Autumn Brook.
The two women said good-bye to Clyde and headed across the grounds for the chapel. The snow had not come yet, but it was certainly cold enough for it. They walked fast, huddled close together with their hands in their pockets.
“Brrr!” Meredith exclaimed. “It’s going to be cold in our little nest when we finally do go home tonight.”
“Do you want to go now?” Shelly asked. “We can.”
“No, I really want to hear this woman speak.”
They sat in the chapel’s very last row and watched as the women came streaming in. They were all commenting on how cold it was outside and how good it felt to be in the warm chapel.
Shelly enjoyed being back in a place of worship. She had fallen out of the routine of going to church after she moved back to Seattle. At first she rebelled against her parents’ expectation that she go to church with them every Sunday the way she had while she was a child. In Pasadena, she had attended a large church with an active singles and career group. But her dad’s church was small and didn’t have a separate class for her age group, so she told her parents she was interested in finding her own church in Seattle.
She had never even visited any other churches because of her crazy schedule. Sunday needed to be a day of rest, and she felt that dressing up to go to church for an hour was anything but restful. Meredith went to a Saturday-evening service at a large contemporary church and had often urged Shelly to go with her, but Shelly never felt like attending.
Sitting here in the cozy chapel, Shelly was reminded of St. Annakapella in Germany. She didn’t know why she suddenly thought of that chapel except maybe because its door had been locked and she had never had the chance to see inside. She imagined it looked something like this chapel, with whitewashed walls that arched up to a point and a landing on which the podium stood. Shelly pictured St. Annakapella having an altar where this chapel had a baptismal tank with a stained glass window behind it.
T
hen her thoughts floated over to Jonathan and the confrontation they had had on St. Annakapella’s steps. Because the backdrop was so dramatic, the encounter seemed more vivid in Shelly’s mind. Later she had thought of so many things she should have said. She still had so many unanswered questions.
The most important words had been said, though. They had both said they were sorry, and Shelly knew she had been freed by those words from Jonathan. She felt certain her words had freed him as well. Now they both could move on with their lives.
The meeting began with singing. Sweet, soprano voices filled the snug chapel, claiming, as one voice, “Father God, we adore you. There is no one else who compares with you. May your name be exalted in our presence. Come, dwell inside our hearts and make us new.”
For some reason, Shelly couldn’t sing. All she could do was cry.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Meredith sang like an angel as she stood beside Shelly. Blinking quietly, Shelly tried to coax her emotions to behave. Finally she calmed them down by sitting with her eyes closed and listening to the songs the group sang. The praises echoed off the rounded ceiling and encircled the women, binding them together.
Then the speaker went up on the stage, and Shelly opened her eyes. She was surprised to see that the woman looked ordinary. Not that Shelly knew how an author should look, but since Meredith had wanted to meet this woman, Shelly had thought she would have a more dramatic appearance. The speaker’s voice was ordinary, too. As were her outfit and her hair. The woman prayed and then began her message.
There was nothing ordinary about her words.
The topic was one Shelly could have taught in her sleep: Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, hiding from God because they had lost their innocence and were ashamed.
“I believe,” the speaker said, “that within the heart of every woman, the Lord God still comes, walking, as it were, in the cool of the evening. He knows exactly where we are. He knows everything that’s happened, and yet he still comes. And when he comes, he asks us the same question he asked Adam and Eve.”
There was a moment’s pause.
“Where are you?” the speaker said in a whisper. “Where … are … you?”
Shelly felt her heart beating.
“I believe God will not give up until he gets us back. He comes walking in the cool of the evening, seeking us. Imagine that. He’s giving us every chance to come to him as he calls out, ‘Where are you? I want you back. Don’t hide anymore. Come back to me. I won’t give up because I absolutely love you.’ ”
Shelly had never heard God’s love explained like that. It drew her to him in a way she had never felt before. Maybe God was more than just a “mighty fortress” standing afar, looking down on her. The concept rocked her in that quiet room.
“Isn’t it interesting,” the speaker said, “that when God chose to begin a relationship with humans, he placed them in a garden? He could have given them beachfront property or placed them high on a mountain. But he put them in a garden. And when Christ rose from the dead, it was from a garden tomb. Do you remember the first person he spoke with after he came back to life? It was a woman. Mary Magdalene. Do you remember what happened?”
There was a bit of a pause. Shelly tried to remember.
“Mary thought he was the gardener.”
Shelly flashed back to the man she had supposed to be the gardener in the Hilsbach cemetery who had asked her, “Who are you looking for?”
“We don’t always recognize the Lord God when he comes walking in the garden of our hearts, do we? Mary thought he was the gardener, and she said to him, ‘Where is he?’ Isn’t that amazing? When God made man and woman and they failed, he came to them asking, ‘Where are you?’ After he made the way for us to receive eternal life through his Son, it was as if God, the relentless lover, finally heard an echo from his first question when this woman said, ‘Where is he? I want him back. I won’t rest until I find him.’ ”
The words penetrated deeply for Shelly. Like Eve, she had been hiding from God for quite some time. Like Mary, something inside her desired to call out to him.
“What I love the most about this reunion is that all Jesus had to say to cause Mary to want to run into his arms was one simple word. All he said was, ‘Mary.’ He called her by her name, just as he calls each of us by name. If you have your Bible, please turn with me to Isaiah 43, the end of the first verse.”
Pages rustled. Shelly was ashamed to realize she didn’t even know where her Bible was.
“ ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are mine,’ ” the speaker read aloud to the group. “Talk about a relentless lover! He redeemed you. He called you by your name. He wants you back.”
Shelly felt her mouth going dry.
“I’d like to do something a little different tonight as we close this first time together. I feel as if many women here need to respond to whatever it is God is trying to say to them. I don’t usually do this, but I’m going to give what some of you might know as an altar call.”
Shelly’s heart pounded even more fiercely. Her dad’s church never had altar calls. Those were only for the emotional worshipers at what he described as the more “free-spirited” churches. Shelly didn’t think she wanted to stick around and watch a bunch of sobbing women go wailing down the center aisle and crumble on the stage. She considered getting up and slipping out, but it was as if the pew had glue on it.
“I don’t know why I feel so compelled to do this,” the speaker said. “But I want God to be free to come tonight and walk into the garden of your heart. When he calls you by name, will you respond? For some of you that might mean coming out from behind those bushes and admitting you’ve been hiding from him. Tell him you’re ashamed or afraid or whatever it is that sent you there. He already knows. Tell him. You’ll never be free until you speak honestly to him and say, ‘I’m sorry. Please forgive me.’ And he will, of course. He always hears, and he always forgives.”
Some of the women adjusted their positions in the pews. Shelly thought she heard someone sniffling.
“I’ll close in prayer,” the speaker continued. “Then I’ll step to the side. We’ll stay in this chapel in a discipline of silence for the next twenty minutes and wait on God.”
As the woman prayed, Shelly could feel her pulse rising up into her throat. This was it. She had to do something. She couldn’t ignore God any longer. He wanted her back.
Shelly remembered standing next to Jonathan in the meeting room of the church in Heidelberg. He had looked at her with his eyebrows slightly lifted, waiting for her to respond. That’s when she began to understand the pain she had caused her best friend after leaving him all those years before. She had wanted to fall into his arms and tell him she was sorry. Everything inside her had urged her to grab hold of him and say, “Jonathan, I’m back. I want you back.”
She had restrained herself with Jonathan, unwilling to make a scene, and had stifled her emotions. Tonight was different. Shelly knew she had to respond to God. She felt herself make her way down the side aisle to the front of the chapel. As she knelt on the first step, she was oblivious to anything or anyone around her. With her eyes closed, hands folded, and head bowed, Shelly silently formed her prayer.
“God, I’m sorry. I’ve been hiding from you. I’ve tried to do everything my way, and I haven’t sought you at all. Please forgive me. I want you back.”
The tears began to form a steady stream down her hot cheeks. “I love you, God. I surrender everything to you. Thank you for not giving up on me.”
Before she could form an “amen,” she felt an arm around her shoulder. She supposed it to be Meredith’s. When Shelly opened her eyes to smile at her sister, she found that the comforting arm belonged to the speaker. She was kneeling next to Shelly, shoulder to shoulder, tears racing down her own cheeks.
Shelly smiled and whispered, “Thank you.”
The woman leaned over and kissed Shelly on the temple and whispered, “
‘I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.’ Jeremiah 31:3.”
Shelly closed her eyes again and let the verse sink deep into her spirit. She became aware of others around her, kneeling, crying softly, whispering prayers. The comforting arm left Shelly, but she still felt bolstered inside. A clean, fresh feeling swept over her like a gentle wind. She lingered only a moment longer, then rose and walked to the back of the chapel where Meredith was waiting for her.
The two sisters embraced and said nothing. They walked back to their cottage arm in arm, as the promised snow began to fall, blanketing their world with its precious white.
The next morning, Shelly woke early and went looking for her Bible. She found it on her bookshelf and crawled back into bed, eager to find the verse in Jeremiah that the speaker had whispered to her last night. She read Jeremiah 31, then 32 and 33. She kept reading and found a pen so she could underline some of the verses. The more she read, the more she found to underline, as if it had been written for her alone. One of the verses had a cross-reference back to Jeremiah 15. There she found a verse that made her laugh aloud. She read it again as she underlined it.
“Are you having a little party in here, and you didn’t invite me?” Meredith said, tapping softly on the door and pushing it open.
“Listen to this,” Shelly said. “ ‘Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.’ ”
Meredith looked at her warmly, but she was obviously confused as to why such a revelation was funny.
“I can’t explain it,” Shelly said. “I’ve read chapters and chapters this morning. It’s as if I’ve never seen this stuff before. I’m eating it up.”
“That’s great,” Meredith said. “I hate to pull you away from your feast, but did you need to be at camp early this morning?”
“No, breakfast was as usual. Why? What time is it?” Shelly reached over and turned her alarm so she could see it. “Nine-fifteen! Yikes! I better get out of here.”
Clouds Page 17