by Chris Fabry
What in the world was that? he thought. It was so real.
His heart rate felt like he’d just run a hundred-yard dash. He told himself to calm down, it had only been a dream, but the feelings wouldn’t subside. He had been the one standing over his wife, hurting her. He had thought she was calling him for help, but she was just trying to get him to stop. He closed his eyes. He couldn’t shake the image of the other Tony throwing Elizabeth to the ground and attacking her.
He struggled to get out of the covers and stood, letting his heart rate settle. It was light outside. How long had he slept? He glanced at the clock, which read 7:14. He tried to remember the night before—he’d fallen into bed, physically and emotionally drained.
Elizabeth wasn’t in the bedroom now. He wished he could talk with her, see her—just make sure she was okay. Maybe the dream was some kind of warning? Maybe she was being stalked by the guy who had jumped her in the alley? But the guy in the dream had been himself.
He noticed something taped to the mirror over Elizabeth’s dresser. A note in Elizabeth’s handwriting. She’d always had the neatest writing. He remembered the handwritten notes she used to send him and the feeling it gave him to see his own name written in her hand.
Went to work early. Can you take Danielle to practice at 10:00? Liz.
Tony looked at his face in the mirror. He flexed his jaw—it almost felt like a punch had landed. But that was crazy. It was only a dream.
He went to his closet to find his gym bag but it wasn’t there. He tried to think where he’d put it last and wandered into the living room. He hadn’t left it in the car, he was sure of that.
Danielle sat at the kitchen table crunching her favorite cereal, Coney Bombs, and reading the box. It was one of those generic brands that mimicked the national brand but was half the price. They were going to be eating a lot of that from now on. Her journal was open and on the couch across the room. What was it about that journal that had captured her? It was probably a phase she was going through, like the expensive doll phase and the expensive toy horse stage with the expensive toy corral and the barn that cost more than a real barn. It hit Tony again that he didn’t have a job, and who would hire somebody who had cheated his employer? There would be no more expensive dolls or horses in that house.
“Danielle, have you seen my gym bag?”
She looked up. No Good morning or Hey, Dad or anything like that. She just said, “No, sir.”
Her words troubled him, but he shook off the feeling and wandered back to his bedroom, trying to recall his steps. Maybe Elizabeth had put the bag in her own closet. She was always tidying up, moving things around so the house would look less cluttered.
He opened her closet door and froze, staring in bewilderment. Instead of all her dresses and blouses and jeans and scarves and sweaters and the collection of shoes that rivaled some queen in a far-off land, it was empty. At first he thought she’d moved out. It was the first step in her leaving him—that’s where his mind went.
Then he saw the pillow on the closet floor and the Bible. The only things on the walls were taped notes. He thought they were to-do lists, things she might need to get done at work or around the house. Then he examined them a little closer and saw that they were names—and there were Bible verses written on the notes with phrases underlined and words circled and highlighted.
He’d seen movies where a main character discovered the secret life of a spouse. Or a husband or wife had gone off the deep end mentally and written crazy stuff on papers they kept in a shed in the woods. Was Elizabeth losing her mind?
As he studied the content of the messages, he began to think differently. It almost looked like some spiritual game plan by a coach who wanted to win against a rival team. Or a strategy of how to win a battle in a war he didn’t even know was raging.
One of the notes had Danielle’s name at the top of the page.
I pray that you would give her a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ. I pray that the perception of her mind might be enlightened so she would know what is the hope of His calling, what are the glorious riches of His inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power to those who believe, according to the working of His vast strength.
—EPH. 1:17FF
There were other verses and prayers for their home, their finances, people in the community, friends, and extended family. There was a page marked Cynthia and Darren, and underneath a prayer for their marriage, their finances, a job, and wisdom for the future.
Tony knew Elizabeth was a spiritual person. She took God seriously, but he’d never seen her this serious. And the change in Danielle’s spiritual life had obviously been her following Elizabeth’s lead.
He leaned down to the note taped closest to the pillow, right at eye level if you were kneeling. He read the words in his wife’s handwriting.
Lord, I pray for Tony, that You would turn his heart back to You. Help me to love him, and give him a fresh love for me. I surrender my rights to You as Lord and ask You to bless him as he honors You and to expose him if he walks in deceit. Build him up as the man You intend him to be. Help me to support and respect him. I ask for Your help to love him. In Christ I pray.
Tony stood there, stunned. It was like looking inside someone else’s soul. He felt almost ashamed, like he was looking at something that was supposed to be hidden. If Elizabeth could open his closet, see inside his soul, what would she find? What notes had he been stashing? He hadn’t told her about why he’d been fired. He hadn’t told her about Veronica or any of the old flames he’d thought about contacting on social media. A comparison of the closets of their hearts showed a stark difference.
Tony studied another sheet on the wall. It was like a shopping list of people and prayer requests, and some of them had been checked, as if already answered. Cynthia had received help from a church. Elizabeth and Danielle had grown closer in their relationship. Her desire for God had grown stronger. But there were several other requests that were left unchecked.
Tony to come back to the Lord was at the top. Under that was That our marriage be restored. Those two items stopped him for a second. Elizabeth hadn’t nagged him about much of anything the past few days. She’d become quieter. When he revealed the news about his job loss, she had been supportive instead of lashing out or accusing. Was that partly because she’d been praying so much?
Miss Clara’s house to sell. That was one of the most practical requests on the list and the one that seemed most likely to be checked next. All that had to happen was for Elizabeth to find a buyer in order for that check to go on the paper. The others . . . well, he wasn’t sure how any of those about him and their marriage could be checked.
Tony heard movement behind him and turned to see Danielle at the bedroom door holding his gym bag.
“Daddy? I found your bag next to the washing machine.”
“You can set it right there,” he said.
She put the bag on the floor and started to leave.
“Danielle, when did Mama do this to her closet?”
She thought a moment. “Umm, a few weeks ago?”
Tony turned back to the words that seemed to float around this space. The day before he had thought seriously about ways he could end his life and give his family financial stability. They’d been fleeting thoughts, of course. Tony was a fighter, and he wasn’t going to give up. Not yet, anyway. But he wondered if there was something he hadn’t considered. Was there a different way out of his problems and the hole he had dug? Was there a possibility that God could forgive him and give him a second chance?
“Daddy, are you going to take me to the community center?” Danielle said, breaking his train of thought.
He showered, dressed, and made breakfast. Danielle was ready to go and sat on the couch writing in her journal while he ate. As they drove to the community center, he thought again about his dream and shuddered. The feelings it brought were too close to the bone and the soul.<
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The community center was a beehive of activity with kids and parents. Several girls practiced their double Dutch routines, where two people swung two ropes and jumpers navigated the middle. Tony had jumped rope in training and he was pretty good at going fast, but this was another level of coordination, timing, and teamwork.
“What time does your practice end?”
“At noon,” Danielle said.
“I’ll be back to get you then,” he said.
Jennifer ran to Danielle and the two walked over to their team. Tony scanned the center and saw Michael in his blue paramedic uniform. He was filling something out at the front desk.
There were so many things swirling around in Tony’s brain and his default was just to keep it to himself, protect himself, hold it in. But Michael was the kind of guy you could talk to and not feel . . . well, judged.
“Michael?” Tony said.
“What’s up, man?” Michael said. “What are you doing here?”
“Dropping Danielle off before I head to the weight room. What’s up with you?”
“I’m renewing my membership. Then I’m getting my coffee and hitting my shift, bro.”
Tony thought a moment, fighting the battle to step over some unseen line in his mind—the line between vulnerability and self-protection. Finally he said, “Well, look, you got a few minutes?”
“For you? No, I got stuff to do.”
Tony stared at him. Then came a big smile on Michael’s face. “I’m just playing. What’s up?”
They got their coffee and grabbed a table away from everyone else. Tony didn’t know whether to discuss his job situation or what had happened with Elizabeth. He decided on the latter and explained what he’d seen in Elizabeth’s closet.
“It kind of freaked me out,” Tony said.
“So the whole closet was empty?” Michael said.
“Yeah, except for the papers on the wall.”
“And what did she do with her clothes?”
“Michael, I don’t know. Some other closet. Why does that matter?”
Michael sat forward. “Dude, I don’t think you understand how important this is. When was the last time you heard of a woman giving up some closet space?”
Tony frowned and shrugged.
“All I know is, you can fight against your wife, and probably hold your own, but if God is fighting for her, you can hit the gym all you want to, but it’s not looking too good for you.”
Tony stared into the distance, wondering if he should talk about the loss of his job, the marriage struggles, all the stuff that weighed him down like a thousand-pound barbell.
“Man, I wish my wife would pray for me like that,” Michael said. “Plus, I could use the closet space.”
Tony wanted to laugh, but his heart wasn’t in it.
Michael stood. “I gotta catch my shift. I’ll check with you later.”
Tony sat for a few moments thinking. All of his life had been tied up with what he did. His identity was his job and what a good salesman he was. With that gone, how would he define himself? And if he had stayed with Brightwell for the rest of his life, would he have anything more than he had right now? He’d have a pension and some kind of retirement plan and insurance, for sure. But would he have anything of lasting value? Would he have a wife who loved him in spite of how he’d acted? Would he have a daughter who wanted to be with him?
He glanced at his watch and walked toward the gym, where Danielle and her teammates practiced. He stopped at the front desk and caught the receptionist’s attention.
“Excuse me. Can you tell Danielle I’ll be back to get her after practice?”
The girl smiled and took a scrap piece of paper from a pile. “Sure, I’ll tell her. My pleasure.”
He thanked her and drove home, the radio off. It was still and quiet when he walked in the door. Empty. It was almost as if God were showing him what life would be like if he continued living his own way. He would wind up alone, separated from the people he loved and, more importantly, from the people who really loved him.
What a fool he had been. He had told himself that he worked hard because he wanted to provide for his family. The truth was, he wanted what he wanted. He had made the decision to throw himself into his sales, and the more success he had, the more he threw himself at it. The whole thing had wrapped him up and clouded his vision.
When had he ever asked Elizabeth what she wanted? When had he ever asked if he could do something for her? What would make her life easier or better? He’d always been consumed with whatever was on his mind, whether it was work or his next trip or the big game. It was never Danielle or Elizabeth and what they were interested in or what would help them.
When had he ever prayed for his family? That thought hit him between the eyes. He had always thought of himself as a good, God-fearing person. He’d given his life to Christ years ago and read his Bible and knew that the only really satisfying life was found in living for God and following Jesus. But the inexorable draw of day-to-day living, the ebb and flow of a career, caused a slow drift away from the truth. He could see that now.
The loss of the job, the accusation of padding the numbers, and the truth of what had really happened brought him to the brick wall of himself. And the dream he had the previous night also confronted him. He would never strike his wife. He would never harm her or take out his frustration physically, but he could see that he had hurt her, that he had done the next best thing to a gut punch with every selfish choice he made.
He went to Elizabeth’s closet and sat in a small chair staring at the prayers on the wall. The verses. The requests. The people in her life. Tony didn’t even recognize some of the names and for that he was ashamed. How could his wife be fervently praying for people when he didn’t even know who they were?
They aren’t important.
Those words came to him softly, in his heart. These people weren’t important—but the people who were important, he remembered. He wrote down their names. He memorized them, used mnemonic devices to make sure he knew they were important. So why didn’t he do that with the woman at the community center who knew his daughter and Elizabeth?
His eyes rested on the sheet that Elizabeth had written about him, the things she was praying over his life. She prayed he would love her and Danielle, that he would be honorable in his work, that he would hate his own sin. She hadn’t even known how his life had become unraveled, hadn’t known of his sin, and this was what she was praying.
Hate his own sin.
He stared at the words. What did it mean to hate your own sin? It sounded so spiritual, so Christian. But that was really the crux of it, wasn’t it? In order for him to change, he had to see the ways he was hurting his family, the ways he was hurting his employer—and those he came in contact with, like Veronica. He closed his eyes and thought of how close he’d come to throwing it all away. If he’d ordered something else on the menu, he might not have become sick. He might have gone with Veronica that night.
Or maybe it wasn’t the food that had sickened him. Maybe it was something else, something deeper than his stomach.
He stood and moved to sit on the bed, facing a picture of Elizabeth from their wedding. She looked so happy, standing straight and tall, the white dress highlighting her dazzling smile. If he could have bottled the joy that poured out of her in that picture, he’d be a rich man. She’d been so full of hope, ready to be loved. The light on her face had grown dimmer in the past decade.
At the wedding, the pastor had talked about what it meant to love someone like Jesus loved. And he charged Tony to do that. Tony didn’t remember much of the message, the challenge, but he knew he hadn’t lived up to that ideal. Not even close.
A sadness that cut to his very core fell over him. But it was more than sadness, more than regret. It was a deep conviction. It was a verdict on his life. As he stared at the picture, he flashed to the dream where he’d been attacking his wife. Like some music stab in a movie that makes you jump, a jolt
went through him and made him flinch. The wave hit him again and he was rolling beneath it, struggling for breath.
He stumbled from their room, wandering through the house he had worked so hard to buy. All the stuff, the furniture, the nicest television, the granite countertops, the expensive bookcases. What did any of this mean?
A verse flashed through his mind, something he had memorized when he was a child in one of those children’s programs at church. It was tucked away back there in some hidden room in his mind, stored until this moment.
“What is a man benefited if he gains the whole world, yet loses or forfeits himself?” This wasn’t just about losing his wife and daughter. It wasn’t just about serving them and memorizing another list of names written in his notebook. It was deeper.
Elizabeth hadn’t been praying for Tony to become the husband she wanted because she was unhappy. She had been praying for him because she knew he was unhappy. What was that old quote? “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God”? Something like that.
He moved into Danielle’s room, looking at the pictures she displayed. She loved to color and draw. On a table near her desk was a card she had colored: I ♥ DOUBLE DUTCH. He picked up a picture of her smiling, looking up into the camera, sitting in a big leather chair. The innocence of childhood. The hopes and dreams that lay ahead. He stared at the picture of his little girl as a newborn. What kind of legacy was he leaving for her? Would he even be in her life a year from now? Ten years? He didn’t want her to wind up feeling abandoned like he had felt.
He had criticized her for quitting basketball. He had missed her heart. All the chances he had to spend time with her, to play a game or watch a movie or go for a walk—he’d been too busy for the most important thing.
It all came together for him in that moment. His eyes watering, his heart breaking at the choices he had made, Tony thought, I don’t want to miss any of this. I don’t want to miss life, real life.
He had contemplated ending his life. He truly had thought that his family would be better off without him because they would get his life insurance. But looking at how much his wife and daughter loved him in spite of the way he had treated them pushed him toward a different ledge. Their life wasn’t about money and nice things and a beautiful house. It was about relationships. It was about showing and receiving love. He had missed that truth. He had worked so hard to provide something good, but he had trusted in the things he could do, the things he could possess, and they had risen up to possess him. He had missed the whole point of his marriage and his life.