A Home for the Heart

by Michael Phillips

  More and more every day, I was seeing the wisdom of Christopher’s plan, and I was so glad he had had the courage to insist, both to me and to Pa, that our engagement—if it could even be called that—be like this. Now that I thought about it, I guess we weren’t really engaged like most folks think of it. We were just planning to be engaged at the end of this year . . . if Pa gave his approval.

  It was something like that anyway!

  It didn’t matter to me that it was unusual or even that I didn’t know what would happen and didn’t even know what to call it. I felt so secure about the relationship Christopher and I had, and watching him and Pa getting to know each other better every day made me trust the two of them all the more to decide what was right and best for us all.

  The inside of the barn, particularly the corner of it known as “the bunkhouse,” took shape rapidly.

  By the end of that same week they had the wall up and sheeted with wider, thinner slabs of pine to block it off from the rest of the barn. They’d put two doors in, one to the outside of the barn and one through the new wall into the main barn area, and the window was already cut out of the south outside wall, though they’d had to order the glass through the Supply Company. They said they’d go to Sacramento to pick it up, along with some other things they wanted to get. Then the trick would be to get the window back to Miracle Springs in one piece, but we’d ordered glass for people before and only twice had we broken it before delivery.

  By the first of February, Tad was so excited and so anxious to move in and start sleeping in the new bunkhouse that he was already starting to move some of his things out. He’d never lived away from home before, and even just moving out from under the roof of the main house was a big event in his life.

  They built wood-frame bunks alongside the wall, just mattress-size. The new room wasn’t all that large, so they built two of them one above the other, and of course Tad wanted the top one. Zack would sleep under him, and Christopher’s bunk was built into the adjacent wall. There was room for three or four plain, straight chairs, and Christopher wanted a small desk where he would be able to write. In the southeast corner they slabbed in a brick base for a potbellied wood stove, with a chimney running straight up and through the ceiling.

  By the time it was about ready for them to move into, the bunkhouse was starting to have a comfortable feel to it. It was completely rustic—walls and ceiling from rough-hewn fir and pine and the floor of smooth-sawn planks of fir—but still homey in a man-sort of way. When I suggested painting the inside walls, all three of the occupants rejected the idea at once.

  “There’s an earthiness to the look and feel and smell of rough wood, Corrie,” Christopher told me. “The smell of fresh wood always reminds me of Jesus in his father’s carpenter shop. It’s one of the reasons I love working with wood. No, no paint for me. Anytime you can keep the natural grain of wood, that’s what I prefer.”

  “How about a small rug, then?”

  “I would certainly have no objection to that,” he said.

  “May I make you one?”

  “That would be wonderful.”

  “Then I will! I will braid a rag rug to lay alongside your bed so that your feet will not be cold when you first get up in the morning.”

  The bunkhouse was completely finished—except for the window—by the middle of February. Tad had already been sleeping there for more than a week by the time Christopher gave up his lodgings at Mrs. Gianini’s and transferred his few worldly possessions out to our place.

  I think I was more excited about the arrangement than Tad, though I did my best not to show it. Christopher would now be around the place all day and all night and for every meal. I would be able to see him almost whenever I wanted—though I didn’t want to make a nuisance of myself! It would be just like it was at Mrs. Timms’.

  That first night, knowing that Christopher was sleeping out in the bunkhouse with Zack and Tad, I could hardly stand it. I wanted to be out there with them—listening to them talk, laughing with them, having fun with them.

  As strange as it seems to say that I was jealous of my two younger brothers over the man I hoped to marry—that’s just what I was. They were so lucky! Maybe I would get to spend a lifetime with him, but they got to have more of him right now than me, and so thinking about the future wasn’t much consolation.

  And it wasn’t just nights. Even during the day, they got to work with him too! I started thinking that maybe I could help them at the mine instead of working at the Supply Company! I wondered if Pa would let me.

  The next day, a Saturday, the four of them hauled picks and shovels and timbers up to the location where Pa planned to bore the new mine into the side of the mountain. They spent all that day getting ready to set off the first sticks of dynamite on Monday.

  Chapter 36

  Our Marriage Journal of Letters

  As the weeks went by after Christopher’s coming, then turned into months, he and I talked about this time of preparation for what we hoped would be our eventual marriage. And we began to realize what a significant period it was in our lives.

  After he’d been in the bunkhouse with Zack and Tad for a week or two, we were walking contentedly together after lunch in the open meadow just east of the house. As we were talking, I happened to say something that put an idea in both of our minds.

  “I miss getting letters from you,” I said.

  We walked on a little farther. Christopher became very silent and pensive. At first I thought I’d offended him, until finally he spoke.

  “Now that you mention it,” replied Christopher, as if my words had been more profound than I intended them, “I knew there had been something missing . . . I think that’s what it is!”

  “Missing? What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he mused. “I hadn’t really thought about it specifically until you said what you did. But as happy as I am to be here with you, there was something extraordinary about that time when we were apart too. There was a deeper level to our communication with each other. . . .”

  He paused, still thinking it through even as we walked.

  “It’s not that there’s anything wrong with how it is now, but I do miss the other, just like you said. I used to so devour your letters!”

  “Oh, me too!” I said. “And yours especially were so full of things for me to think about. But we can’t keep writing letters now.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know—because you just live over there in the bunkhouse. Because we see each other all the time now.”

  “Who says that has to stop us from writing?”

  We talked about it some more and decided to start writing letters to each other again, even though we saw each other every day as well. We wanted to keep track of what we were thinking about and how we were learning to discuss things and communicate with each other in a different way than what we each wrote in our journals and, like Christopher had said, in a different way than we did when we were actually talking with each other. Writing something down forces you to think about it a little more, and writing to somebody presses you to make your thoughts clear. There were so many things we were thinking about during that time—especially about our future—that we didn’t want to lose sight of any of it.

  We felt the letters we exchanged would be like a journal we compiled together of this year when we were learning so much, and growing together in so many ways, and talking together about what kind of people we wanted to be and what we wanted our life together to mean.

  In fact, I went into my bedroom early that same night just so I could sit down at my desk and write Christopher a letter! Not too many people would call what we exchanged “love letters”—but then that’s because they wouldn’t have understood the kind of spiritual love and kinship that was steadily growing between us.

  I did love Christopher so much—and the most wonderful thing about it was knowing that he loved me too!

  Dear Christopher,
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  It feels so good to sit down with a clean piece of paper, dip my pen in ink, and write words I know your eyes will read. I’m so glad you thought of it!

  I could talk and talk and talk to you all day every day . . . and listen and listen and listen too!

  Will we ever tire of each other? Oh, I hope not. We mustn’t let ourselves! I promise if you will promise too. I promise never to tire of you, even if you can’t make such a promise. Oh, but I am being silly . . . please don’t throw my letter away!

  I will try to be serious, for a minute anyway, because I know that is why we decided to begin writing again.

  Is it wrong of me to think of what we will do after we are married? (That is, if Pa gives his approval.) You have said you don’t want to think about it too much until the time comes. Even though you are the kind of person who plans and doesn’t let himself get caught off guard by circumstances, you say that you need to live out this present phase before looking ahead and that you can’t assume what Pa may or may not say. I think I understand.

  But I can’t help looking ahead . . . and wondering.

  Will we go back to the East, back to Richmond . . . even back to Mrs. Timms’? That seemed so much like home earlier this year, yet that was probably only because you were there. Now it seems so far away. In fact, my whole time in the East suddenly seems distant and long ago. I still can’t believe I was gone for so long!

  Now that I am here, now that I am “home” again, I feel so good and content and at peace—especially with you here too! I cannot imagine a more wonderful life than what God has given me at this moment, and so it is hard to imagine leaving.

  Yet I know that from now on, my home is with you. I have given my heart to you, not to Miracle Springs or to California . . . or to any place. Only to you. If you were not here, I would long to be wherever you were. It could be Richmond or Maine or Canada or Mexico! If you were there, then that’s where my home would be.

  Still, I cannot help wondering what will become of us, what God will do with us, where he might choose to take us.

  And still wondering, but at peace and smiling because I am thinking of you, I am going to say good-night . . . and go to bed.

  Good night,

  my Christopher!

  Corrie

  Unknown to me, at the very same time Christopher was also writing to me from his small desk out in the bunkhouse. His was a longer and more thoughtful letter.

  Oh, but how I relished it when he gave it to me the next day! It was like having some solid mental meat to chew on again. I had known I missed his letters, but I hadn’t realized just how much.

  Christopher had a way of thinking about things and analyzing them from a spiritual point of view that I never tired of listening to (or rather, reading). It didn’t matter what the topic was, I loved watching how he tried to get to the bottom of it so that he could do the right and godly thing. Even when it involved something difficult, as this letter did for him, his approach to it made me feel good.

  He had been right about the aspect of his plan that involved him and me getting to know each other better. This year wasn’t just so Pa could get to know him. Every day I was finding out more about the intricate brain of the man known as Christopher Braxton . . . and I liked what I saw!

  If I’d had any doubts months earlier, I sure didn’t now—I wanted to be this man’s wife!

  Dear Corrie,

  An unpleasant realization dawned upon me several days ago. I will try to tell you about it and hope you can understand.

  Since you happened into my life, I have been so happy and content, and so taken up with you in my thoughts, that I suddenly am aware that I have not been nearly so conscious of the Lord as before.

  Please do not take this wrong, my dear Corrie. In no way is this statement intended to reflect upon you. It refers rather to something amiss in my own soul—or at least I have found myself questioning if such was the case.

  Why is it that one turns to God so easily and so naturally in the midst of despondency, confusion, and sadness, but is unable so readily to bring him into all the corners of one’s life when all is going well and happiness reigns on the seat of the heart?

  When I was going through the worst of my difficulties at my church and even during my sojourn at Mrs. Timms’ farm, which almost seemed like an exile, the Lord was my constant companion. I prayed almost constantly, crying out to him in my uncertainty concerning many aspects of my life. I questioned the past. I sought perspective. I asked my heavenly Father day and night to reveal to me what the ministry was supposed to be, what I might have done differently. I wondered about what was to become of me—what, if anything, I was to do for him with the rest of my life. The pages of my Bible were well worn in my search for answers, consolation, insight, and wisdom. I hungered for the Lord’s voice to speak to me, and my thoughts were nearly always turned toward him.

  But now everything is so different. The sun has come out upon my existence! All of my life radiates with new joy and purpose.

  So much of this, of course, is due to you, dear Corrie. But it is more than only you. Even if you were to be taken from me, my life would still be vastly different than it was for me a year ago. The Lord has renewed my vision of service. So many of the unanswered questions from the past are now fading into a region of the memory where they have no more power to sting and torment and keep me awake.

  However—and here we come at last to the source of my new bewilderment—it seems as though the happy change has lessened my moment-by-moment dependence upon the Lord. He is not on my mind nearly so frequently. My Bible sits unopened sometimes for days. My prayers, when I remember to pray at all, are not so urgent and heartfelt as before. Horrible to say—but it does not seem as though I need the Father to the same extent as I did before.

  Surely this is not so! We need him for every breath we breathe. Most certainly I need him today as much as I did two years ago. But I am less aware of it as I was then.

  That is my concern. It worries me, Corrie. I do not want to be one of the Lord’s fair-weather friends.

  Surely it should not be this way! Why should joy not fill me with such an awareness of the Father’s goodness that I walk even more closely with him when, as I said, the sun is shining and life seems good?

  Life is good, Corrie!

  It is good because God created it so. I love to reflect upon the Genesis account, in which time and again the Creator says, “It is good,” and upon completion of his vast work in the universe proclaims, “It is very good”!

  Why, then, are we less conscious of the Father’s nearness the more conscious we are of the goodness of life?

  A mystery indeed!

  Are we supposed to work harder to make the Lord an integral part of our lives at such times as these? Are prayer, Bible reading, trust in God, and growth supposed to require an effort on our part? When I was surrounded by confusion on all sides, seeking the Lord took no special effort. I could do nothing else! And I cannot say I was always aware of growth in those times, yet as I look back now I see that in so many ways the Lord’s hand was indeed maturing me. I fear such is not happening now, at least not in the same way.

  Is misery necessary for growth? That does not seem reasonable, yet my experience seems to tell me yes.

  Well, I am going to worry about it no longer. I am certainly not miserable right now. I am so happy knowing you are so close! And being able to write to you like this has made me feel still closer to you. I have missed communicating with you with my fingers and my brain instead of just with my lips.

  I can’t wait to give you this tomorrow! This is going to be a much better arrangement than having to wait weeks for an answer!

  Bless you, my dear, dear Corrie!

  Still yours,

  Christopher

  P.S. I love your family. I find myself thinking of them almost as often as I do of you! How fortunate you are to be so blessed—and how fortunate am I to love a woman with such a warm and loving family! It’s
like a precious dowry that makes me want to marry you all the more.

  Chapter 37

  The New Mine

  It had been more than seventeen years since gold was first discovered at Sutter’s Mill. Since then there’d been hundreds of new innovations in mining equipment, mainly because every year what gold was left got harder to find and a lot harder to extract from the mountains, streams, and rivers.

  But Pa was intent on mining the mountain for the new vein just like he and Uncle Nick and Mr. Jones had mined the first one. He didn’t want to spend thousands of dollars on expensive new equipment. Also, he was looking forward to doing the hard work with his bare hands, and he didn’t want some newfangled metal contraption doing the work for him.

  The minute Alkali Jones heard about Pa’s decision to reopen the Hollister mine, he was over at our place every day again, just like he had been right at the beginning. Now, of course, he wasn’t able to do much work. His beard was grayer and his hair thinner than ever. Pa said Alkali was getting close to seventy or maybe there already.

  But even though he was slowing down a lot, Mr. Jones still had the same sense of humor and kept everybody laughing with his stories. And now that he had a new and willing audience in Christopher, he had to tell everyone of his seventy-year supply all over again! There was no end to the teasing he got from Pa and the boys about them, but as long as Christopher was interested, Mr. Jones persisted.

  In fact, Christopher showed Mr. Jones such courtesy and listened with such interest to everything he said that before long the two were fast friends. Whenever the old miner came over to the house, he would ask for Christopher, almost like a child asking if a friend could come out to play, and then would follow him around like a devoted puppy all day long.

  Pa and Christopher made an effort to make Mr. Jones feel like an important member of the mining team that to listen to them all talk, he was working just as hard as the rest of them. They’d ask him to bring them tools or to fetch some water to drink, and from the times I’d go up to the mine to watch I could see that Pa was always looking out for a softer spot in the rock where he could put Alkali to work with a pick. He let him light the fuse on the first dynamite blast too.