Two Steps Forward

by Sharon Garlough Brown

  Katherine smiled, and when Katherine smiled, her eyes lit up like sparkling sapphires. She just had this sense of peace about her. Was she always at peace, even when life was crappy? Mara didn’t know many details about her life. She had mentioned grandchildren a couple of times but had never spoken about a husband. No ring on her left hand. Maybe she was widowed. Or divorced. Would people like Katherine get divorced? People like Katherine would probably never initiate a divorce. Maybe her husband had left her. Maybe he’d had an affair and left when their kids were young, and she’d been a single mother who had managed to put her kids through college. Maybe—

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Katherine said.

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  She rubbed the tip of her index finger and tugged at the corner of the SpongeBob SquarePants Band-Aid she’d found that morning at the very back of a cupboard beneath the bathroom sink. Every once in a while she discovered a relic from the boys’ childhood that caused her grief. Kevin had loved SpongeBob when he was little, and he’d often put half a dozen Band-Aids all over his skinny little freckled body, even if he didn’t have any scratches. One day Mara lost her patience and scolded him for wasting them. And that’s why there was an almost-full box in the cabinet.

  She was a lousy mother.

  She stared at the dancing flame and tried to recapture the sense of Presence she’d been enjoying moments before. But it was gone.

  Crap.

  The same silence that had felt so soothing ten minutes ago now felt awkward, as if Katherine were waiting for her to offer something she didn’t have. She stared at her feet. “So . . . what are we supposed to talk about? Do you have questions I’m supposed to answer about God, or what?”

  “Sometimes I’ll ask specific questions about your life with God,” Katherine said. “But to start with today, why don’t you just tell me about anything that’s stirring around for you right now? Anything at all.”

  With such an unexpected, open-ended invitation, Mara discovered that the words were escaping her mouth before she had the opportunity to grab and edit them. “I hate my husband. And I hate my life.”

  Mara had never actually spoken about her hatred of Tom to anyone else, not even to Dawn. Sure, she talked freely in her counseling sessions about how difficult her marriage was, how she wished things were different. She had voiced her regret and disappointment. Plenty of times. But hate? As soon as she heard the words, “I hate my husband,” she was shocked by their raw brutality. It was one thing to think it, another thing to say it. Now it was out there hovering, and there was no snatching it back.

  “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  The air between Katherine and herself felt heavy, as if she had polluted the sacred space by declaring something obscene. Just when she was about to try to backpedal and explain herself, Katherine spoke. “Is it true?”

  Yes, it was true, much as she hated to admit it. She nodded slowly.

  “Then saying it is part of the path to healing and transformation.”

  Gripped by fear, Mara looked up. “I have to say it to him?”

  “That might not be a safe thing to do.” Katherine leaned forward slightly. “But you’ve made a good start by speaking it aloud to yourself. And to me. And maybe you’ll also find yourself able to speak it to God in prayer.”

  Was she serious? No way. “I don’t think I could ever pray that. It’s a terrible thing to say. I mean, we’re not supposed to hate people.” She was no Bible expert, but she was pretty sure Jesus had said plenty about that.

  “You’re right,” Katherine said. “God calls us to love. Always to love. But we don’t become loving by denying the truth of our anger and resentment.”

  Mara crossed her arms. “So I say what? ‘Dear God, I hate my husband, and some days I don’t feel like being a mother. Amen.’ That’s what I’m supposed to pray?”

  “God invites us to pray what’s true, no matter how it sounds.”

  Well, that sounded crazy. “I won’t get zapped or anything for saying it?” Didn’t people get zapped in the Old Testament?

  “God already knows what’s in our hearts, even before we do,” Katherine said. “You’re not telling him anything he doesn’t already know and understand. And God doesn’t punish us for being honest with him.”

  “Yeah, but what if I pray like that and then God decides to kill Tom or do something to the boys? What if I’ve already jinxed them by telling you how I feel? Then what?”

  “God doesn’t work that way, Mara. You can’t harm your family by confessing your heart to God.”

  Okaaay. She sure hoped so. Katherine probably thought she wasn’t a very good Christian. First, her hatred, now her superstition. Could you get fired by a spiritual director? Better try to come up with something that sounded profound. Fast.

  “I’ve been thinking all week about something my pastor said on Sunday,” Mara said, spinning the plastic, red-and-white-polka-dot bangle on her wrist. “He preached this sermon about Jesus being born in the mess, and I’ve been wondering how Jesus can be born in the crap of my family life.”

  “Tell me more about that.”

  Mara kept spinning the bracelet. Round and round and round. “Well, Meg was telling us at the airport about how they lit this Advent candle for hope at her church on Sunday. And I started thinking that most days, I don’t have much hope that anything will ever be different. So I’ve been trying to think about how to make room for Jesus to come and be born in everything that’s awful about my life with Tom and the kids.”

  “That’s a great image.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” She reached for a green striped throw pillow on the couch and clutched it against her stomach. “I’m not sure how much good it’s doing me.”

  Tick. Tick. Tick. A clock on Katherine’s wall suddenly sounded amplified. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Funny how she hadn’t noticed the clock when she’d first enjoyed the silence in the room. Tick Tick Tick Tick Ti—

  “So how are you welcoming Jesus into the mess?” Katherine asked.

  What was the right answer? Well, I’m trying to clear some space by reading my Bible every morning at exactly the same time for thirty, no—forty-five minutes while the boys are still asleep and it’s still dark outside. Was that how she was supposed to make room and welcome Jesus? Or maybe Katherine wanted to know if she was still practicing some of the spiritual disciplines she’d learned in the sacred journey group. Things like the prayer of examen and praying with imagination. And that way of reading a passage from Scripture slowly several times, some foreign-sounding phrase she didn’t know how to pronounce. Lectio-something. She hadn’t done much of any of that the past couple of weeks, that was for sure.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I still haven’t found a good way to clean up all the crap so that there’s room for him.”

  “What if it’s not your job to clean up the mess?”

  Why wouldn’t it be her job? If there was a huge mess cluttering up space, then it seemed only right that she should get to work clearing it out, not just by stuffing junk into closets so that it looked tidy, or by doing a surface clean with a couple of Lysol wipes. No, she needed something much more radical than that. And the thought of that kind of intense cleaning was overwhelming. There was still so much crap in her life, she didn’t even know where to start.

  She said so to Katherine.

  “Jesus isn’t afraid of mess, Mara. He enters into it. Then we can say yes to the Spirit’s work of shining light and revealing the things that clutter up sacred space, the things that bind us. Like you did just now, by speaking something hard and honest. That kind of confession makes room for Jesus.”

  Mara shifted position on the couch. “Yeah, well, I still wish my heart was cleaner, you know? A better place for Jesus.”

  “You’d rather be a luxury resort, huh?”

  Mara nodded. Like one of those Caribbean resorts she was always seeing advertised on television, the ones with lounge chairs on white sand
beside turquoise water with people drinking out of glasses with those little paper parasols. She knew such places actually existed because she saw plenty of vacation photos on Facebook.

  Nauseating.

  “So, think for a moment about what that reveals to you about who God is,” Katherine said. “How do you feel when you think about God choosing to have his one and only Son born not in a palace, but in a lowly, humble place?”

  Mara pulled herself away from the Caribbean back to a manger in Bethlehem, back to her own heart. “Guilty,” she said. “Like Jesus deserves better. A lot better.”

  “But God freely chose that place.”

  “Then it’s a weird choice.”

  Katherine chuckled. “I suppose it isn’t what I would have chosen for my child, either.”

  Mara was suddenly aware of a fist clenching in her stomach, and it took her a few moments to realize why she felt like she was going to be sick. “Maybe if I had chosen differently for my child,” she said, “I wouldn’t be in the mess I’m in now.”

  Katherine prayed silently. Come, Lord Jesus. Come and reveal yourself.

  There were times when Katherine felt the impulse to remove her shoes, moments when she was overcome by the awareness that she was standing on sacred ground with another, glimpsing the Holy One. If she could have removed her boots without Mara noticing, she would have. Instead, she imagined herself untying the laces and worshiping barefoot.

  Come and remove the obstacles that keep Mara from receiving you more fully. Come and make room for yourself in the midst of all that feels messy and chaotic to her right now. Bring your light. Your life. Hope. Peace. The revelation of your love.

  “I already told you that whole story the last time I came to see you, back in the sacred journey group, didn’t I? About how I only married Tom because I was pregnant with Kevin?”

  Not wanting to miss the opportunity to hear an illuminating retelling of the story, Katherine extended her hand in invitation. “Remind me,” she said.

  Mara crossed her ankles and breathed deeply. “Jeremy was about fifteen then,” she said, “and I’d been in and out of relationships with dozens of losers, just looking for a stable place where Jeremy and I could be safe, you know? Jeremy was a good kid. A real good kid. But when he was about eleven, he started hanging around with some bad kids who were getting into all kinds of trouble, and I was so worried about him. I got it into my head that what he needed was a normal life. We were living in this hellhole of an apartment, and I was working at a seedy little hotel, just trying to make enough to pay the rent. And I had to work nights sometimes, and I’d leave Jeremy alone and lock the apartment doors and pray he’d be safe until I got home in the morning. And I—”

  Mara reached for the box of tissues Katherine kept on the coffee table and blew her nose. Give her courage, Lord.

  “Well, the hotel was an easy place to meet traveling businessmen. Not the nice single kind with good jobs, but the ones looking for a little extra something on the side. And sometimes—” Mara was covering half her face with a tissue and staring at her lap again. “Well, once this guy came through and offered me money for . . . you know . . . for . . .”

  Aware that even the slightest body movement might cause Mara to shut down, Katherine stayed rooted in place.

  “For sex.” Mara was wiping her brow with a wad of tissues, avoiding eye contact. “I didn’t do it. I couldn’t. But I was tempted. I was really, really tempted. And that scared me real bad, you know? That I could feel that desperate.” She crumpled the tissues. “You must think I’m terrible.”

  Quietly, as gently as possible, Katherine said, “It’s never a sin to be tempted, Mara. You were very brave to resist it.”

  Mara gestured with her right hand, wagging her wrist back and forth, her colorful bangles clicking together. “No. No. No. I wasn’t. Because when Tom came to the hotel for the first time, wearing a nice suit and flashing around his Gold Card or platinum something-or-other, talking about his sales commissions and his new car, I made up my mind he was the answer to all my trouble. He seemed different than the others. And even though I wasn’t taking money for it, I started offering myself up, you know . . . trying to . . . I don’t know. No. Yes, I do. Trying to trap him. I was. I was trying to trap him. And then when I did get pregnant—it happened after just a couple of months of me secretly trying—well, I knew how to make him marry me. I just hinted that I could get an abortion—I know, it’s terrible—I don’t think I would have. Even though I’d already had one when I was a teenager, which—well, that’s another whole story.

  “I don’t know what I would have done if Tom had said, ‘Fine! Go ahead!’ But he didn’t say, ‘Fine!’ He said, ‘Guess we better get married.’ He’d been married and divorced once before, but they didn’t have kids. And he’d always wanted one. So he was happy enough about a baby. And when it was a boy, he was really happy. But he never even pretended to be a father for Jeremy, just for Kevin and Brian. And even though Jeremy and I got to move out of that lousy cockroach apartment into a nice house and a nice neighborhood, it was like I just traded one prison for another one, you know? And then Jeremy and Tom started arguing and fighting all the time. And it was awful. It’s still awful, even though Jeremy’s all grown up. At least when Jeremy was home, I had someone else who shared my anger against Tom, like there were two against three. Now it’s three against one.”

  Mara sank back into the sofa and rattled out a long sigh. “You think I’m terrible, don’t you?” She twisted the tissues in her lap. “I am terrible.”

  Lord, deliver her from shame. “You’re not terrible, Mara. I think you’re very brave. Very brave to sit here and name such painful things.” Keep giving her courage.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone except my counselor about all that. I don’t even know if I’ve confessed it to God—the whole trapping Tom thing. Just saying it out loud makes me think I deserve what I’ve gotten, you know?” She paused. “I’ve got enough mess to last me a lifetime, that’s for sure.”

  Katherine waited, listening and praying. What gifts of encouragement did the Holy Spirit have for Mara? Scripture? An image? A prayer? What was there to name and notice about the presence of God together? What invitation was being offered?

  As she prayed, a particular text came to mind. Thank you, Lord. Bring it to life for her.

  “I’m wondering if there’s another image to ponder,” Katherine said. “Not that the manger isn’t beautiful. It’s a rich image for Jesus coming into the humblest places, and I hear how you’re longing to make room for him to come and be born in your family.” Katherine reached for the Bible on the coffee table and opened to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 1. “I’m going to read some verses slowly a couple of times—you can sit and listen with your eyes closed if you want to—and then we’ll talk about what you notice, okay?”

  Mara nodded. Katherine began to read the passage aloud.

  In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

  When she finished reading the passage a second time, Katherine waited for Mara to open her eyes. “Did anything catch your attention as you listened?” Katherine asked.

  “Yeah. Mary.”

  “What about Mary?”

  “That she was chosen.”

  “‘Chosen’ is a great word.”

  Mara nodded. “Yeah. I’ve been thi
nking a lot about that word the past few months. My counselor and I have talked a lot about how Jesus chose me. ’Cause I always saw myself as the rejected one, like I was just the leftover God had to choose. So it was pretty huge when I started to see that Jesus chose me, not because he had to or because he felt sorry for me, but because he loved me and wanted me.”

  Thank you, Lord. “That’s a huge shift, Mara. A shift in your image of God and yourself. How beautiful.”

  “Yeah. I need to remember it. Let it sink in. It’s hard to believe sometimes.”

  “Very hard,” Katherine said.

  Mara, eyes fixed again on the flickering flame, did not reply.

  “I wonder,” Katherine said, also watching the Christ candle, “how do you think Mary felt when the angel spoke to her?”

  Mara thought a moment and then said, “Scared. He told her not to be afraid. And then special. Maybe confused, like she wasn’t sure it was real.”

  “Do you ever feel that way? About being chosen?”

  “Confused, you mean?”

  “Confused, special, afraid—those are all good words to describe what Mary might have felt.”

  Mara shrugged. “Yeah. I guess. I felt really confused for a while. It didn’t make sense because I had never felt chosen by anyone, so it was really hard to believe at first that Jesus had chosen me. But I think I’ve started to believe it, that Jesus loves me and has chosen me.” She fiddled with a tassel on one of the throw pillows. “I don’t feel very special, though,” she said. “Mary was special. She was chosen for something really important. Like when it says she was favored. It makes me think of the word ‘favorite.’ And I’ve never been anyone’s favorite anything.” Mara chewed on a fingernail, then began pushing back the cuticle on her thumb. Then her index finger. Then the remaining fingers, each in turn.

  Katherine looked down at the verses again. “That word ‘favored’ is an interesting one,” she said slowly. “It literally means ‘graced.’ So the angel is saying, ‘Don’t be afraid, Mary, God has chosen to pour out his grace on you.’ Mary is chosen to be a vessel by God’s grace. Like you, Mara. You’ve been favored. Graced. Chosen. Just like you were saying.”