Although she expected disappointment, his voice registered only a lilt of joy. “I think this trip might be just what you need.”
The next morning when Dani awoke to the increased level of airport activity, she yawned, stretched and checked her watch. Two hours. She had time for a little breakfast before the eight-hour flight. Pulling out her phone, she swiped the messages on.
Still praying.
Travel safely.
Can’t wait to see you, Eric had texted. Let me know when you’ll be in.
She dug out her tickets and typed in the times as well as the stops. One more at JFK though it noted that one might be delayed by 30 minutes or more. With that task handled, she stood and brought her bags with her down the walkway. Before she found food, she came to a gift shop, and knowing she would only have the diary to keep her company for the next eight hours as there was no longer work to do, she stepped in and perused the selection of books. Selecting one that wasn’t a novel but didn’t look downright depressing, she went up and paid for it. At least she would have something to occupy her time other than her thoughts. Book in hand, she went to find something to eat.
“She’s headed home,” Eric told Caleb when he got to his desk and could return the call.
“She’ll be back tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“So what’s the plan then for the weekend?”
“We’ll be there on Friday, not sure what time though. I talked to her a little last night. She sounded kind of down or tired. Not that I blame her. I think she spent the night at the airport.”
“Okay. Well, we’re going to have to get some stand-ups this weekend from the two of you. Derek is getting a little concerned we haven’t gotten enough.”
“Okay. We’ll plan on it.”
Many long minutes after the plane lifted off, Dani dug out the book, realizing only then that she should have gotten a longer one. This one wouldn’t last her an hour. Still, it was now all she had, so she opened it and started reading. The 9-12 Project
The first few paragraphs were about the premise of the book, about how a life change can happen in as little as 21 days, how that would be how the book was set up. 21 days of one-day at a time. With a sigh, she realized then that the book talked about God. She hadn’t meant to get a religious text. In the state she was in, she couldn’t have read and understood the Bible to save her life. However, just before she gave up on the little book, she came to this passage:
Living small is one of the deadliest diseases in the world. It convinces us that we are insignificant, that nothing we do really matters, that the world would not necessarily be better if we weren’t here, but it wouldn’t be worse either. We think in terms of five minutes rather than in terms of eternity, and our actions follow. And we judge our lives based on how we measure up to each other rather than how we measure up to the person God made us to be.
It is time to change all of that. It is time to change our focus, to change our direction, to change our vision. What do you envision your best life being? What would you do if you could not fail?
Dani’s gaze dropped from the words as her heart jumped within her. What would you do if you could not fail? Two days before she would have said, “Win this case.” But something told her now that objective was too small. It was about the world, and she felt something inside her begging her to start reaching farther than what the world had always told her was the pinnacle of what she could ever hope to achieve.
These are the questions of the desires of our hearts. Instead we push those aside for the minutia of the day—bills and carpools, soccer and television. We have this deep clawing worry that we’re wasting our lives, but we’re not really sure where to go with that or what to do about it. This book will lead you, if you are open, to what to do about that.
There will not be an answer on page 22 or 27, but as you work through the lessons and listen to God speaking into your heart, into your life, you will find the answer He has already written on your heart.
I pray for this journey for you. May God hold you throughout the process in the palm of His hand.
Barely able to contain her scattering control, she dug in her purse for a pen.
What is at the center? She wrote in the margin. What is my center? I have to find out what is my center!
Change cannot happen from the outside in, the book went on when she continued reading. It must happen from the inside out. That’s where real change happens and where change that lasts happens.
Real change. Dani nodded. That’s what she needed. A real change. Not a New Year’s Resolution that would be forgotten in a week. Not a goal that kept changing into a new goal when the first one either was met or became obsolete. She thought about her notebooks in college, rows and columns of goals and to-do lists. Some she had met, many were long forgotten. None had ultimately gotten her where she wanted to be. Each time she got to a goal she had thought would fix everything, the goal post always moved. She’d been on that treadmill so long, she hadn’t realized it wasn’t really taking her anywhere.
The next part of the book talked about establishing a group of people to go on the journey with you, friends who understood this was a spiritual journey not just a physical one. To the side she wrote: Rachel, Sage, Jaycee, Jane, Emily, and she smiled that somehow she had formed a group just like it was talking about without even knowing it.
She had to take a breath in reading the next section about Satan and all the lies he could throw into a life. She prayed the short prayer it gave, thinking of her new group who didn’t even know they were a group, of Eric and his friends, of Jaden and her friends, of her family—her mom and Mitchell, his family, even her dad and Celeste. List complete she took a breath and turned the page.
Day 1
I need God.
Tears welled up in Dani’s eyes as her heart read and reread the words. I need God. I need God… She had thought she needed no one. Not Eric. Not her family. No one. Yet upon reading those words, her desperate need for Somebody whisked away her fierce grip on independence and let her loneliness rise up. She was, in fact, so, so very lonely. Not just in Scotland but back home too. Her thoughts went to Hazel, alone in that dark, awful house. To the outside world, their circumstances looked completely different, but Dani was sure, inside, they were very much the same.
Carefully next to the words, she wrote her own: I need God. It was at once an admission and a confession, a surrender and a release. She closed her eyes for a moment and felt what it was like to admit her need.
If you are ever to find true and lasting change, it must start with this principle. If it starts with you or something you are committed to doing, you are in serious trouble before you even begin. Remember Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” God has been preparing for this moment in your life since your very birth. Everything that has come before, every bad decision, every moment that has shaken your faith to the core has been in preparation of this moment.
Too many of us have bought into the “I have to be independent and strong/I have to stand on my own two feet” lie. The truth is on our own, we are weak and we are vulnerable to forces beyond our control. But those same forces are under God’s control. He can shape circumstances to our ultimate good. And that is what He is absolutely doing in your life. God wants our Ultimate Good more than we even do, and He is willing to move Heaven and Earth to get us there, but He will not do it until we give Him permission to begin the work and to let Him do it His way.
Somehow in the shifting sands of her soul, Dani heard Eric’s words the night before about God and His plan with new ears, or maybe with a new heart. She didn’t really need to ask. She knew. God had been working on Eric for some time now. She had seen the changes. She just didn’t understand them until now. God, she wrote in the margin, I want this, whatever it is. I want You. I need You. Please help me. A moment to solidify that admission and she continued reading.
The journey will be joyous, and it
will be painful. Both are required to convince us deeper and deeper that our lives with God are bountiful and abundant no matter what is going on around us. And that separated from God, we are at the mercy of the twisting wind, waves, and evil forces that are bent on taking us out of the game.
This was the central drama in the trek of the Israelites through the desert. Like many of us, they understood their need for God while in Egypt. Egypt was painful. They were slaves at the mercy of masters they could not control. So they cried out for God, and God came to their aid. But then, once they were out of Egypt in the desert, the Israelites over and over did not believe God for His provision. They chose to do it on their own, and so they walked for 40 miserable years, around and around the same dumb mountain.
If that describes you, it’s time to fall on the mercy of God, to admit your deep need for Him, and to stop trying to do it on your own.
Dani sat in dumbfounded silence, her gaze skimming over and over the words. Out of every book in that store, how had she gotten this one? It couldn’t have been random. It didn’t feel random. It felt… guided, planned, but not by her. Okay, God, she wrote at the bottom. I’m ready to listen.
The text from Dani that she had landed safely in New York and would hopefully be home around six set the wheels in Eric’s mind spinning. He had purposely worked through lunch, intent on getting Jaden and maybe having time to get to the house to straighten it a little more before Dani got home. That might still work, but it didn’t look to afford him as much time as he had hoped he would have.
The phone buzzed again, and he looked down at it.
Too much to say here, but we need to talk. Cancel all other plans tonight. ~D
A thread of panic pulled him up short. Cancel all other plans? That did not sound like good news at all. Battling the panic, he sent a text to Caleb and Greg. No details to give, but please pray.
After spending the past nearly 24 hours in airports, Dani took a long, deep, refreshing breath when she broke from the sliding doors out into the glorious sunshine. She laughed almost out loud though she knew the looks that would cause. Tamping that down though it wasn’t at all easy, she strode out to her SUV. Funny how at one time she had thought it in need of an upgrade. Now, it looked so much like home, she wanted to hug the thing.
She put her belongings in the back and crawled inside. How could every, single thing feel so amazingly familiar and new at the same time? “Okay, God, let’s go home.”
Eric hadn’t gotten to the dusting and vacuuming like he had wanted to. In fact, he was upstairs hurriedly throwing the bed back together when he heard Jaden yell, “Mommy’s home.” With a roll of his eyes upward, he said the quickest prayer of his life and headed downstairs.
“Mommy!” the child who looked so much bigger than Dani remembered came tearing through the kitchen and dove right into her arms as she knelt on the floor to receive her. Happy tears poured from her eyes as she held on tight.
“Oh, baby girl. Oh, my goodness. Mommy missed you so much.” Burying her nose into the fabulous bush of black kinks and curls, Dani breathed in the scent of her daughter mixed with home. “Oh, my… How are you? How’ve you been?”
“Great!” Jaden said with a happy stamp on the word. “I got an A on my report about gerbils. You want to see?”
“Sure. I’d love to see…” Dani’s gaze slipped from her daughter up to the man who had stepped in through the doorway. He leaned on the doorway, a smile on his face, in dark sweats and a white T-shirt with some slogan she didn’t bother reading on it. He looked like Heaven itself. She barely felt it as Jaden jumped up and went scurrying off to get the paper.
“Hey,” Eric said, leaning there without taking even another step.
She didn’t know she could still feel love in such out-sized proportions. “Hey.” Pushing her hand under her, she fumbled to stand, but before she got there, he was there to offer her a hand up. The moment she got to standing, her heart hitched and screeched to a stop as her being yanked forward to get closer to him. Gaze down because she was sure he would see the effect he was having on her, she shook her head and swallowed. “How’s… how’s everything?”
However, he didn’t say even a single word, and after a second, her gaze trailed up and got caught somewhere in the midst of his soft chocolate one. “It’s a whole lot better now.”
Her breath slid from her as he took the last step to her, pulled her into his arms, and covered her lips with his soft, gentle ones. Suddenly she was falling, unable to hold herself up and wanting only to never have to bother with doing that again. When he came away from her lips, his embrace cradled her tenderly in his arms, and she latched on, so happy it came out as tears.
“Wow, I missed you,” he said into her hair, his grip becoming even tighter around her.
She sniffed hard though it didn’t stop the tears as her hand rubbed across his back. “Me too.” Had he always been this warm? This solid? This heart-stopping?
With a nod, he pulled backward though he did not let go of her. A moment to gaze at her and he took possession of her lips once more. If the first kiss had been a surprise, the second made her simply forget the rest of life even existed. His T-shirt was so soft, his lips so warm and tender… Swaying away from control, she didn’t even try to grasp for it.
“Mrs. Bowen said…”
In one breath Eric released her lips, and they turned though thankfully he didn’t let go of the rest of her, or she would surely have fallen.
Jaden’s eyes widened to the size of soccer balls, and all the words evaporated from the room.
A second and Dani cleared her throat with a glance up at Eric who looked nearly as stunned as she felt. Carefully she let go of him, testing each movement to make sure she was stable enough to do so. “Come on over here. Let me see that paper,” she said, her voice radiating with happiness.
“It’s a good one,” Eric said, his hands now on his hips instead of her as he watched them go to the table. However, Dani could see the connection hadn’t broken even a smidge in his eyes. Eyes that now danced with love and desire. She blinked the thought back, but it was going nowhere.
Sitting down carefully at the table, she pulled Jaden onto her lap and read the paper about gerbils. Even for a second grader, it was very good. “Well, no wonder Mrs. Bowen gave you an A. That was some great writing.”
“Yeah.” Jaden’s little head spun down. “But it’s only a 95.”
Soft regret for every word that had ever sounded like her father’s what happened to those other 5 points wafted through Dani, and at that moment she knew they had some wounds to mend. “Come here, you.” She righted Jaden in her lap and angled her gaze down on her. Picking up the little paper, she gazed at it, seeing now that a grade on a second grade assignment should never, ever define a person’s worth and value. “I love what you wrote here. I love how hard you tried. I don’t care if you get a 95 or a nothing so long as you tried your best. You hear me?”
Jaden nodded.
“Are you proud of how you did on this?”
Again the little girl nodded though her head stayed down.
“Good. And so am I. So it’s all good. Right?”
When it came up, the little smile was the brightest one she had ever seen. “Right.” A breath and Jaden looked at her, her eyes going softly hopeful. “Do you want to see what I’m ‘broidering?”
‘broidering? “Oh,” Dani said, barely catching herself from correcting the word. “Sure. I’d love to see what you’re working on.”
Jaden nodded once and jumped off her lap. When she made it to the door, she stopped and spun. “But it’s not finished yet.”
“That’s okay,” and Dani found she really meant it. “I want to see it.” As she sat there, she began to see what the author had talked about, how God isn’t wrapped up in what we’re accomplishing or doing. As our Father, He just wants to love us wherever we’re at. How long had she been putting conditions on her love for her own daughter? When she let go of thinking J
aden had to be reaching for perfection, somehow it was very easy to just love her.
Eric’s warm, soft hand rubbed across her shoulder, and she put her hand back to grasp his as she leaned into his hip. The breath felt good. Being home with them felt even better. She never wanted to leave again.
Although Eric relished every moment of the evening, it seemed an eternity before Jaden was in bed and they could really talk. Dani was on the couch when he snapped off the kitchen light for the final time. He came over to her, sat down, and paused just a second before lifting his arm, hoping she would come in next to him. When she did, he knew he was living in the middle of a miracle. Leaning over, he kissed her head, loving every single thing about her more than he had ever realized he did. “So,” he said, reaching for her hands that fidgeted on her lap.
With a breath, she latched on to the offer. She nodded, her head down and not looking at him.
Suddenly he had no idea how to start although his head had been thinking about it nonstop since her earlier text. “My schedule is clear,” he finally said. “You wanted to talk?”
A second and she nodded again. Another before she pulled her gaze up to his. “I’m sorry about not talking to you first.”
He shook his head. “You did what you needed to do.” Tipping his head, he smiled. “Besides, I married a very smart woman, you know? I trust her judgment.”
A small nod and she put her head down again. When she picked it up to look at him, there were questions swirling in her eyes. “I did a lot of thinking on the way home. A lot of thinking, and… I need to know where this is going, where we’re going. I mean, I’m not even sure that’s okay to ask or anything or if you even know, but…”
He waited for a full ten seconds. “But?”
Closing her eyes, she pressed her lips between her teeth as if she was in dire pain. Her hand left his, and she put it up to her forehead and rubbed it. “Would you think I was crazy if I said ‘normal’ isn’t working for me anymore?”
Raising Attabury: A Contemporary Christian Epic-Novel (The Grace Series Book 5) Page 38