When she looked up again, it was into his eyes. He nodded with that same calm spirit she had so fallen in love with all those years before. Arching her lips to his, she accepted his kiss as the others awwwed their approval. Held in the warmth of his embrace, Dani knew with no doubt that yes, Attabury was home, and it had been worth every obstacle and trial it took to get them here. This was where they would raise their family. In this house. Surrounded by these friends. From now through whatever life brought their way, they would hold onto the lessons they had learned on the journey, and never again would Attabury be a place of darkness, loneliness, or pain. For, though they hadn’t realized it would, it had given them a new life as well, bringing their marriage and their lives back from a death-like existence of merely surviving long enough to get to the next minute. They both knew now that life was about more than just surviving. It was about living, and having the courage to surrender to God’s guiding hand and loving heart.
Dani also knew with no doubt as she stood there that she had been eternally blessed. The journey spent raising Attabury back from the dead had taught her that God really does love us, that He cares about us more than we could ever know, and that a life, or lives, surrendered to Him can actually become new again in ways that those who live them know can only ever be called a miracle.
Epilogue
“Finally.” Dani closed the door to the kitchen as the women got settled in the sitting room.
“Are you sure Eric and Luke will be okay with all the kids?” Rachel asked with concern.
“It’s Luke,” Sage said with a roll of her eyes. “The kids would prefer him to me.”
“Aw, come on. That’s not true,” Emily said.
“Plus, they’re building something,” Sage said, undeterred. “This will be the highlight of the summer for my boys, and it’s barely even started.”
It had taken three months to get everything squared away in Raleigh. Their house had sold as had Dani’s mom’s house. Her mom was now living in a small apartment in a nice neighborhood with shops and people to keep her busy. It hadn’t solved everything, but it was a nice start. However, nothing about the move to Ridgemount had gone the way they had envisioned it, and there was more than one urgent prayer request sent out, but eventually, it had all fallen into place, and they had been living in Attabury for a week now.
Dani had wanted to get the women’s Bible study group going as soon as possible, and so with only folding chairs and one small couch for the sitting part, they had all come two hours after the men’s meeting had ended. Luke and Eric were in the backyard fighting with the new swing set, kids running every direction soaking up the sunshine and the friendship. Caleb and Derek had gone off to take a look at what would probably be the third house on “Welcome Home,” the show H&H was calling their “new hit series.”
How many times she and Eric had watched the pilot episode already, Dani had lost count. They practically had it memorized by now, and it was still unbelievable the transformation. In fact, on the wall in the sitting room hung what were essentially before-and-after pictures of the house. Eric’s pictures were a constant reminder of how much God could do when you let Him.
“Okay,” Dani said, taking a seat in a folding chair. “Jane, would you like to start us off?”
With a nod, Jane led them in a short prayer, and at Amen, she sat for a second as if wondering if someone else was going to lead after that. “Well,” she finally said, “I’ve been thinking about this ever since Dani called me a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been going through some of my old conference material.” She reached under her chair and brought out a pad. “So if you want, I can share with you what was presented at a conference I went to a couple of years ago.”
“Sure.”
“Absolutely.”
“Sounds great.”
“Okay.” Jane nodded, but it took her another moment to start as she looked around at each of them. Jaycee now nearly six months pregnant, Sage, Rachel, Emily, and Dani. Although they were all friends and practically all family, Jane still looked more than a little intimidated by the situation. She nodded again and dropped her gaze to her notes. “We all have a story.”
Sitting up, she shifted her shoulders either to get comfortable or to get herself to keep going. “Each of us has a story—of wounds, bad decisions, hurts, and mistakes.” She took a breath to let that sink in. “We also have another story. A story of healing and hope, a story of forgiveness and mercy. And yes, even of love. We often do not recognize the power of our story to bring hope and healing to our world. We hide our story, burying those things that have wounded us and caused us pain. By doing so, without realizing it, we tell others that they should also hide their stories as well. So we become embarrassed and shamed into silence when Jesus Himself said, ‘The truth shall set you free.’ So this is the challenge, to help heal the world by finding the courage to tell your story, and having the grace and compassion to let others tell theirs.”
A second and as she stopped reading, she paused before sitting back. “I thought that was so powerful that day. I know, I for one, don’t like to talk about my story. Oh, my one now with Steve and the boys is okay, but my story before this point in my life hardly seems inspiring much less worth retelling.”
Dani sat forward, enthralled. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard your story.”
One glance and Jane smiled softly. “I’m the daughter of an alcoholic. When I was young, my mom worked three jobs so we could survive. I grew up knowing I was trash, and knowing everyone else thought that too.”
Faces around the room etched in pain at the bluntness of her self-assessment.
“It took the love of a good man and a lot of patience from God to pull me out of that pit. After we got married, I decided I wanted a big family, but God had other plans. We moved a lot those first few years, and I kept dreaming of that family. We had five miscarriages in seven years, and the doctor finally told us the odds of ever having our own kids were very slim. So we decided to adopt, but that is not as easy nor as inexpensive as it sounds. We pretty much sank every cent we had into being able to get the boys, and what a blessing that has been. But none of it was easy. Not a single minute or step along the way to get here.”
“Well, I can vouch for the not easy part,” Jaycee said, raising her hand from her seat on the couch. “Thankfully we’ve been blessed to get this far with this little one, but it hasn’t been easy either. In fact, I was just telling Derek the other night that it’s a good thing we didn’t know how hard it would be, I’m not sure I would’ve been brave enough to try it.”
“You know,” Emily said, “for a lot of years I felt the same way about my marriage. If I had known the trauma it would be, I probably wouldn’t have done it.” She looked at Sage and smiled softly. “I spent a lot of years in bitterness over what happened and anger and self-doubt and well, to be honest with you, depression. Things would be fine for a while, and then we’d hear from California and the whole thing would start over again. I so remember when you were first going to come out here.” Her gaze slipped over to Sage’s. “I was determined to show you I was the better mom, that my family had it all together, and we were not ‘like that.’” The finger quotes emphasized her words. “Then you showed up, and my jealousy and hatred that I thought I could get over and pretend not to have just came out.”
She looked at Jane. “So while some of you might have been the ones who were hurt, I was the one who did the hurting.” She glanced at Sage. “And I’m so sorry about that.” Shaking her head, the tears began to fall. “If I could take back all the ugly things I said to you back then, I so would.”
“Oh, Em,” Sage said and she leaned over and hugged her. “I know that wasn’t your real heart. I know it wasn’t. I’ve seen how you are with the kids, how you are with everyone. You just got blind-sided by a yuck-truck, and I don’t blame you for it taking a while to find peace over it.”
“I think that’s the thing I’m starting to see,” Rachel sai
d. “Yes, the wounded person has a story, but so does the one who wounded you. I think back to Nathan’s mom, and I know she was probably a wonderful person. But here was this girl who stole her son away, and I’d like to think I’d be someone who could open my hands and let Rhett go. But I’m not sure about that. I’m not sure as a mom I could trust enough that some girl he just met, who showed up at my door, pregnant… I don’t know. I want to believe I’d be compassionate and open my home and my arms to her, but I’m not sure you can know that until you’re in that spot, you know?”
“And life never gives us what we thought it was going to,” Dani said. “I mean, look at me. Look at us—me and Eric. When I first got here, I had a chip on my shoulder the size of New York—State, not City. I was going to show everyone—all of you—that I was not dirt under your feet to be trampled on. I might have been the great-great granddaughter of slaves, but no one would ever treat me like that if I had anything to say about it.” She looked down at her hands. “And then I started coming here, and you didn’t treat me like dirt. None of you did. You opened your hearts and your homes to me and to Jaden and to Eric. And, as weird as it sounds, I didn’t just get introduced to a lot of wonderful people, I got introduced to God.
“You see, I’ve been doing a lot of reading and studying, and one thing I’m learning is that growing up I got taught about God. They made me memorize the Ten Commandments and the gifts of the Holy Spirit and things like that, but they never introduced me to God. And believe me, knowing about somebody is a whole lot different than knowing them.
“It’s like Eric and I were talking about the other night. It’s like telling people about this guy named Bill. You can tell them all about him, but they don’t really know him until you introduce them to him, and then they can get to know him themselves. God is like that. You all didn’t just tell me about God, you introduced me to Him. You answered questions when I asked, and you didn’t make me feel like an idiot for asking. You shared what He was doing in your life, so I could see maybe what He could do in mine.”
She let out a breath. “This kind of goes along with what you were saying earlier Jane, about how our story can help other people… It’s no secret that we found the money here that day, and most of you probably know we’ve been looking into it. Well, it’s a substantial amount.” She sat up and nodded. “A really substantial amount, and Eric and I have talked about it, and we want to help people with it. People here in town. Especially people over by where my grandma lives. I think someone needs to share their story of hope with them and give them some help to find their own healing so they can write a positive ending to their stories.
“I want my life to mean something, and I think I’ve learned that to do that, living has to be about giving your time, talent, and treasure to help others, to help them believe that they are seen, noticed, valued, and loved. It’s like that verse I have stuck in one of my books about God giving us blessings, pressed down and overflowing. I don’t think He gives us those things to keep to ourselves or to enrich us. I think He wants us to share them with others. That’s what you all did for me, and that’s what I want to do for other people. So, I’d like to ask for your prayers that I can hear God’s direction about how best to do that, how to accomplish that.”
Her gaze went to Jane sheepishly. “And I’m probably going to have to ask for some church help along the way too. For spaces to meet or help getting the word out, things like that.”
Jane laughed. “Oh, boy, wait ‘til Steve hears this. He’s been talking about legacy and impact so long I think they should be stamped on his forehead.”
They all laughed.
“I think,” Rachel said, “that what Dani’s talking about is so important for all of us. I know for me, going into these houses and helping to fix them up, working with people on the crew and with Caleb, there are a thousand opportunities every day to introduce people to God. And it doesn’t have to be in-your-face evangelizing either. Just telling them you’re praying for them if they’re going through a rough time, really seeing them as people with their own stories, and having compassion for the situations they’re going through. I think when you get grounded on the Rock of God, when you know Him personally like Dani said, you naturally share Him with others. It’s not a memorized thing or a planned thing, it just comes out.”
“I so agree with Jane and with Dani,” Sage said. “Our stories are so important. And it can be really hard to share the not-so-great parts. It’s hard when parts of our story haven’t worked out like we wanted. Like my mom. She’s still struggling, and who knows, she might struggle the rest of her life.”
“But we keep praying,” Dani said, understanding perfectly. “We keep holding on to each other and to God and praying and praying and praying for those situations that are not healed yet.”
“Praying and hoping and believing that this isn’t the end,” Rachel said with a nod.
“It’s like Steve says, ‘I’ve read the end of the book, and in the end, love wins,’” Jane said. “I think we’ve got to keep believing that and keep working toward that end,”
“I think that’s what grace is all about,” Jaycee said. “That even in the toughest times, even in those times that here on earth that it seems like it would be easier and even smarter to give up and quit, we know in the end our side wins. So we keep working and pushing forward to that end no matter how bad or hopeless things might look at the time.”
“Well, I for one, am thankful that y’all didn’t give up on me,” Dani said, “because Lord knows that was not an easy task.”
“Yeah,” Rachel said with a laugh, “but it was so worth it.”
“And now look at how many people you can help,” Jane said. “The story never stops with the healed person. It’s like that person creates a ripple effect, and none of us even knows how far out those ripples might go.”
Dani thought about Hazel and then Olivia. She looked around the room that now looked so very different. A new life. A new way of being. Noticed. Valued. And definitely loved.
She wasn’t sure either of them had ever felt that way in their lifetimes, but she hoped somewhere up in Heaven, they knew they were now—by her and by all those whose lives she would touch because of the lessons they had taught her. Their lives might have been snarled and mired in pain and sorrow, but their legacy would be hope and light. Of that, she was bound and determined to see, to affect, to seek God’s best and to give her best, thereby helping as many people as she could find their way into a better life for themselves and their families.
“Ripples of hope,” Dani said. “I like that.”
The Grace Series Epilogue
Christmas at Attabury
Dani sat back from the writing desk and gazed at the letters in the diary. She had been writing in it periodically for a full six months, and it was remarkable the changes she had already captured on those pages. In a joint project called ‘Ripples of Hope,’ the church had joined with The Hazel B. Attabury Foundation, to provide much-needed services to the community. Dani was proud of the fact that their classes and mini-conferences had already brought in people not just from her grandmother’s area but from many different walks of life as well. They came seeking to advance their skills or to learn new ones, thereby creating new lives for themselves and their families.
They’d had a one-day women’s conference in September, held in the community center, with Jane at the helm. Rachel had spoken as the up-and-coming H&H hit show draw, and Dani still smiled at how reluctantly her best friend had taken on that role. “Ripples of Hope” had also featured Sage who now hosted a semi-weekly class on sewing, and Dani herself who taught monthly business and entrepreneurial classes.
Two new businesses had already started in Ridgemount because of them, and the women running them were making a real difference not just for themselves and their families but for the community at large as well. Dani was most thankful for being able to teach and reinforce the concept of the ripples. The more she lived this w
ay of life, the more she saw them. Through her work, people were given hope, and as they gained in their own ability and confidence, they could then turn and give that hope to others.
As for the guys, they had spent several weekends in her grandmother’s neighborhood helping to clean up and fix up what was broken. Even the boys—Sage and Luke’s and Jane and Pastor Steve’s—had gathered their friends for days of painting, hauling branches out, and cleaning up. The best part was that Dani got to work closely with her grandmother in all of the projects because the people out there trusted Ms. P. Yes, a heart for helping could go a long way in renewing what everyone had long given up for dead.
“You know they’re going to be here any minute,” Eric said, coming through the bedroom and going into the bathroom. “I turned all the lights on the house. They sure are pretty in the snow.”
“I can’t believe it snowed.”
He laughed. “I’m just glad we’re not buried. From what they said we’d get to what we got, I’d say we got lucky.”
Dani looked down at the diary. Eric was right. She would have to finish this later. Closing the pages, she ran her hand over the rough hard cover. “Merry Christmas, Hazel. Be sure to give my great-grandma a big Christmas hug from us.”
“The party can start. We’re here,” Derek said when he, Jaycee and little Michaela Dawn came into the living room from the entry way.
“There is that baby,” Emily said, hopping up from her place on the loveseat next to her husband. “Come here you! Oh, look at this outfit. Aren’t you the cutest little thing on the planet?”
“Hello to you too, Mom,” Jaycee said with a laugh as she relinquished control of her daughter.
“Oh, of course, Merry Christmas.” Her mother gave her an air kiss and a nod to Derek before going back into full-out baby-lovin’ mode.
Raising Attabury: A Contemporary Christian Epic-Novel (The Grace Series Book 5) Page 53