Those stakes were always high, weren’t they? She could resist the deep work of God or she could yield to it. And maybe what she had been doing was resisting it.
“There’s a question that came to me months ago,” Charissa said, “back when I had my students writing papers about only having forty days to live. I was pondering that memento mori exercise in the prayer notebook and got to thinking about why I’ve always wanted to teach. Then I pushed it all aside; I didn’t want to think about it because I wasn’t sure what true answer would emerge. Am I teaching because I love it? Because I want to invest my life in students and their intellectual growth? Or am I teaching because I’ve always loved honor and recognition?”
Teach me to number my days, the psalmist said, so I may gain a heart of wisdom. Charissa was numbering her days in a different sort of way now, but she wasn’t sure she was growing in wisdom as a result of it.
“Those are penetrating questions,” Hannah said. She set the duster down on the mantel. “What are you seeing?”
“That I’m a mixed bag of motives.” Charissa sighed. “I think I chose the academic path not because I love scholarship but because I was addicted to achieving, and I wanted the initials after my name.” Had she ever said that out loud before? She wasn’t sure. It sounded so prideful and shallow and ugly. Hannah, however, was looking at her with compassion, not disgust.
She plowed forward. “I think I gravitated toward teaching because I crave authority. I love respect. That’s why a couple of students have really pushed my buttons this semester.” She supposed she ought to be grateful to Justin Caldwell and his posse for revealing in new ways her addictions and idolatry. If they were pushing buttons, then there were buttons to be pushed.
“As far as whether or not I love teaching, I don’t know. There are parts of it I enjoy—watching students light up with understanding or insights, or getting to see progress in their abilities to develop thoughtful arguments and write effectively. That’s gratifying.” She paused. “But I don’t know, Hannah. When Meg was dying, I saw so clearly that what I wanted was to make a difference in this world, not for my own name and recognition but for the sake of others. I know teaching can be that. And maybe I can be that sort of teacher someday. But the truth is”—she looked up at the ceiling as the confession formed fully—“the truth is, I’m not writing lectures and grading papers and pushing to complete the semester for the students’ sake. I’m doing it for my own. Because I’ve never been one to quit anything. And I don’t want to be the one on the receiving end of grace. Not for this.”
Hannah sat down on the hearth, cross-legged. “I understand what you mean.”
In the two hours Hannah spent at the house, she didn’t get much cleaning done. “But this was better,” Charissa said. “This is what I needed.” More than mopping or vacuuming or scrubbing, what she needed was someone listening to her life with compassion and asking probing questions that prompted reflection. What she needed was someone who understood the wrestling, someone who could remind her that God could use anything to shape and form her into Christlikeness, even unexpected pregnancies and missed presentations and punk students and relational conflicts and bed rest. What she needed was someone who could invite her to see God at work in the midst of everything. “Thanks, Hannah. This has been a gift to me.”
“To me too. And I promise, I’ll come back and clean for you later in the week.”
“Or come back and visit. The cleaning can wait.” If John had overheard that, he would have turned cartwheels.
Hannah rose to her feet and stretched. “I was thinking earlier that I really want to get back in a regular rhythm of meeting with the Sensible Shoes Club. Would you be up for that?”
Charissa smiled. “‘Up’ probably isn’t the operative word for me at the moment, but let’s get a date on the calendar. I’d love to keep walking together. In a metaphorical sort of way.”
Hannah
“Good time with Charissa today?” Nathan asked as they cleared the dinner table together.
“Yes.” One of the best conversations Hannah had ever had with her, in fact. “I didn’t accomplish anything I planned to, but I think God had other plans.”
“Evidently.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “I got an email from her just before I left campus. She’s going to write one more lecture and then turn things over completely to me.”
Wow. One thing about Charissa, when she made a decision, she moved ahead quickly. “Are you okay with that?” Hannah asked.
“Yes, fine. I’m more intrigued by her process of letting it go.” He adjusted his glasses as he peered at the screen. “Here’s what she wrote. She said I could share it with you. ‘Hannah reminded me today that the spiritual life is about yielding to God’s invitations. As we talked, it became clear to me that my invitation right now is to rest, to lay everything down. Thanks for being willing to finish out the semester for me, with all that involves. I’m going to say yes to this latest opportunity to be enlarged and stretched in grace. I trust that what God wants to do in me while I rest is more urgent and important than driving myself to complete my responsibilities as teacher and student. So I’m letting go.’ And she goes on to say that she thinks you’d make a really excellent spiritual director and that you should consider training for that.”
Hannah chuckled. “She mentioned that part to me as I was leaving. She thinks both of us should go through training. Did she tell you that?”
He nodded. “It’s something I’ve thought about for years, but it’s never been the right time.” He tucked his phone away. “But maybe that’s part of our journey together. I’d love to grow in that process of prayer and discernment with you.”
They had laid down their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Maybe this was the pilgrimage they would make together instead.
Jake appeared in the doorway, trumpet case in hand, wearing a striped bowtie and a suit. “Looking good, bud!” Nathan exclaimed.
“Thanks. You’re coming, right, Hannah?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” She hadn’t been inside a middle school gymnasium in years. She gave Chaucer a couple of treats and rinsed off her hands in the sink.
“I played saxophone in my high school band,” Nathan said as they walked out to the car together. “Did you know that, Shep?”
She did not. She gazed up at a sky seeded with stars. There were so many things she didn’t yet know, so many things she looked forward to discovering.
“What about you?” Jake asked Hannah. “Did you play anything?”
“Clarinet,” she said. “And very poorly. I remember this one concert; I was probably a little older than you . . .”
Mara
Mara was mashing potatoes when she heard commotion upstairs, bodies thudding against the floor and voices crackling with anger. Shouting and wrestling matches had been commonplace between the boys when they were younger. Boys will be boys, Tom always said, but Mara was usually the one trying to dodge blows while yanking them apart from one another. She turned off the mixer and eavesdropped through the ceiling, trying to determine if it was serious enough for her to intervene.
“It’s your fault!” Brian yelled. “You ruin everything!”
If Kevin replied, he did so in too low a voice for her to hear. When something crashed against the floor—a lamp, maybe?—she charged up the stairs. “What’s going on up here?”
Brian, who in the past couple of months had shot up several inches, had managed to pin his shorter, stockier brother to the floor and now had his fist poised above Kevin’s face.
“Hey, break it up!”
Kevin spit into Brian’s face and when Brian recoiled in disgust, Kevin flipped him onto his back.
“Kevin, stop! That’s enough!” Mara shoved his knee with her foot. “I said, break it up!”
Kevin released him, and Brian scrambled to his feet, his nostrils flaring, his face scarlet with rage. Mara touched his shoulder, and he shoved her hand away. “Deep breath, Brian. C’mon.�
�� Kevin stormed out of the room. “Kevin, wait! Get back here. C’mon. Both of you. Sit down.”
Brian paced, muttering. Kevin reappeared in the doorway. “Brian started it!”
“Because you ruined everything!” Brian charged him again, and Kevin swerved.
“Hey! Stop it, both of you. I mean it.” She held out both arms like a referee and signaled with her chin for Kevin to sit. He rolled his eyes and flopped onto his bed. When Brian looked like he was going to bolt, she blocked the exit. “C’mon, Brian. Let’s talk this through.” She motioned toward a chair covered with clothes. Brian flung the pile onto the floor.
“Hey!” Kevin yelled, ready to start all over.
“Kevin, leave it. He needs a place to sit. And you can put your clothes away when we’re done.” When both boys were sitting with their arms crossed defiantly against their chests, she breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn’t remember the last time Brian had cooperated with her. Thank you, Lord. “Okay, Brian, fill me in.”
“Why does Brian get—”
Mara cut Kevin off with her hand. She had money in the bank with Kevin. Now was her chance to try to make a small investment with Brian. “What did your brother ruin?”
Brian answered without looking at her. “Everything.”
Kevin pivoted away from her toward the wall. Mara sat down on the edge of his bed. “How about being a little more specific?”
“Disney World!”
Mara felt her face flush. “How did he ruin that?”
Brian kicked one of Kevin’s shoes across the carpet. “Dad says that because Kevin doesn’t want to go, I don’t get to go, either.”
She hadn’t anticipated this move from Tom.
“It’s not my fault Tiffany doesn’t want you there,” Kevin muttered.
Oh.
Mara, feeling sick to her stomach, decided to play dumb. “Tiffany doesn’t want you to go?”
Brian shrugged and slouched deeper into the chair.
“What did your dad tell you?”
“I told you. That I don’t get to go because Kevin doesn’t want to.”
“Why would I want to go to some stupid kid place with her?”
“It’s not stupid!” Brian, for a fleeting moment, resembled a younger version of himself, a child who—she should have remembered—had loved their trip to Disney World when he was little and for years had begged for another.
She hadn’t intended to ruin anything for him. She had just been trying to help Kevin.
Brian sent a second shoe careening across the floor. “You’re just mad because you don’t get to go to Hawaii!”
“I don’t want to go to Hawaii, Hawaii’s stupid.”
“Okay,” Mara said, placing a hand on Kevin’s knee, “enough with the ‘stupid.’ It sounds like there’s been a big misunderstanding here, that’s all. I’ll talk with your dad and work it out.” Her voice sounded much more confident than she felt. “Let’s take a time out here, give each other some space, and I’ll see what I can do.”
To fix what I broke, she added silently. She had been so eager to have her “gotcha” moment with Tom, so eager to be Kevin’s hero, she hadn’t thought about other consequences.
Brian wiped his cheek, a quick, slight gesture he would be mortified to know his mother saw.
In that instant her heart broke.
Much as Brian reminded her of Tom, she often forgot that he was not Tom. He was a thirteen-year-old boy whose parents were getting divorced and whose father’s attention was now divided. He was a thirteen-year-old boy who had always hero-worshiped his father, and now his father had let him down. And if she didn’t find ways to extend herself in love for him—love that he did not reciprocate—then she was no better than his father.
On her way back down to the kitchen, the boys in their respective rooms, Mara replayed the scene at Easter brunch. She shouldn’t have been snide with Brian in front of Tiffany, shouldn’t have done the whole “Help your brothers” thing. Tiffany had obviously taken Mara’s “You know how teenagers can be” advice to heart, combined it with what she had already observed about Brian, and decided she wasn’t going to let him ruin her kids’ trip.
She texted Tom: What’s going on with Brian and Disney World?
He did not reply.
Hannah
Friday, April 17
6 a.m.
After praying about a couple of possibilities for sermon texts the past few days, I woke up this morning knowing what I’m called to preach: Jesus’ revelation of his wounds. I’ve been studying John 20:19-29 for the past hour, making lots of notes and seeing the truth with fresh eyes. When the resurrected Jesus wanted to reveal who he was to his frightened, bewildered, wondering disciples, he showed them where he was pierced. In his resurrected body, the marks of his suffering were still visible. And they testified to the depths of his love, to the reminder of his humiliation and death. The Wounded One is now the Resurrected One.
But the Resurrected One is still the Wounded One.
In a Botox world where perfection is pursued and idolized, wounds and scars are ugly and shameful. Our culture says, Numb the pain. Erase it. Or at least, cover it up. Conceal it. Don’t show it to anyone. That was the message I heard for many years.
But the testimony of Easter is that suffering isn’t erased from Jesus’ resurrected body. His wounds have been made glorious. They point to what he has done and how the Father has been glorified in the suffering, death, and resurrection of the Son. The wounds tell the story of our salvation and God’s victory over the forces of evil, of death. Life wins.
If we’re honest—if I’m honest—it’s easy to equate resurrection with perfection. Don’t I often think of resurrection as the removal of everything that has brought hurt and suffering and death in this life? Don’t I often envision a day when pain will be erased? When the evidence of suffering will be removed? Glorified, resurrected bodies shouldn’t still show signs of torture, torment, and death, right?
Jesus shows another way, that resurrection means that even our wounds are made glorious because of the power of God. And our wounds can also testify and tell a story: this is where I suffered. This is where I hurt. This is where Jesus healed and offered comfort. This is where God redeemed my pain and suffering. Our wounds and our scars can tell stories that make Jesus’ love and power visible to others. If we have courage to open our hands and show them.
Words of an Easter hymn we sang on Sunday came to me as I prayed this morning: Crown him the Lord of love; behold his hands and side, those wounds, yet visible above, in beauty glorified. All hail, Redeemer, hail! For thou has died for me. Thy praise and glory shall not fail throughout eternity.
Jesus, may your wounds take in all of our hurts. May we glimpse in them the reminder that our story of salvation is a story written not merely with pen and ink but with blood and tears. A story of love and hope. For all of us.
Speak, Lord. I’m listening.
“Have you got a scar story?” Hannah asked Nathan as the three of them ate breakfast later that morning. She brushed some crumbs off her flannel pajamas.
“Physical, you mean?”
“Yeah.” She wasn’t going to ask him to divulge emotional or mental or spiritual wounds in front of Jake.
He rolled up the left sleeve of his robe and pointed to a mark on his forearm. “Dog bite. I was seven, and it was the neighbor’s dog. But it was my fault. I was tormenting him.” He looked at Jake. “Your dad was a troublemaker. Just ask your Aunt Liz sometime.”
Jake smiled from behind his orange juice. “She’s already told me stories.”
“Yeah, I bet she has. You’ve got plenty of ammo if you ever need it, don’t you?”
“Yep.”
Nathan reached for another slice of toast. “Jake’s got a scar story, don’t you, Jake?”
Jake lifted his bangs and pointed to a faint jagged edge Hannah had never noticed before. “Fell off my bike when I was—what, Dad? Like, seven?”
“Eight,
maybe.”
“Yeah, eight. And then you wanted to put this cream on it or something. I don’t remember exactly. You tell it.”
“I wanted to put scar removal cream on your forehead but you said you didn’t want me to because—”
“Because I said, ‘If you take away my scar . . . ’”
“‘You take away my story,’” they said in unison.
Hannah laughed and said, “Oooh. That’ll preach. Can I use that, Jake?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Nathan slathered his toast with strawberry jam. “Watch out, bud. You’ve got a preacher living in the house now. Gotta be careful or you’ll end up in a sermon.”
Jake eyed Hannah like he wasn’t sure if his dad was teasing or not. “I’ll never use you as a sermon illustration,” she said, “unless I ask your permission first. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“Same deal for husbands?” Nathan asked.
Hannah licked a bit of milk from her cereal spoon and then wagged it at him. “If you behave.”
“I’ll try.” He crossed his heart. “I know another scar story. A good one.”
“I’m listening.”
“A friend of mine’s a surgeon in town, and he was on call one day when the ambulance brought in a young guy in his twenties, motorcycle crash, didn’t think he’d live. But Ken did the emergency surgery, and the kid pulled through. A few months later, Ken’s out near the hospital loading dock when a nurse comes out and says there’s someone who wants to see him. So he goes back in, and there’s a guy standing there he doesn’t recognize, and he has that awkward moment of knowing he should know who the guy is but doesn’t.”
“I know that feeling,” she said. “I hate that feeling.”
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