Beyond 4/20

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Beyond 4/20 Page 39

by Heaton, Lisa


  “Sara Beth,” He choked up and had to clear his throat. “You are my baby girl. You are mine. Yes, he was your dad at first, but don’t ever think I’m not yours. I am. You know that, right?”

  With watery eyes, she nodded and hugged his neck. “You’re my favorite daddy of all.” That meant something new to her. He really was her favorite since she had to pick from two.

  Sara Beth wondered about the other daddy. “So he was nice?”

  “Yes, very nice.”

  “He wasn’t mean like me?”

  Since Lucy had left for Chloe’s house, Sara Beth’s stomach had been burning. She was mean to Lucy because she didn’t want her to go.

  “You are not mean.”

  “I was mean to Lucy.”

  Tuck had walked through the doorway just as Sara Beth threw Lucy’s phone. They were allowing Lucy to take it with her in case she needed them. Expecting Lucy to hit the roof, Tuck was stunned as he watched Lucy go over to Sara Beth and hug her instead. Tears sprang to his eyes at the recollection of it and how sweet his daughter was. Lucy promised her she would come home early and ride with her.

  “Lucy forgave you.”

  Sara Beth began to cry. “Why was she so sweet even when I was mean?”

  “Being mean, do you know what you call that?”

  Her face fell. “Sin.” For the first time ever she actually whispered softly.

  Tuck’s stomach began to flutter in anticipation of the conversation ahead. Recalling how easily such a talk went with Lucy, he suspected it wouldn’t be quite so easy with Sara Beth. She was this amazingly bright little girl and so headstrong. If he had to guess, he would suppose she was much like John. She was one who would have to really consider and ponder the Gospel, where Lucy accepted it easily enough.

  “Lucy is sweet to you and forgives you because she belongs to Jesus. She knows God has forgiven her of her sins so she forgives others.”

  “Does God forgive me?”

  “Have you asked Him to?”

  “Yes. That’s why I couldn’t sleep. I’m afraid He won’t.”

  “He will forgive you.”

  Tuck had led many adults to the Lord, but only Lucy as a child. With his own children, he felt terribly inadequate.

  “But you need to be His. You need to ask Jesus to come into your life and forgive you of your sins. Then you have to choose to be His completely.”

  “What if He don’t like me because I’m mean?” she asked.

  Tuck chuckled softly, assuring her, “He more than likes you. He loves you.” Pulling her over to sit in his lap, he asked, “Sometimes I see you do mean things. Do you think I don’t like you or love you then?”

  Her expression was priceless, as if she thought he had lost his mind.

  “Of course you still like me and love me. You have to since you’re my dad.”

  “And He has to as well, because He is love. He loves you no matter what you do or say. He can’t not love. Does that make sense?”

  A thought occurred to Tuck, surely Spirit-led. “As a matter of fact, when you ask Jesus to come into your life, did you know He will actually send His Spirit into your heart to live? So when that happens, He will help you live much more nicely. When you get mad at Lucy, because the Spirit is tucked in your heart,” He tapped her chest. “He will help you to be kinder. Just like Lucy. When you were unkind, she was kind and hugged you – all because the Spirit of Jesus in her heart helped her to be kind.”

  Nodding, Sara Beth agreed, “I think that’s what I need, some help.”

  Tuck exhaled in relief, and his heart was pounding hard in his chest. This was it; she was really getting it.

  “That’s exactly what He wants to do is help. The Bible even calls Him the Helper.”

  “I know. Ms. Darla said so.” Ms. Darla, her Sunday school teacher talked a lot.

  “You can talk to Jesus right now. I can be here with you while you do.”

  Considering that, she shook her head. “No, I’ll do it in the morning. Tonight, I think I’m sleepy.” She rolled her eyes. “If this coffee doesn’t keep me up.”

  Laughing out loud, he agreed. “I know. I’ve drunk more than I meant to.”

  He was disappointed, having hoped he would help her pray that night, but he knew she was well on her way. More than being sleepy, he knew she needed time to process. That was how she worked through everything, and he admired her for it.

  Chelsea had been standing quietly in the doorway for most of their conversation. When Sara Beth first mentioned John, her heart was bursting at the thought of Sara Beth asking questions about him, but when the conversation took the turn it did, she was so completely enthralled by the way Tuck gently guided her that all she could do was cry. She was crying still. Sara Beth was close to salvation, and how could she not be with a daddy who so resembled Jesus? Chelsea cried harder at the thought.

  Tuck was the godliest man, and she adored him. From the very beginning, she had loved him, but over the course of the past year, something different was emerging. She found herself oftentimes drowning in him. She hung on his every word and admired him and cherished him and desired to be more like him just so she could be worthy of how completely he loved her. With John, from the very beginning, all she had known was a ticking clock and waiting for loss to come. Marrying a man God never intended as His ultimate plan for her brought turmoil, love absolutely, but with complete upheaval of heart. She had learned that fear comes when one tries to hold on to something of our own choosing. As beautiful as their love story turned out to be, there were consequences that came along with it. After such devastation at the loss of her husband, how could she have ever anticipated such gain would follow? Each and every day with Tuck she knew she was exactly in the center of God’s will for her and that peace comes when we grasp instead to that which God gives.

  She thought again of the term drowning. First, she recalled Tuck’s words that day he held her outside of the barn. He had said he was completely drowning in his love for her, a fact that was evident as he wept and clung to her. Now, that was exactly what she was feeling for him, drowning in her love for him. However, it wasn’t unhealthy love as she had been accustomed to before. As a matter of fact, what she felt for Tuck was the healthiest, most Spirit-filled love she had ever known.

  The moment Tuck rounded the corner and heard Chelsea crying, he rushed to her. Finding her on his side of the bed, weeping, holding his pillow, he knelt beside the bed and took the pillow from her.

  “What is it?”

  Grabbing desperately for him, wrapping her arms around his neck, she cried even harder, saying, “I am so in love with you. I am so in love with you. I’m drowning in this love for you.”

  A soft sigh escaped him as he held her tenderly, grateful to hear those words. After a minute more he moved her back to look at him. Chuckling a bit, a little baffled by all the drama of the night, he assured her, “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course I do.”

  She was looking up at him as if truly surprised.

  “I felt it begin to wash over me quite some time ago.” He pulled her back into his embrace. “I’ve just been waiting for you to know it too.”

  Months back, he was making breakfast for the girls, letting Chelsea sleep in, when he looked up to find her standing in the doorway of the kitchen. When she came closer and stood with him as he scrambled eggs, there was something in the way she looked at him that gave her heart away, similar to when she stood with him in the ER all those years before. That was when he knew she was really his again, all of her. From that moment on, he never had to wonder. Funny that it was such a simple moment, just one of those everyday activities such as scrambling eggs.

  Tuck stood and scooped her up with him. As they reached the bedroom door she asked where they were going. He merely said, “I’ve got to take you somewhe
re.”

  To her surprise, he walked with her out the front door and stopped when they reached the porch. Without a word, he sat on the top step and simply held her. For some time they sat in silence that way. Clearly, he was having a moment, so she quietly allowed him to hold her. He was praying over her.

  When he finally opened his eyes after praying for some time, Tuck told her, “This is where I came after: after I lost you, after I found hope again, after I lost you again to John. This was my altar where I met with God.” Countless hours had been spent there praying.

  Feeling a pang of guilt settle upon him, he admitted, “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For the times I begged God to take you out of my heart. I did, you know.” As much as he prayed for her to be his, he spent nearly as much time praying to be released from such torturous love.

  “I’m glad He didn’t listen to you.”

  As elated as she should feel at such a monumental discovery of falling head over heels in love with her husband, instead her heart felt terribly heavy.

  His admission sparked one of her own. “It was because of Lucy.”

  To admit such a shameful secret to Tuck was one of the most difficult things she had ever done, something she didn’t think she would ever have the courage to do. Once again she was crying.

  “When I looked at her back then, all I could see was you loving someone else.”

  “I know. I always knew.” That Christmas, he had seen it in her eyes when she watched him with Lucy.

  All those years later when Chelsea finally did move back home, as much as she tried to avoid her, Lucy wouldn’t allow it. She pursued Chelsea until she had no choice but to risk getting to know her, and that was all it took, getting to know her.

  “How could I have felt that way about a little girl? It was never her fault.”

  “The real question is how could you have become her mom? Anyone else would have continued to feel what you felt. They would have always resented her. Chelsea, sometimes I can hardly believe how much you love her. What you felt then, it was only natural. It was my fault, not yours or hers.”

  “If I would have come home…”

  “We wouldn’t have Sara Beth. If I hadn’t done what I did, we wouldn’t have Lucy. No matter the choices we made, look at how God blessed us in spite of them. How can we look back and regret what gave us our kids?”

  Resting her head on his shoulder, she sighed, saying, “That’s another reason I love you.”

  “’Cause I’m smart?” He smiled.

  “Yeah, pretty smart.”

  This moment was one of the best of her life. There was this tremendous sense of peace she felt that was beyond anything she could have ever explained to a living soul. As near as she could figure, it was the peace that came from being wholly surrendered to God. From the moment she agreed to marry Tuck, she knew she was supposed to let go of John, but deep down, that was something she wasn’t fully willing to do. Because of that, she hurt her husband deeply, most likely more than she could have ever understood. Still, Tuck loved her, even knowing she wasn’t fully his. Somehow, she had convinced herself that holding onto her past while still trying to embrace the present with Tuck was manageable, but it wasn’t. Holding onto John left her unable to fully wrap her heart around Tuck and unable to keep her promise to John that she would allow herself to love again. Just as Tuck accused her once, she held half of herself in reserve for John. That was never fair.

  As Tuck had said, bringing Sara Beth’s father into their family was a different matter entirely, but to bring her late husband into their marriage was unthinkable. At the time, it seemed impossible to separate the two. After the past year of consideration, though, she realized it actually came down to a matter of her will. She wasn’t willing to let go of John out of fear it might somehow diminish what they had shared. What they had together was real and meaningful and beautiful. Never would she say any less. Ultimately, though, as much as she thought life began on 4/19, she discovered that it was everything beyond 4/20 that led her back into God’s will, back into Tuck’s arms. Living out her supposed to be, the life God had ordained for her since before time began, was greater by far than living in the midst of a plot twist that kept her from it.

  She recalled John’s final words to her in his journal, how being obedient to what you know at the time takes you to the next place of revelation. Finally, over the past year, she had been obedient in letting go of him. Intentionally, as a matter of her will, she closed the door entirely on them. It wasn’t something tucked away in a closet, something that could cause her to stumble backwards into him; their story was complete, and truly, they had a beautiful ending. Once she closed that door, the stunning revelation was that she was immersed, submerged, and drowning in love for her husband. She was unbound from one and bound again, just as she needed to be. Chelsea sighed, so content to be sitting in her husband’s arms, on their porch, living out their dream.

  There, sitting on the top step, she was just a few feet away from the shovel that first broke ground for their home. From that time, other than being moved for excavation equipment, the shovel remained in place and was now part of the front flower bed. At Sara Beth’s suggestion, Tuck had painted the handle to look like a ladybug. Oftentimes, Tuck would hang a hat on it when he came in from mowing, or Chelsea would put her garden hat on it when she went inside. Always, it served as a reminder to both of them that love was worth waiting for and that God had always known they would take this twisting and turning journey back to one another.

  “I love you more,” she softly admitted.

  Chuckling, Tuck asked, “More than cookies?”

  That was Sara Beth’s new expression of love. She would say she loved him more than cookies, which was a pretty big deal considering her love for sweets, her mother’s daughter for sure.

  Chelsea nodded only slightly then rested her forehead on his and gazed intently into his eyes as she said, “More than anything. More than anyone. Ever.”

  A lump formed in his throat as her true meaning washed over him. She loved him more than John was what she was trying to express.

  “I’ve been waiting for that.”

  Since their trip to France, he never doubted she would someday; he had made it his life’s mission to win her back. With the pressure of the farm and the new house off of his shoulders, he felt different, more energized, because of that, he had the time to pursue her relentlessly. Finally, he had really won.

  “I am so in love with you,” he said without fear of her expressing some lesser degree of love.

  “And I am so in love with you.”

  He looked into those big brown eyes, the ones he had always insisted she keep open. Certain it was finally safe, he whispered, “You can close your eyes now.” And he kissed her.

  Look for other titles by Lisa.

  Unmending the Veil and On 4/19

  Watch for Deceiver, available in 2015

  About the Author

  Lisa was born and raised in Nashville, TN and still lives nearby with her husband, Kelly, and their teenage son, Zack. She has one older son, Adam, currently living in Columbia, SC.

  As an author and speaker, her sole passion is to lead believers into a closer relationship with Jesus. Too many in the church settle for less than what Jesus died to attain for them, so through her discipleship teaching and writing, she explains the simplicity of the Christian life: Begin with falling in love with Jesus, and everything else will fall into place. Describing herself as a former “hot-mess,” Lisa knows firsthand the powerful effect Christ can have on a life.

  Lisa has written ministry material for new believers used by Lifeway, the Tennessee Women’s Prison Ministry, and daily devotional material for children. Available at her website online, you can download a free copy of the companion study material for Unmending the Veil.

  Visit
her at lisaheatonbooks.com.

  Connect with Lisa at www.facebook.com/lisaheatonbooks

 

 

 


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