Faith Wish (2 page)

But the change in Anne-Marie's spirit was so rapid and unexpected that it disoriented her.
What am I doing here
? she asked herself.
What is happening here
?

Ride on, ride on, in majesty
!

In lowly pomp ride on to die;

Bow Thy meek head to mortal pain
.

Then take, O Christ, Thy power and reign
.

The sudden silence that followed the singing intensified the charged atmosphere, cutting her loose from all things familiar. A foreign but irresistible magnet drew her into the electric field.
Now I'm an electron. Whose orbit am I in
?

“What?” asked Sara, in a whisper.

“Nothing.”

“Are you okay?”

“I don't know what I am. I don't know myself.” She trembled, shivered. Why would she be cold wearing a school letter jacket?

“Give in to it,” Sara urged in a louder whisper. “Go where the Lord would take you.”

Anne-Marie couldn't answer. Still trembling slightly, she was thankful when a small space at the end of a nearby bench opened up enough room for the two of them, if they squeezed together tight. It comforted Anne-Marie that they were sitting at the edge of the building; she could look out into the night sky as the maples and pin oaks faded from view, as the first stars formed. It was warm for March, but the maple branches were still bare and stark against the purple-rose sunset.

Their broken silhouettes reflected the helter-skelter grabbing at her stomach and her heart. The fear, panic, comfort, apprehension, mystery, and voltage fought to claim her core, but merely tumbled one on top of the other, only to recede and swell rapidly from moment to moment.

She turned back to Sara, who was still gripping her right hand while praying in a whisper Anne-Marie couldn't hear. The silence had changed to a low humming. People throughout the tabernacle began to pray, muttering, mumbling, and whispering. She repeated her own thoughts in a whisper that trembled:
What is happening here? Shall I pray now
? She felt like she could.
Shall I say, the Lord is my shepherd
… but then she realized,
that's a psalm, not a prayer. But maybe a psalm was a prayer, what else could it be
?

“Brother Jackson is coming,” Sara whispered to Anne-Marie.

“How do you know?”

“I saw him behind the curtain. He's getting ready to come out.” She squeezed Anne-Marie's hand again before she said, “You're not still afraid, are you?”

Anne-Marie swallowed hard. “Yes and no … I can't say for sure.… No.” The lump in her throat brought her up short, but it was the truth. Little by little her fear moved aside to make room for the mystery of anticipation. “I'm just mixed up,” she finally added.

Then Sara took her arm again, as well as her hand. “It's the Lord's challenge, Anne-Marie. His invitation. Let Him into your life.”

There wasn't time to answer: Brother Jackson came on stage and she was locked on him in spite of herself. He was beautiful, nothing like what she expected. He stared boldly at the crowd for a full minute, or even longer, without speaking, standing with his hands on his hips, his dark eyes traveling slowly from face to face. If he had even a trace of self-consciousness or nerves, Anne-Marie couldn't detect it. The longer his eyes traveled from one person to the next, the more she felt the lump in her throat.

She sucked in her breath sharply when the eyes fastened on her own; now she had goose bumps to go with her chills. It was as if by simply looking into eyes he could craft a spiritual bond that no words could name. The hush had become so complete it was palpable; the honking of a single goose seemed as loud as a public-address system.

It was then that Brother Jackson spoke: “How 'bout Jesus tonight?”

His question seemed to break the spell. No one spoke, but there was scattered applause.

Brother Jackson smiled with peaceful assurance, then he asked another question: “Who loves you?”

A few voices answered, “Jesus,” but somewhat timidly and not immediately. Brother Jackson cocked his hand next to his ear before he repeated his question. “
Who
is it loves you?”

“Jesus!” proclaimed the throng, this time without hesitation.

Then, practically shouting, he said, “Say what? Now one more time, tell me who it is that loves you!”

“JESUS!” This time it was as loud as a crowd galvanized by a game-winning touchdown. Anne-Marie felt chills again, this time up and down her spine, and they had nothing to do with the cool night air. She zipped her letter jacket up snug around her neck.

“Then how 'bout Jesus every night?” the evangelist asked with a smile.

Anne-Marie heard the murmured responses, but she couldn't help staring at Brother Jackson. He was lean, but the definition of his muscles was sharp. The sleeves of his blue work shirt were rolled up high enough to reveal his biceps. He looked really strong, as blessed in his body as in his soul. There was a greenish tattoo on his right forearm, but Anne-Marie wasn't close enough to make out what it was. His lustrous, dark hair was pulled back into a modest ponytail. The track lights above the stage seemed to highlight his even suntan; she guessed he must have just arrived from a preaching mission somewhere in the South.

But most of all, it was his smile. Radiant and captivating, it seemed to flash across his face with each right answer like heat lightning. He didn't
preach
. He would ask and they would answer. “
When
does He love you?”

“All the time,” answered someone promptly.

“
All
the time!”

“Come on, do come on.”

“When you're good?” asked Brother Jackson.

“Gome on.”

“Yes!”

“Lord yes!” declared the fellowship of believers.

“When you're bad?”

“Yes!”

“That's right.”

“When you sin?”

“Yes!”

He will ask and we will know
, thought Anne-Marie.
It's not in the knowing, but the saying. We will know the answers, then will be the giving and taking, back and forth. Each time the voltage will increase; people will be swept along like rafters on a river bound for glory
. She had never known such feelings before. The knot of anticipation in her stomach loosened with the ongoing ebb and flow between Brother Jackson and the flock.

The evangelist spoke more quietly. “When does God turn his back on you?”

“Never.”

“Never!” shouted a man near the back.

“Bring it on, that's right,” said Sara loudly.

Anne-Marie whispered timidly, “Never.”

“How many of you are sinners?” asked Brother Jackson in a more urgent tone.

Every hand went up immediately. Anne-Marie followed the rest.

A tall black man was standing about twenty feet away. “I have sinned against my fellow man!” he declared. “I am powerless against sin, but I know to lay my burdens at the throne.”

“Praise God for that testimony,” said Brother Jackson, with the magnetic smile once again spreading across his face. “And when does the Lord ignore your cries? When does He hide His face from you?”

“Never!”

“Never,” said Anne-Marie quietly.

Brother Jackson directed the congregation as surely as any conductor led an orchestra. The lump in her throat felt nothing like her customary knot of remorse and guilt. The lump was splendid somehow, and the tingling that spread throughout her limbs felt wholly spiritual.

How many times had she heard these themes in church, that God's love was unconditional, that if you confessed, your sins would be forgiven? Hundreds? That the grace of God wasn't a limited-time offer? Hundreds more?

But it was this time, this place, and most of all, this man. That's what was different. She thought of a Bible verse,
He makes all things new
, but wouldn't know where in the Bible to look for it.

Brother Jackson was asking, “Who has a ticket for God's grace?”

“We do!”

“All of us! No one is left out!”

“Come on,
do
come on!”

Anne-Marie had to turn away, her face suddenly wet with tears. Brother Jackson was too glorious to look at. She turned to the woods without seeing the maple limbs. Sara was gripping her right knee tightly when she wasn't waving her arms in the air.

I'm going to be different now
, Anne-Marie told herself.
I can surrender
.

She removed Sara's grip from her knee, stood up slowly, and walked toward the woods. She couldn't look at Brother Jackson a moment longer; it was like staring into the sun. Nobody noticed her exit, and she wouldn't have known if they did. She felt a comfort zone, like a spiritual cocoon of the Lord's own making.
I'm going to be different now
, she told herself again.

She shivered, body and soul. When she was close enough to smell the trees, she stood unknowingly in a puddle of water. She promised God she would stop smoking for good and never drink any more beer. Even though she hadn't been intimate with Richard Bone for at least two months, she resolved never to have sex with him again, no matter how persistent he might be. She assured God that she would honor her parents and get her homework done on time, even the term paper.

She spoke out loud: “It's not that I'm
going
to be different, I'm
already
different.”

In the distance, she heard a single, muffled honk. A phrase from the unfamiliar hymn, “the wingèd squadrons of the sky,” danced in her head. She found herself praying for all the Canada geese, living and dead.

She wiped her tears with tissues before returning to the tabernacle. A closing hymn was in progress, but it, too, was unfamiliar. Why should it matter, though? If it was praising God, did she need to know the words? Brother Jackson was in the bright light. His arms above his head, his eyes closed, he swayed in lofty splendor.

The collection plate, a simple woven basket, came by. Anne-Marie dropped in her twenty-dollar bill without a second thought.

April 10

Anne-Marie sat in front of her computer on an evening so warm and fresh she opened one of her windows. The phone rang.

It was Sara Curtis. “I'm just calling to apologize for not following you to the woods at Brother Jackson's tabernacle meeting.”

Sara Curtis rarely called her. “Please don't apologize. I really needed to be alone.”

“You needed to pray alone, huh?”

“Yes. That's it.”

“Did you feel like the Lord was blessing you, taking you into His arms?”

“Yes, I guess I did.”

“Praise God for it,” Sara answered immediately. “Do you feel strong in the Fellowship?”

Anne-Marie hesitated for several seconds. “I guess I do, but not enough. I guess I could.”

“Just let yourself surrender every day and the Lord will lead you.”

Anne-Marie confessed, “I feel different, but the world's the same.”

“I know just what you mean,” Sara replied immediately. “When I first became a Christian, a real part of the Fellowship, I felt the same way. My pastor explained it to me this way: When you're a born-again Christian, it's as shining as a crystal in the sun, but as fragile as a soap bubble in the wind.”

“That's it!” gushed Anne-Marie. “That's it exactly.”

“How's the world the same, Anne-Marie?”

Anne-Marie moved to the edge of the bed. She wanted to share her fears and insecurities, and Sara was someone she could trust. “I'm getting two unsatisfactory progress reports, which means I'm probably not on track to graduate on time. My biology research paper is still stuck on square one. All of my friends will be going through the ceremony, but I won't want to be anywhere near.”

“The Lord will lead you in your academics too, if you surrender,” said Sara. “What's your biology term paper about?”

“Shaking goose eggs.”

“Shaking goose eggs? What's that mean?”

“Authorities in the northwest suburbs are trying to cut back on the overpopulation of Canada geese. Their main strategy is the shaking. They chase mothers from their nests, then shake the eggs hard, the way you might shake up a carton of orange juice. When the mother goose returns to the nest, she's sitting on dead eggs, but there's no way for her to know it.”

“Yuck. It sounds so sad.”

“I know it sounds sad, which is why I'd like to write the paper on it. I just don't follow through on big projects, Sara.”

“Take this suffering to the Lord and He will lift you up.”

“If you want the truth,” Anne-Marie continued, “the idea wasn't really my own. My mother brought me a series of articles she'd saved from the
Tribune.
”

“So? It sounds like a good topic to me. What difference does it make where it comes from? You've already made it your own.”

“I wish I could say that, but I can't even get a working outline before my concentration runs out.”

“Do you believe the Lord can help you?”

“I'd like to believe it. I've been reading and rereading passages of Scripture. I've almost memorized some of them.”

“Praise God,” said Sara. “But you need to find a balance.”

“A balance?”

“Yes. If you're spending so much time reading Scripture that you can't get homework finished, then you'll still be in the same place. You can set aside a few minutes each day for homework. The Lord loves dedication as much as He loves the reading of His Word.”

“You seem to understand so much, Sara.”

“I've just been in the Fellowship longer, that's all. We have Bible study meetings every Monday night at my house. Some are from the college, but most are from the high school. You know a lot of them. You'd be welcome to join us any time.”