Rapture Practice (12 page)

“Why, Aaron?” Dad repeats himself, waiting for an answer.

This is not a rhetorical question. He really wants to know, and stares directly into my eyes, trying to find the answer.

“I don’t know,” I say quietly.

For the first time tonight, I’m telling the truth. I don’t know why I like this music and this movie so much. My brain goes all mushy when Dad asks these kinds of questions—it’s like slush. I can’t marshal the words that so rarely fail me.

How do I tell Dad that of all the movies I saw last summer with Jason,
Pretty Woman
was my favorite? That one day I want to live in Los Angeles and climb up a fire escape with flowers in my hand for somebody I’m not supposed to love?
There’s a crazy guy on the street at the beginning and end of the movie who walks around saying, “Everybody’s got a dream. What’s your dream?”

My dream is to be an actor and live in that sunny city and ride around in a limousine and make movies like
Pretty Woman
and have my dad see me in them—really see me—and not mutter “sick” and change the channel. I dream that one day my dad will watch the whole story and see that the man who searches everywhere for love finds it in the place he least expects it. I don’t know if my dream pleases God or not, but it pleases me. And doesn’t God love me? Doesn’t he want me to be happy? It feels like everything I like is always wrong.

I don’t know how to say any of that. Instead, I whisper, “I’m sorry.”

Dad looks at me, perplexed. “Didn’t you know that if you asked me if you could buy that CD for Erin that I’d say no?” Dad asks.

“Yes.” I speak softly, trying not to let too much slip out.

“And yet you did it anyway. Then when I asked you about it, you lied to me because you wanted to have your way. You wanted to make your own decisions, instead of honoring your father and mother. God’s word calls that rebellion.”

I take a deep breath and close my eyes.
Here comes the snake.

“Satan was an angel before he was a serpent, Aaron. Lucifer—the angel of light—the most powerful angel in heaven. What does the Bible say was Lucifer’s sin?”

“Rebellion,” I say.

As Dad works his way through the rebellion speech one
more time, I feel the scorn clawing its way up the back of my throat. I know all of this. I’ve heard it so many times I could give the speech myself.

“Satan wants to murder you, to take your soul to hell for all eternity. You’ve trusted Jesus as your savior, so he can’t do that, but he’d love nothing more than to murder your testimony for Jesus Christ by tempting you with all the things that this sinful world has to offer: the movies, and the rock music, the sex…”

“Dad, I don’t go to movies,” I lie, “or have sex.” This is true, but Dad doesn’t seem to hear me.

“This is more than a lie about a CD,” Dad says. “This is about you choosing whether or not you are going to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.”

I can’t stand it any longer. “So, are you going to give me a whipping?”

Dad looks past me and rubs a hand over his thick auburn hair. When he focuses on me again, there’s a faraway look in his eyes, as if he’s seeing a stranger.

“Son, I don’t think a whipping is going to fix this. You’re too old to spank.”

Something about this news should be comforting. Instead, it’s chilling. If he’s not going to spank me…

“I am so grieved about this that I don’t know exactly what to do. Your mom and I have been praying about how to discipline you. She is as heartbroken about your rebellion as I am.”

They’ve known about it for days. This was an ambush. I walked right into it. Dad gave me enough rope to hang
myself. As I swing from the gallows of my own deceit, tears fill his eyes again.

“Do you remember when you were little and you asked me who spanked me when I did something wrong? Do you remember what I told you?”

Dad waits. I don’t want to be having this conversation. I feel a desperate panic in the pit of my stomach.

“You said God spanked you, but not with a belt; that there are some things that God allows to happen as the consequences of our actions that are worse than a spanking.”

Dad crosses his arms and leans against the wall in my room. His gaze wanders past me toward the ceiling.

“I’ve been praying about this, Aaron, searching for the answer. How do I handle my own son lying to me?”

He pauses. The silence is horrible.

“I’ve talked to your mom about it, and I feel like you need to lose something that’s so important to you that you’ll never forget this lesson.”

I can’t swallow. I can’t blink. I stare at Dad, waiting.

“I’ve made an appointment to talk to Miss Tyler up at Blue Ridge on Monday. I think as a consequence for lying to me about this CD, you’re not going to be able to be in the play at school.”

When Dad says these words there’s a roar in my ears like the sound of the jets flying over the air force base down the road from our house. It rockets into my chest, then full throttle out of my mouth.

“Dad, you can’t do this!”

Mom appears at the door of my bedroom. I am crying and yelling and I don’t care. “That punishes the
entire cast
, not just me. I’m one of the
leads
. I’m in almost every scene. Monday is the beginning of spring break, and we have rehearsals every day until we open.”

“I realize that, son. Which is why I’m going to talk to Miss Tyler about it. I don’t want to put her in a bind if I can help it.”

“A
bind
? Put her in
a bind
? We open the show in
two weeks
!” I am so angry that I can see spit and tears flying as I speak.

“I understand that, but if Miss Tyler feels that she can recast your role and still open the show as scheduled, I’m going to pull you out of the production.”

“Dad, please don’t do this,” I say quietly. I hate myself for begging. I hate that he can win like this.

“Aaron, I love you so much, and I know how much this means to you. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth and suffered and bled and died for your sin of lying. He knew while he was hanging on that cross that one day Aaron Hartzler would lie to his dad about buying a CD for his girlfriend, but he loved you so much that he let those Roman soldiers crucify him anyway.”

“I’m sorry, Dad!” I am hysterical, but I can’t stop the explosion. “You can spank me if you want, or don’t let me drive. Why do you have to take me out of the play?”

Even as I say the words, I know that I’ve just sealed my own fate by bargaining. I can see it in his eyes: he knows he’s hit me where it hurts.

Game over. He wins.

“Aaron, this play is more important to you than anything else. I feel like being an actor has become more of a priority to you than your commitment to Christ, and nothing should be more important than that.”

I can’t argue with this, because he’s right. Being in this play
is
more important to me than Jesus.

“Dad, I can still love God and be an actor.”

“I know that, son, but not if you’re lying and being deceitful. Jesus Christ is coming back to the earth very soon. We need strong young men like you who stand up and say, ‘I’m living for Jesus Christ.’ If God has called you to be an actor, you can do quality biblical plays that you tour around to churches, or direct Christian school kids in plays that lead people to the Lord.”

I don’t want to tour churches or teach at a Christian school. I can’t imagine myself doing that as an adult. My head hurts from crying and yelling, and I want to not be in the same room with him anymore.

“When do you talk to her?” I ask.

“Monday morning at ten thirty.”

“And if she says that she can’t do the show without me, you won’t pull me out?” I ask. There’s no way that Miss Tyler will let him do this. I’m the best thing in the show and she knows it.

“Yes,” Dad says, “in that case, we’ll figure out some other form of discipline.”

“I have lines to review,” I say, and start digging my script out of my backpack.

Dad stands in my room, Mom at the door, watching as I wipe at my face and sit down on the floor with my back against the bottom bunk of the stacked beds that I share with Josh. I stare at the yellow highlighted lines without reading them. I can’t even see the words.

“We love you, son.”

When Dad says these words, I want to throw the script at the wall.

Instead, I do nothing. I stare at the page, and I wait in the silence until he moves into the hall with my mother, and I hear the creak in the hallway floor that lets me know they’ve made it to the kitchen.

“Let’s pray before we get there, and ask God to really use our ministry tonight,” Dad says.

We’re driving to church on Sunday night through a Kansas City thunderstorm. Our pastor asked Dad to preach tonight, and I’ll be playing the piano for the whole family to sing. Dad likes for us to do the special music when he preaches, especially when he gives a sermon for parents about raising godly children. We’re sort of like a modern-day von Trapp family, only instead of tunes about tiny white flowers and going to bed, we sing songs about Jesus. We’re the example of the family you can have if you follow the instructions Dad gives on the overhead transparency.

“Honey, you want to start us off?” Dad asks. Mom closes her eyes and bows her head in the front seat.

“Dear Heavenly Father, we want to thank you for this opportunity to be used by you in the lives of others. We pray that as Hubert speaks, and Aaron plays the piano, and the
children and I sing, this will not be a performance for our glory but a ministry for your glory….”

As Mom prays, I stare at the rain-slicked streets in the dark and think about the song I’ll be playing. We practiced as a family this afternoon in the family room. It’s a beautiful tune by a composer who lost an eye to cancer and now writes Christian musicals under the name Patch the Pirate. The song is all about giving your heart to Jesus while it’s still tender, and surrendering all your talents for God to use them as he sees fit. The problem is, I don’t
want
to surrender my talents to God. What if he makes me use them as a missionary or a Christian schoolteacher? That isn’t the life I want for myself.

Mom wraps up her prayer. When she says “amen,” Dad encourages each of us to search our hearts and make sure that we’re “right with God.”

“If there’s any unconfessed sin your life, God can’t hear your prayers,” he says. “Each of you take a few minutes and make sure that you’re a vessel of service that is fit for use by the Lord tonight.”

The car is quiet except for the
swish-swoosh
of the windshield wipers. Dad goes to talk to Miss Tyler tomorrow. I think of the lies Mom and Dad know about now, and the ones they don’t know about yet, and my stomach turns. I always get a little nervous about playing the piano in church, but this feels worse. I don’t want to mess up. Will God help my fingers hit the correct keys if I confess my sin? Will he keep Dad from taking me out of the play?

Silently, I try to pray.
God, I’m sorry for lying to Dad. Tonight, I dedicate my talents to You. Please help me to hit all the right notes, and please, please let Miss Tyler convince Dad not to take me out of the play.

Dad pulls into a spot in the church parking lot, and we make a dash through the rain to the front door.

During the service the storm outside lets up, but the butterflies in my stomach do not. It is not uncommon for preachers to speak a great deal about God’s plan for you, but tonight Dad’s sermon has a catchy title: “Satan’s Plan for Your Life.”

“If you’re already a Christian, the devil can’t murder your soul and bring you to hell with him for all of eternity,” Dad explains, “but he
can
murder your Christian testimony so that you can’t be of use by God here on earth.”

Dad illustrates this point with a story about a friend of Mom’s when she was in high school. The young man’s name was Chris and he had turned his back on God and taken to a wild life of drugs, rock and roll, and hitchhiking. One evening, Chris had hitched a ride and tried to rob the driver, who shot him.

“The emergency room doctor told Chris’s mother that the bullet only grazed him and that he shouldn’t have died from the wound,” Dad says. But Chris’s mother knew what had
really
happened. Two days later, Dad says, she stood in front of a congregation of sobbing high school students at Chris’s funeral and explained that Chris had strayed so far from God’s plan for his life that God allowed him to be killed. The Good Shepherd, she said, had called home his wayward lamb.

“Surrender your will and your talents to the master’s plan for your life,” Dad says, quoting a verse from Philippians “and you, too, will know ‘the peace of God that passes all understanding.’ ”

This story isn’t helping the butterflies in my stomach. I’ve heard it before, but now I wonder if it applies to me. Will God allow me to be killed in a freak accident if I keep lying to my parents about music and movies?

As Dad wraps up his sermon, he says, “I’d like to call my family up to the front to sing a song about dedicating your heart and soul to the lordship of Jesus Christ. As Belinda and the children come to sing, I trust that if you haven’t already, you’ll consider telling the creator of heaven and earth that every part of you is dedicated to serving him.”

When I reach the piano bench, I wipe my hands across my slacks and wait for Mom’s nod to begin the introduction to the song. I love playing the piano, because as soon as I start, everything else drops away—the butterflies vanish, the staccato fears pinging around my head quiet down, and I become lost in the notes and the rhythms. Mom’s light soprano wraps a beautiful obbligato harmony over the clear voices of Josh, Miriam, and Caleb, who sing the melody.

As I play the final notes of the song, stillness settles over the congregation, a sort of holy hush, finally broken after several seconds by a chorus of hearty “amens”—what we do in church instead of clapping. My fingers found every note perfectly. Maybe God heard my prayer in the car. Maybe He’s not upset with me after all.

After church, Erin finds me in the foyer and tells me I did a great job.