The Desire (22 page)

A
llan arrived home after work that evening feeling a little tense. Michele seemed to be doing better when he'd left her in the parking lot of the doctor's office, but he wondered what kind of shape she'd be in after having all afternoon with nothing to do but think. Then there was his concern about Ray in the hospital. On the car ride home, he'd spoken to Julie. Ray was asleep, thanks to some heavy sedation. Allan had guessed right about the surgery. She'd mentioned they had scheduled an operation on his leg for tomorrow morning.

After setting his things down, he walked into the kitchen. Worship music was playing in the background. That was nice. Whatever she had going on in the oven smelled wonderful. He didn't see her downstairs, so he walked to the stairwell. “I'm home, hon. You up there?”

“I'll be right down.”

He walked back into the kitchen to get some ice water out of the fridge. That's when he noticed a number of Scriptures handwritten on index cards, mounted with magnets to the freezer door. They hadn't been there that morning when he'd left for work. Curious, he read each one.

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. (James 4:6)

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3)

Apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)

Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another. (1 Peter 5:5)

“I wonder what brought this on,” he said quietly. He poured the water, rereading the Scriptures. Clearly, humility was the prevailing theme. That, and needing God's help. Nothing wrong with that, he thought. Still, he didn't know what to expect as she came down the stairs.

Michele almost bumped into him when she stepped into the kitchen. “Oh, there you are.” She reached her arms around his waist and gave him a hug. “So glad you're home.”

This wasn't the greeting he'd expected. “You seem . . . upbeat.”

“I am.” She turned the oven light on and bent down to check her dish's progress. “Looking good. Maybe another ten minutes.” She turned the light off, grabbed his hand, and began tugging him toward the living room.

“What's for dinner? The smell's killing me.”

“Meat loaf.”

She made the best meat loaf. Because she did, he never ordered it in restaurants anymore. She sat on the couch, so he sat next to her. “What's going on? I was thinking that since your doctor visit didn't turn out so well, you might be kind of down.”

“I was. In fact, I was pretty much a wreck right after. Jean came over, and even she couldn't cheer me up.”

“Obviously something did. And I want to hear it. But first, tell me what the doctor said.”

So she did. And it
was
discouraging. The more she explained, the more discouraged he became. The process the doctor had described seemed like it could go on for months and months, if not years. Costing thousands, maybe tens of thousands of dollars. She also shared the tidbit about Jean's cousin adopting a little girl, and how much that cost. What he'd heard was right: almost twenty-five-thousand dollars.

What a racket, he thought, but didn't say it. He didn't want to diminish the unusual joy she seemed to be experiencing. But a new concern began to build in his mind as she talked. About money. About how much discretionary cash they had each month after expenses. So far in their marriage, he'd been able to assign a decent portion of this to his mission activities. With Michele's permission. From what he was hearing, this would have to stop when they began pursuing these infertility solutions.

He found his anticipation growing to hear about whatever was responsible for her positive outlook. He could use a sip of whatever she was drinking.

She finished her update with, “Now, that's the bad news.”

“Yeah, that's . . . pretty bad. But you're doing way better than you should be after sharing all that.”

“I know, it's weird, isn't it?”

Weird was one way to describe it. “I'm guessing it has something to do with those index cards on the freezer door?”

“You saw them? Good. Yes. Isn't it wonderful? I learned something today about humility. Something I never knew before. Maybe I never really understood humility. But after the things I read, my outlook completely changed.”

“So, what did you read?”

She leaned across the couch and picked up a notebook sitting on an end table. Allan had seen it around the last few days.

“Isn't that the notebook Julie gave you?”

She opened it on her lap. “It is. I've been reading it every morning this past week. After I got home from the doctor's, I was a mess. Totally deflated.”

Probably like I am now, Allan thought.

“Jean came over for coffee, and we talked. But that didn't really help. The whole situation seemed so big and out of my control. I felt helpless. I couldn't imagine how we could ever get all that money together. And even if we did, there are no guarantees I'll get pregnant after we spend it.”

“So you don't want to pursue this infertility thing anymore?”

“No, that's not it. I still do.”

“Then I'm not getting where you're going here.”

“Jean said something about being helpless, that it's not always a bad place to be. Then I remembered something I read a few days ago in this notebook. It says when you're helpless and you know you don't have what it takes to make your situation work, it's kind of a gift. That's where humility comes in. Humility's all about realizing how much we need God's help. According to this, we turn to God as a last resort, only after we've tried everything else we can do ourselves. But the truth is, we need him all the time, we just don't realize it. As long as we think we can handle our problems, that's what we do. We handle them, or at least we try. We don't trust God. We don't even turn to him. We just . . . try to figure it out on our own. Then a trial like this comes along, and we find out just how helpless we really are. It's so big, it overwhelms us. We realize we can't fix it no matter how hard we try.”

This was actually making sense.

“All Jean and I did was pray. We surrendered the whole thing to God and said, ‘Lord, this is too big for us to carry.
We need your help. We need to know what you want us to do. Please take away all this fear and anxiety.' And he did. I have no idea how this is gonna work out. Where the money's going to come from, but that's okay. According to this notebook—well, the Scriptures in here about humility—my part is simple. Humble yourself.”

Allan looked down at the notebook, which had suddenly increased in value. “I've read a lot of things about humility. But I think I've learned more from what you just said than from anything I've read.”

“Isn't it simple? It's like, after seeing it broken down this way for children, the lights came on for me. God's not expecting me to do big things for him or try to impress him with my great faith. He wants me to depend on him . . . for everything. And if you think about it, that's exactly how Jesus lived in the Gospels. Totally dependent on the Father.”

“So why all the index cards on the fridge?”

“I guess the idea is memorizing Scripture. This chapter on humility says our minds drift through thousands of thoughts each day. Many of them draw us away into doubt and fear. Our minds need something better to hold on to. So the author suggests putting Scriptures together that speak about the very thing you need the most help with. Well, we're supposed to teach kids to do this, but he says adults need it just as much. One of the ideas for helping you memorize them was writing them down on little cards. So that's what I did.”

Allan reached for her hand. “I'm really proud of you, hon. I expected to come home and find you totally down and depressed. But look at you. I'm actually encouraged. How about you and I pray like you and Jean did, then we'll get up and eat that incredible meat loaf.”

T
he following morning, Saturday, Michele texted Julie to see if there was anything they could do for her. It was hard to know how to handle something like this. Ray and Julie had plenty of family in town and tons of friends in the church. Julie would probably be bombarded by people expressing concern. Michele didn't want to pile on. She sent just a quick text, telling her no need to reply if things were crazy.

She stood near the patio door as she sent it, in time to see Allan's car pull into the driveway. He had just made a quick run to the store to solve their coffee emergency. A few moments later, he walked across the connecting sidewalk holding a bag of half-and-half in one hand and a manila folder in the other.

Her cell buzzed, a reply from Julie:
Thanks for praying. Just got to the hospital. Haven't
even seen Ray yet. Will call you if I think
of something. Right now, job one is trying to keep
the kids from freaking out about his surgery. LOL. Just
pray. Talk soon.

The patio door opened.

Allan stepped past her and into the kitchen, set the cream on the counter. “I had an idea on the way home. Why don't I put this in the fridge, and we go out for breakfast? Then we can swing by and visit the hospital.”

She walked toward him. “We can go someplace that has good coffee. How about Panera?”

“Sounds great. Are you ready to go?”

“I can be. Just give me a few minutes.” She headed toward the stairs. “By the way, I just texted Julie. She just got to the hospital. From the sound of it, she's alone.”

“Then we should definitely go. And I'll give her this,” he said, holding up the manila folder.”

They were almost to the hospital now. Michele glanced toward the backseat at the folder. “Is that the report about the orphanage?”

Allan nodded. “I know Ray won't be in any shape to look at it today, but I'm guessing they'll be keeping him a few days. He'll probably be bored stiff.”

Neither one of them said anything for a few moments. Allan didn't want to bring up what he was thinking. He'd been working on not talking about the orphanage very much. Every time he did, he'd use it as a reminder to take an interest in their baby challenges. It was starting to work. Now, only about half his daydreams took him back to Korah and to thoughts of little Ayana.

When he did go there, he'd see the same thing: an image of her squatting by a pile of garbage three times her size, poking through it with a stick. She'd hear him call, turn, and look up at him with those big brown eyes and bright smile.

“What do you think is going to happen now?”

Allan turned toward her voice. “What?”

“Wasn't Ray supposed to leave for Africa on Tuesday?” she said.

“Yeah. He was. No chance of that now.”

“Wasn't this kind of an important trip?”

Ridiculously important, he wanted to say. In fact, he had no idea what they were going to do now. “Pretty much. Ray was going to set everything up. Sign all the forms, pay all the up-front fees. Even get with Henok to select the first six children for the orphanage.”

“Is that little girl supposed to be one of them? What was her name?”

“Ayana.”

“Yeah, Ayana.”

“I hope so, but we put Henok in charge of selecting the children. I don't think he's talked to any of their legal guardians yet, including Ayana's grandmother. He was waiting for Ray to get there.” They pulled into the hospital parking lot. “Wonder where we should park?” Signs pointed to the ER.

“Isn't he there, in the ER?” Michele said.

“I don't think so. That's probably where they brought him at first. But I don't think they'd do surgery there.”

“Well, it's not that big of a place.”

“I'll just park near the main entrance. Won't hurt us to walk a little.” They parked, got out of the car, and headed toward the door.

“Allan, your folder.” They stopped walking. “You left it in the backseat.”

“Oh, right.” He headed back to the car, leaving Michele on the sidewalk. He wondered why she was suddenly taking such an interest in Africa.

A
woman at the information desk had given them directions to the surgical waiting room. They were heading there now. Michele wasn't sure where she was going with all these questions about Africa. Since their big talk a month ago, when Allan had agreed to shift his focus toward starting a family, she had tried to help by not taking an active interest in the orphanage plans.

But she was still using the children's ministry notebook in her devotional time. This morning she was writing down memory verses about loving others. One that stuck out to her was from Philippians 2. She forgot which verse but not what it said: “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

That pretty much contradicted her plan to avoid any discussions about Africa. It was definitely something Allan was interested in. And he'd shown he really did care about her and her desire to focus more effort on starting a family. She didn't feel alone anymore. Based on what that verse said, it was time to care about Allan's world a little. He had been working so hard on this orphanage proposal, trying to help Ray get ready for this trip.

Up ahead, she saw the waiting room sign sticking out above a doorway. When they got inside, the room was mostly empty. A scattering of people here and there, some watching the news on a television hanging in the corner, others reading magazines or talking quietly on their cell phones. Julie was in the far corner by herself.

“Good thing we came,” Allan whispered. “She's still alone.”

They held hands and walked toward her. She looked up as they came near. Michele could tell she had been crying. She sat beside her and gave her a hug. “How are you doing?”

“I guess I'm okay. They took him into surgery a few minutes ago. I know this isn't a life-threatening thing, but it still got me when they wheeled him away.”

Allan sat on the other side. “They give you any idea how long he'd be in there?”

“They said maybe a few hours, if they didn't run into any complications.” She sighed. “I wish they hadn't said that last part.”

“It doesn't mean anything,” Allan said. “I'm sure he's going to be fine. I'll bet the whole church is praying for him by now.”

“That's what one of the other pastors said. They're all on their way here.”

“Did the kids get to see their dad before surgery?”

“Just for a minute, before they rolled him away. They were so worried. All they wanted to know was how much it hurt.” She smiled. “He said, ‘I'm feeling
no
pain.' They had already given him some kind of sedative. After they took him, my mom took the kids home for me.”

“I'm glad he's not suffering,” Allan said.

“You saw the break?”

“By the time I got there, he was already on the gurney, his legs wrapped loosely in a blanket. But you could see—” He
looked over at Michele. “I'm sorry, she doesn't do well with these kinds of conversations.”

Julie reached for Michele's hands. “That's okay. Before Ray and I had children, I was an RN. Ray always wants me to be careful how I talk around the kids.”

“I don't know why it bothers me,” Michele said. “It's like nails on a chalkboard. I can't even watch those scenes on
CSI
-type shows.”

“Ray can't either. We have to watch them on the DVR, and he fast-forwards through them.”

No one said anything for a few moments. Michele wanted to keep Julie's mind distracted. “Oh Julie, I almost forgot. I never got back to you about the children's ministry notebook.”

“Oh, that's okay. We still have awhile before we need to order anything. Did you get a chance to look it over?”

“I read it all the way through.”

“Really? So, what did you think?”

“Mostly, I loved it. I started reading it just thinking about the kids, but I really get what you mean about the section for the parents. I'm not a parent yet, but I learned a lot. I'm still getting a lot out of it.”

“Did you think the parts for the kids were too complicated? Think it might go over their heads?”

“No, I don't think so. I think maybe the only weakness, if you're thinking of it for a Sunday-morning curriculum, is you might need someone to come up with some creative games and activities that tie back to the material. But I'm sure there are all kinds of creative people in the church who could work on that.”

“I was thinking the same thing. But the content seemed so good to me. I figured we could work out something to make it fit the age group we have in mind.”

“Definitely,” Michele said.

Julie turned a little in her chair. She looked at the manila folder in Allan's hand. “Is that the orphanage report?”

“You know about that?” Allan said.

She nodded. “Ray told me that's why you were at the house yesterday. To give him some kind of report.”

Allan held it out. “I don't know when he'll get to look at it, but I thought I'd bring it over anyway.”

“I'm sure he'll want to see it, but you might want to hold on to it for now. At least until you can make a copy.”

Allan didn't seem to get what she meant.

“He asked me to ask you—and he made sure that I tell you, you don't have to do it—but he was wondering if you might share what he was gonna share with the church tomorrow.”

“What?”

Oh no, Michele thought. Allan hated talking in front of large crowds.

“He wants me to talk with the whole church?”

“That's what he said. He knows you prefer to be a behind-the-scenes guy, but he'd really like the church to get this update.”

“But I wouldn't know what to say.”

“He said you'd say that. He said to tell you he already wrote out everything last night. He just had a few blanks to fill in once he got your report.”

Poor Allan. He was trying to look open-minded, but Michele knew better.

“Is that really a good idea now?” he said. “I mean, with this accident . . . the trip's going to have to be postponed now anyway, isn't it?”

Julie looked at him. Then she reached into her purse, pulled out a handwritten note that was folded in half. “He asked me
to give you this. The handwriting's a little shaky. He wrote it before they gave him the pain meds.”

Michele's eyes instantly locked on the note. Where was this leading?

Allan took it from Julie and unfolded it.

Michele stood up and walked over to Allan's side so she could read it along with him.

Allan,

Hate to bring this up, my friend, but with this accident, I'm kind of stuck. As you know, I'm supposed to get on a plane this Tuesday and head over to Ethiopia, make this presentation to the government and get everything all set up. I doubt that can happen now. But we can't cancel this meeting in Addis Ababa. We just can't. Too much riding on it. I'll explain why when I get out of surgery and I'm thinking straight again. In the meantime, would you please pray about taking my place? Maybe talk to Michele about it, see what she thinks? Maybe it can't work, but I had to ask.

—Ray