The Five Times I Met Myself (39 page)
“Okay.” She continued to stare straight ahead.
Brock sat next to her for a few moments in silence. Then, “It’s true. Deeper than you can imagine.”
“No, Brock.”
“And I don’t tell you often enough how stunning you are.”
“I said, don’t.” Karissa pulled her arms across her chest. “I need a month, a few weeks at least to figure some things out.”
“You truly stagger me. So beautiful. Inside. Outside. All of you. Such a treasure.”
“I said—”
“I need to ask for a crazy favor but I swear it’ll be the last one I ask for till you tell me I can again. After this, I won’t call, I won’t come over here. Nothing till you’re ready.”
“What’s the favor?” She moved her head farther away from him.
“I want to take you somewhere for the day tomorrow. And I want to tell you the most amazing story you’ve ever heard.”
“Where?”
“To a place where we can start over. From the beginning.”
“What are you talking about? The beginning of what?”
“Us.” Brock leaned toward her, just a few inches. “Tomorrow morning I want us to go to the Birch Bay Waterslides.”
“That is crazy.” Karissa shot him a weary glance. “You want to go water sliding? Are you kidding? They’re probably not even open yet.”
Brock raised both hands. “I’m not suggesting we get anywhere near the water. I just want to stand in the spot in that parking lot where I first met you and I knew you were my
density
.”
The hint of a smile played on the corner of Karissa’s mouth. “That density which brought me to you.” The smile faded.
Brock slid his hands on top of hers. “I’m not the same man.”
“So you say.” She pulled her hands out of his.
“No. I’m not going to tell you about it. I’m going to show you every day for the rest of our lives together. And the slides are where I want to start.”
“I don’t know.” Karissa sighed. “I’d need time to think about it.”
“For as long as you like.”
“I tell you what.” She looked at him longer than a few seconds for the first time since he’d sat down. “I’ll let you know in the morning about going to the slides. But don’t get your hopes up. Even a little.”
That night they slept twenty-three miles apart, which was a good thing because the moment Brock went to sleep, he slipped into a dream he wouldn’t want interrupted.
J
UNE
12, 2001
H
ello, Future Me. It’s great to see you.”
Brock found himself staring at the younger version of himself sitting five yards away in a canvas chair in the center of Farrel-McWhirter Park in Redmond. Sunshine. Slight breeze with the hint of autumn in it. Perfect day. But something was . . . different. Was it . . . there, that was it.
“You’re older.” He grinned at not-so-young-anymore Brock and took a few steps forward.
“Yeah, it’s been a few years since you came back to see me.” Young Brock smiled and patted his chest. “Still looking pretty decent for thirty-nine though. Don’t you think?”
“You look great.”
“So do you. I see it. First time I’ve seen that kind of peace on your face.”
His younger self motioned to the empty chair next to him. Brock ambled over to him and sat.
“What happened to my future?”
“Surrender. Full surrender. Great freedom. Great joy. And much more.”
“I’d love to hear all about it.”
Brock told his younger self everything that had happened since they first met right up till he entered this dream. Young Brock nodded his head throughout the story, his eyes bright. When Brock finished, his younger self cocked his head, a look of contemplation on his face.
“So was any of it real?”
“All of it was more real than anything in my life has ever been.”
“Yet nothing has changed. You’ve gone back to where you started.”
“No.” Brock smiled and shook his head. “Everything’s changed. Everything. Because I’ve changed. I’m not the man I was. I’m the man I see has already come alive in you. I’m discovering my true self and no longer living out of the lies about who I thought I was. The one who gets his validation from what he does is dying. The one who gets his validation from who he is, from who God sees he is—that’s the man who is alive now.”
“And Karissa? Will she love you again?”
“I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter.”
“How can it not matter?”
“It is truly an amazing thing to fully surrender to the living God. To completely give yourself over to the Spirit living inside you. Maybe that’s what dying to self means. Where you’re not worried about being loved, but how well you can love another.”
“And you’re ready to do that for Karissa as long as you live.”
“I’m ready to do it at least for today. And I’m not going to worry about the day after that till it gets here. Jesus said each
day has enough worries to deal with. I agree. I’m going to live in the now.”
“Explain that.”
“Our choices lead us to life or lead us to death, and as I now vividly know, what we do in our present certainly affects what we become in the future. But in the end, there is only now, only this moment in which to live. The future does not exist. So I will live now. The past is gone and cannot be retrieved, so I will live now. There is only the present. So I will live in this moment.”
His younger self nodded, closed his eyes, and seemed to be soaking the power of the sun into his whole being. “I have a hope for you, deep down where hope cannot be thwarted. A hope that your future will be blindingly bright, that the sails will unfurl and the wind will dance in hard from the south.”
Brock rose and his younger self opened his eyes and followed the lead. They smiled at each other.
“This is going to be a little weird and yet make all the sense in the world. I love you, Brock. You’ve set me free.” He grabbed himself in a bear hug and held on till the dream faded and Karissa’s voice called to him from the edge of sleep.
M
AY
24, 2015
I
’
ll go.”
Brock opened his eyes to find Karissa standing in the door frame of their bedroom dressed in black jeans and a white blouse. He blinked hard to pull himself awake.
“What?”
“I’ll go to the waterslides.”
“Really?”
“I want to hear this story.”
She turned away without smiling, but it didn’t matter. Her answer sent Brock’s heart soaring.
By nine thirty they were sailing up I-5 under a blue sky peppered with white clouds.
“You ready to tell me your amazing tale?”
“Yes.” Brock glanced at her, then turned back to the road. “But it’s insane.”
“I’m ready for a little insane. Part of me is insane for not staying at my sister’s.”
The words bit, but not hard, because he could tell she didn’t really mean it.
“Promise you won’t think I’m crazy?”
“Yes.”
When he finished Karissa was silent for three miles. Brock would let her sit in her contemplation as long as she wanted. As they passed the Arlington exit she extended her hand and offered it to him. Brock took it and held it tight. When they reached the outskirts of Mt. Vernon, she broke the silence.
“Can I make a suggestion?”
“Anything.”
“Maybe ask Tyson on a backpacking trip? Maybe see if you could start cooking together?”
Brock nodded. “I’m going to make up a list of ‘meals’ that he and I can share together. Meals like taking a cooking class. A backpacking trip. Going to a Seahawks game, dirt biking. Appetizers like a movie night, video game night, go to the driving range together.”
“You don’t dirt bike or golf.”
“Gimme a break . . . I’m brainstorming here.” He smiled.
“I like it.” She squeezed his hand. “Tyson will too.”
“I hope so.”
“I know he will,” Karissa said. “Mind if I get a few tunes going?”
“Good call.”
She reached into the backseat to search Brock’s case of CDs. She came forward with it a few seconds later and rummaged through it before pulling out a CD cover and holding it up. “How ’bout Steve Miller?”
Brock glanced at the CD cover and a bolt of adrenaline shot
through him. Impossible. Utterly impossible. He sucked in a quick breath and the words sputtered out.
“Where did you get that? Whose is it?”
“What are you talking about?”
He glanced at the CD again, thinking his eyes might have deceived him the first time.
“Look at the cover!” Brock tried to steady his breathing. “Where did you get that CD?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you remember? I owned the early version. I never bought the . . . but when I was on the PCT in my dream I told Young Brock to—”
“Buy the
Young Hearts
CD that came out in 2003.” As Karissa spoke the words, the CD case slipped from her hands. She turned her body toward him. “Oh my gosh. What are you saying?”
“I’m not dreaming. I know I’m not. So how could . . . ? Impossible.”
Karissa just laughed and smiled as wide as Brock had ever seen.
“How . . . this is impossible,” Brock repeated. What else was there to say?
“And after all you’ve been through you still don’t think God can handle the impossible?”
“So was it real?” Brock’s body flushed with heat. “Part of it? All of it?”
“You know what?” Karissa picked up the CD and gazed at it. “I don’t think this is the last piece of evidence we’ll find.”
“But . . . that story . . . my dream-world story ended. It’s over. What is God doing?”
Karissa took his right hand off the steering wheel in both of hers and kissed his fingers. “I think he’s telling us our story and the restoration of so many things isn’t ending. It’s just begun.”
Dear Friend,
Usually it takes me a while to appreciate my novels. I see all the little flaws that remain when the story is finished. Eventually I come around, but not for a while. But not this time. As I read the book for the final time (trying to find any remaining typos and words that needed to be fixed), the story captured me and I found myself reading it as a reader, not a critical editor.
I suppose that’s because Brock’s story is my story. There’s a large part of me that wishes I could go back and fix the things I did wrong. Part of me longs to tell the twenty-three-year-old James L. Rubart all the things he should have done differently.
But in the end what I truly yearn for is redemption. A second chance. For the Lord to open my eyes to how I can change right now, in this present moment. And he has done that for me, and continues to do that just as I know he will do it for you. I don’t believe anything in our lives is too far gone for the Lord to bring restoration.
All we need to do is surrender to his unquenchable grace and love, and step deeper into the story he is still writing for us in every moment.
To your freedom,
James L. Rubart
June 2015
T
o (my wife) Darci, for coming up with the entire premise that inspired this story and being my rock through the always arduous journey called writing a novel.
To my editor Amanda Bostic for being courageous enough to tell me the first version of this story just didn’t work (she was so right!), helping me figure out the next version, and being an amazing friend through that challenging process.
To Erin Healy, my editor, who I’d heard was legendary for her skill at shaping a story and who exceeded the reputation.
To Ruth for once again being a first reader of the first draft (the only person who has read every first draft of all of my novels) and for making me feel so good when she said how much she loved it.
To Ron for giving me wonderful ideas for the story, giving me the name
Black Fedora
, being an insightful first reader, and being such an incredible friend during the insane time of my life that came while writing this story.
To Susie and David Warren for their staggering brilliance in shaping the plot of
Five Times
. You two are awesome.
To Allen Arnold for walking beside me like a true brother every step of this novel’s journey.
To Jesus for taking me through the fire and for taking the shadow of the first version of this story and turning it into one I believe he will use to set people free.
1. Which character did you relate to most in
The Five Times I Met Myself
?
2. What themes stood out to you in the story?
3. Throughout the Bible God uses dreams to perform powerful works in people’s lives, as he did in Brock’s life in this story. Have you ever had a dream that changed your life?
4. Had you heard of lucid dreaming before reading
The Five Times I Met Myself
?
5. Even if you hadn’t heard about lucid dreaming, do you now realize you’ve had this kind of dream? If yes, what was it like?
6. If you had the chance to go back and talk to your younger self, would you do it?
7. If you did go back, what would you want to tell yourself?
8. Have you ever had a dream where you were younger? What did it feel like?
9. Beth became a tremendous friend to Brock. Do you have a friend like her? Are you a friend like that to someone?
10. At the end of the story, Brock realizes while in one way nothing has changed, in another, everything about his life has
changed. Have you had an experience that made you feel that way? What happened?
11. Brock has to face the truth that he tried to get his validation from his company—but that the only true validation in his life can come from his relationship with God. Have you tried to get your validation from things or people other than God? Why do you think we do that?
12. Brock experiences great freedom when he finally surrenders everything he is to the Lord. Have you experienced that type of surrender and that type of freedom? Do you think it happens once, or do we need to continue the act of complete surrender on an ongoing basis?
13. In the final pages of
The Five Times I Met Myself
we get a hint that some of the things that happened to Brock were more than just in his mind. Did you like that idea? Not like it? Why?