Time for Grace (13 page)

He thought about telling his mom about her crushing guilt for being angry at her parents when she had a right to be angry at them. And the way she tried to figure out what God was thinking and, yes, the way she tried to reason away her anger at Him. But that had been something she’d shared with him in confidence so he didn’t feel he was free to talk about that.

Maybe he should describe her chestnut hair. Or her big brown velvety eyes framed by those long lush eyelashes or the perfect arch of the eyebrows over them. Her sweet smile was certainly memorable. He himself smiled thinking about the way she always bit that full bottom lip when she was worried or upset.

He’d finally decided to go with just the facts of how he’d met her when his mother spoke. “Did you ever hear that sometimes silence can be eloquent?” she asked, her voice soft with love for him. “Don’t give up on life, Kip. And don’t give up on Sarah. Go home to her and tell her how you feel. Then marry the girl so I can start buying pretty dresses for my new granddaughter. I love you, son. Please don’t waste the life God gave you by trying to control future events. That’s the Lord’s job.”

Kip realized he wanted nothing more but how could he condemn Sarah to more grief? He said good-night and hung up, wondering which of them was right—he and his aunt Emily or his mom and Sarah?

“I
’m sorry, Sarah. I thought you knew,” Miriam said with pity in her eyes as they sat across from each other in the teachers’ lounge during lunch on Wednesday. “He won’t be back till late in the afternoon on the ninth.”

No, she hadn’t known. But then why would she? It wasn’t as if they’d talked. She’d confronted. He’d defended. Their last meeting had been more like of a fencing match on a piste. Tierce. Parry. Riposte. A jaunty touché and she’d walked out. She’d played it wrong. Now she didn’t know if she’d drawn a black card and been disqualified or if she’d made her point.

Confused. Hurt. Disheartened, Sarah tried to cover her roiling emotions. “He has a right to leave town. The man is working. And he certainly doesn’t have to check with me. He owes me nothing. I’m the one who owes him.”

“Still, I think he should have told you. I don’t care what you say, Kip cares very deeply for both you and Grace.”

Sarah nodded. She knew that. His feelings or lack of them weren’t the problem. But there was no way she would reveal Kip’s inner torture to Miriam. Kip’s sister meant well but Sarah had learned that expecting discretion from her would be like expecting to slice a turkey with a chain saw. Her fellow teacher and landlord didn’t seem to have a subtle bone in her body.

Sarah looked down at her lunch bag, stood and left the teachers’ lounge. She was no longer interested in the egg salad sandwich she’d packed for lunch. It didn’t matter what Miriam said. Kip’s actions spoke louder and louder all the time. He refused to reconsider.

Hurrying to her classroom, hoping to get there, close the door and have a good cry or a good scream, she rounded the corner and ran smack into Pastor Dillon.

Jim looked on the edge of panic when he zeroed in on her tear-filled eyes. Then he took a deep breath. “Is it Grace?”

She shook her head and a tear rolled free.

“Then come to my office. Maybe a long talk will help. I promise if you cry, I won’t run. Holly would kill me! But worse, I’d disappoint my boss again.”

His self-deprecating smile put her at ease and she nodded. Maybe he
could
help. Sarah followed him into his modest office. She noticed he once again closed his hall door, but opened the inner door to the outer office where the church secretary worked. She heard him tell her he was in conference with one of the female teachers, then he stepped back in and moved toward his desk, leaving the door open.

Sarah stared at the open door. She really didn’t want her conversation overheard. She worked there and was building a base of at least acquaintances among her coworkers. Uncomfortable, she asked, “Do we have to have the door open, Pastor?”

He nodded. “I never speak to a female alone with a door not open. It’s just a rule I was taught by a friend early in my ministry. It avoids even the chance of creating gossip and a possible scandal. Relax, Sarah. Nancy knows to switch over to transcribing a book I’m writing. She puts on earphones and can’t hear a thing we say. Now, suppose you tell me why you looked like you were about to erupt out there?”

“Because I’m furious, Pastor.”

His forehead knitted for a moment. “You’ve had a lot go wrong in your life this last year. I’m sure it gets overwhelming at times. And make it Jim.”

She nodded. “Jim.” Sarah took a deep breath. “I feel guilty over my anger. And I feel like the guilt could crush me some days. I can’t pray anymore. I don’t think He listens.”

“God the Father doesn’t want us to feel fruitless guilt over our sins. He wants our repentance. Then He wants us to forget our transgressions and move on. We’re washed clean in His eyes by His Son’s shed blood and the sacrifice Jesus made on the Cross. Your sins are invisible to God once you repent of them.”

Sarah sighed. “But it’s pretty hard to repent when you’re still angry and getting angrier every day,” she said. “I was very angry at God for Scott’s death and Grace’s early delivery but I think Kip may have helped me work that out. I think God wanted me here and those circumstances got me here. I may have even made a mistake in marrying Scott. You see, I had doubts but I let him talk me into the marriage. Still, I can see where the Lord may have used my mistake for the good,” she explained.

She of course had no intention of revealing her feelings for Kip since he and Jim Dillon were such close friends. She couldn’t do that to Kip or Jim. It wouldn’t be fair.

Also now that she’d started talking to Jim, something vitally important had occurred to her. Because she’d been so alone during the terribly frightening circumstances of Grace’s life, she had come to rely more heavily on Kip than she ever had on anyone. Therefore she’d gotten to know him quickly and well. She’d gotten close enough to the heart of the man to fall in love with him in a way she never had with Scott.

She and Kip had bonded over Grace’s problems.

“Don’t get me wrong, I cared about Scott but I know he’s happy in heaven,” she told Jim. “But there’s something underlying it all.” She went on to explain about her parents and how they’d always pushed her to the background of their lives. “They’ve seeded countless schools, churches and small hospitals all over Africa and South America with their own money and funds from sponsoring churches.”

“Their own money?”

She nodded. “My parents both came from very wealthy families. They’re what’s often called trust-fund babies. Considering what some of their counterparts did with their lives, they look like saints. I guess in many ways they are. They were both only children raised in privileged environments. It was the early seventies when they met in college and started dating seriously. They were both saved at a crusade in the Los Angeles area.

“They got married and walked away from their world of wealth and privilege not long after that. There’s a lot about them to admire. But I think my impending birth must have been a bit of a shock. I was born in Kenya in nineteen eighty. They had thousands of children already and I’ve always felt they didn’t need me.” She nearly groaned. “Oh, I sound so pathetic!”

Jim leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “What you sound is lonely. You feel cheated. You feel abandoned and you have a right to. Yes, their work is admirable as is what they’ve done with their lives but their treatment of their daughter from where I’m sitting didn’t measure up to what the Lord expects of parents.”

She nodded but felt unworthy of his understanding. She once again tried to explain away their desertion. “The world they live in can be a dangerous place, though. After a close call when I was seven, they put me in a top-notch Christian boarding school in the mountains north of San Francisco. I really believe their intention was to keep me safe. They moved on from there and took me with them again. But then tensions rose in that country too, and they sent me to another school, this time in Switzerland. Life pretty much repeated like that. I’ve been in schools in Australia, France, South Africa, back to San Francisco. Till high school when they seemed to forget me altogether. I was lonely and I needed them. I learned not to say that or they’d tell me all about how much good they were doing. How my new school would open up more possibilities for me. That I needed to live the adventure. Their message seemed to be that I was being petty because their other children were so needy and I was so lucky. I never got their emotional support. I still need it and I still don’t get it.”

Jim pursed his lips deep in thought, then he sat forward. “Suppose we try to think about them as imperfect people. They were faced with a dilemma and they chose the course they did. I wouldn’t have. You wouldn’t have. But they did. Try to think of it this way. You make decisions concerning Grace hoping they’ll be for her good. I don’t imagine your parents made their decisions hoping you’d wind up feeling the way you do. They had to think they were doing the right thing.”

The pastor shook his head and looked heavy-hearted. “The number of misguided members of His flock is depressing. Just because your parents are serving God they were never exempt from being good parents. In ignoring you and your early complaints, they’ve offended the very God they try so hard to serve. I don’t know them, but it sounds very much like they turned their backs on the world of money and privilege to avoid having it become an idol to them.”

Sarah was amazed. Kip and Miriam had been so right about how insightful Jim was. “That’s exactly what they told me.”

Jim smiled sadly. “As I said, I see that their intentions were good, but I also think it’s possible that they traded one form of idolatry for another.”

“Idolatry? I don’t understand. They’re good Christians. Idolatry sounds a bit harsh.”

“I know,” Jim Dillon said with a nod. “At first glance it does sound over the top and it sounds nearly impossible in the modern world, but consider this.” He stopped and thought for a long moment. “Anything we put between us and the Lord, and between us and His will for us, is idolatry. We don’t have to fashion a golden calf and physically bow down to it to make something an idol. For me it was booze. For someone else it can be pride. Or a love of cars or a business or just making a lot of money. For your parents it may well have been their record of establishing all those missions you mentioned. Or their work among the poor.”

“I don’t understand. Jesus told the rich young man that if he wanted everlasting life he should sell all he had, give it to the poor and follow him. But the young man went away sad because he had so much and couldn’t sell it. My parents did all that.”

“What Jesus was saying was that those things the young man couldn’t stand to sell were too important to him. He put them above God. Your parents may have just made what they thought were good decisions with regard to you but something blinded them to your needs. Somehow they ignored the child God gave them to raise and nurture. In doing that they ignored His will for them.”

She nodded and as understanding began to dawn she began to feel sorry for her parents. Maybe they’d been misguided and not her.

“A lot of us have to come to a realization of what our idol is,” he went on. “Most people have at least one we battle with. Is yours anger? Righteous though it started out to be? Has that childhood anger translated into your adult anger at God over the other things that have gone wrong in your life? They were also beyond your control as were the decisions your parents made for you.” He shrugged. “Only you can answer that question. Only they can answer theirs.”

“Then what do I do with all this anger?” she asked, recognizing at last what it was doing to her.

“Whatever your answer is, whatever theirs is, Sarah, you have to let go of your portion of this. You need to pray for them. You have to forgive them before your anger moves to hate. Anger and hate are both destructive emotions. They drag us down and only serve to separate us from God and His will for us. Forgive them and then move on with your life so
you
can be the good parent to Grace that the Father would have you be.”

Sarah nodded. “I can try.”

“What may help is for you to remember that ultimately
God
is your Father. Not the man who you feel forgot his duty to you. Embrace that thought. Your Father in heaven wants all good for you the way a father should. He sent good people into your life all along when your parents’ decisions kept them out of it.”

Sarah nodded. Yes, He had. Her many teachers. The parents of friends. Especially Scott. He’d made her feel lighthearted for the first time. And Kip had given her security even if he couldn’t afford to give it to her forever. She stood and glanced at her watch. She had fifteen minutes before classes resumed.

Jim stood then, too. “Suppose you go into the sanctuary and spend a few minutes with your Father.” He rubbed his hands together and grinned. “I’ll go up to the art room. The kids can draw me for awhile.”

“Thanks,” she told him and a stray thought made her grin. “I have first, sixth and freshman coming in this period. Try not to be too insulted at how their likenesses of you turn out.”

He chuckled. “You forget, Jonah is my son.”

As an artist, Jonah made a great mathematician. Chuckling, Sarah left the office and made her way into the sanctuary. It was an awe-inspiring space. She’d learned it had originally been nothing but the skeleton of a barn when Jim’s young church pooled their resources and bought it. The Tabernacle had grown out of a bible study that met in a fire hall. They’d refurbished the barn with only the help of those original church members, many of whom Jim met on construction jobs—his previous occupation.

She looked up at the beautiful rugged beams then let her eyes trail downward to the cross at the back of the low stage. It was suspended from those rugged beams by three artfully rusted lengths of chain. According to church lore the cross had been fashioned by Jim from a couple of leftover beams and hung where it still was, and the church was then literally built around it.

She sat midway down the middle aisle, and stared at that old rugged cross with the refrain from the hymn running through her head. The words were so appropriate it brought more tears to her eyes.

So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,

Till my trophies at last I lay down;

I will cling to the old rugged cross,

And exchange it some day for a crown.

“I’m so sorry, Lord God,” she whispered. “I’m sorry for my anger at You and that I manufactured it from my anger at Mother and Father. I see it now.
You
aren’t them.
They
aren’t You. They’re just flawed representatives of You. They really do nearly worship their work, don’t they? Their missions are their trophies. Please send someone to show them the way back to You and You alone.”