For Rowdy Christians Everywhere Page 29

Chapter 27: ‘There Are Rules to This Game!’

  “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:8-10

  They saw each other for a few minutes solace, at least, over breakfast and lunch. With Jenny’s father present, they didn’t feel quite so free to be themselves, and not as much was said. They settled for soft looks, daring glances, and the occasional contact: a squeezed hand, a brushed shoulder. Certainly the bond between them seemed strong. They were not wasted moments, but hoarded memories. They filled them with an unspoken outpouring of love and happiness to merely be in each other’s presence. She is the one, Luke confirmed to himself--then wondered, as he watched her, if she had somehow put that thought in his head, through her womanly wiles and feminine sorcery. He hoped so!

  They tried to be discreet, these moments weren’t meant for Terry; if Luke decided to stay or come back, that would be the time to share the news with him. But the old farmer couldn’t help ‘observing the weather’ anyway, and cracking a knowing smile. Every time they saw him smiling that way, they both blushed to make it even more obvious, and changed the conversation hastily. “Luke met Rebecca, Dad; he told me all about her!” Terry was interested in that news, and Luke took the opportunity to tell the story again, but after that he and Jenny settled back in to silent shared moments and hand-holding spirits.

  When Terry smiled about them again, it was Luke’s turn to distract him from it. He asked something he had started to wonder about: “Say, I’m confused about something: how come Jenny gets up to fix you breakfast, if you’re a cook in your own right?”

  “Hmm. True. But I’ve never learned to cook breakfast, really. The Bar and Grill isn’t open early enough to serve it. For myself, I would probably just skip breakfast and just start farming as soon as I could in the morning. First her mother, and then Jenny, started fixing me breakfast because they knew that’s the only way to get me to stop and eat it--if it’s already made, how can I refuse it? So I guess that was just their way of looking out for me.”

  “Ah. Love is fixing breakfast for someone who could fix it for himself,” Luke summarized.98

  “That too,” acknowledged Jenny.

  Out in the fields that day, after tending to the Harrises’ small herd, they were doing some more last-minute harvesting (crops and stuff), with a shovel and a scythe, some scissors and some sacks. As they worked, Terry noticed Luke’s without-Jenny sadness and tried to get him to buck up. “Don’t look so down. Things aren’t so bad!” he reminded him.

  Luke gave a shiver. “Must be the cold air today. Yesterday was so nice! Today it feels more like winter is coming. Kinda depressing, is all.”

  Terry gave a cagey smile. “That’s it. Blame it on the air.”

  Luke thought about that, and was more honest with himself: True, the cool air made it harder to get fired up, but was it really even that cold out? Terry still looked warm enough. (But then again, he had the hat with the earflaps.) Maybe the coldness was coming from inside, Luke considered, and instantly realized that was it! Remembering his biology, he reflected that body heat gets transferred in part by blood circulation. How can my blood circulate when my heart is breaking?

  Luke laughed at himself as he thought about this. What foolishness! Why should my heart break? All I have to do is stay! Let the ship sail on...

  Then Luke realized that this was why he was so upset: it wasn’t just having to say good-bye to Jenny, and true love. It was the sad recognition that as grand as this had felt, as wonderful as Jenny was, finding her was not the only reason he had come to sea. It seemed strange to say it, but even love was not the answer to his search. Out there, yet to be found, was still something greater. Better than love? he asked himself, and then heard Karla’s voice in his head, as she had answered a similar question: Much better!

  All the same he sighed, longing for Jenny and wishing he could simply stay there to search! Terry caught him sighing, and upbraided him, “Pull yourself together, man. You’re so lovesick you’re going to contaminate my fields! Then I’ll have turnips pining over beets (‘I miss you sugar’), radishes courting strawberries (‘You’re the sweetest’), and miniature corn flirting with the miniature carrots (‘Hey, baby’.)” An anxious thought passed through Terry’s mind and he muttered, “Talk about your cross-pollination.”

  After being corrected the second time, Luke took the hint, and told himself, Less thinking, more working! and picked up the pace a little. Keeping busy made the day go by quicker too, and before Luke knew it, Jenny was home from work. She called him in from the fields, he cleaned up quickly, and they talked.

  His happiness to see her was tempered by the knot in his stomach, as Luke felt he had to tell her the verdict: “I’ve been thinking today. I hate to say it, coz I love you so much! But I think I should go.” If he hadn’t said it quickly, he would never have found the strength to say it at all.

  Jenny surprised him, and hurt him a little, when she replied, “I think you should go too.” Startled, Luke had to know why. She explained softly, “You said you were moving towards grace. I don’t want to stand in the way of you finishing your journey. That comes first. Then you can come back to me afterwards.”

  That made sense, it’s what Luke had been feeling too, but still when she said it that way, a possibility occurred to him: “But why would you be standing in the way of my journey? You’re a Christian, you probably could help me with my search!”

  She challenged his terminology first. “I prefer ‘follower of Christ’ to ‘Christian’ personally, Luke. A Christian would be something I am, but if I’m a follower of Christ it implies that it’s because of what He is. Not only that, but Christian sounds like a title. Follower sounds like a duty. Helps me remember my place.” She returned to Luke’s question, “But could I help you? Conceivably, but... if you stayed here, would it be for Christ? or for me? See, right at the start you’re staying for the wrong reason! How would I ever overcome that? Even if somehow you started to believe through my words, my help, my examples, it would always be tainted. Always the question, Did you believe because it is true, or because you wanted to please me? When your faith comes, it should be with no doubts, no strings, no dependence. So behold, I have let you go this day. You are no longer mine, and I am no longer yours.” She shook out her hands, to symbolize their break. She had rehearsed this speech, and meant to remain dignified and orderly, but she hadn‘t expected the tears to well so immediately in her eyes! She pulled herself together and finished courageously however: “You are free to seek Christ, wherever your path takes you. But I hope that once you find Him, you will return! I will wait for you to return, Luke. For a reasonable time,” Jenny promised. “Because I have faith that you will return, and next time you will be ready for me! God sent you to me for a reason. I am trusting Him in this. I have prayed about it.”

  Luke had his doubts, or maybe they were just excuses because he didn’t feel brave enough to leave: “But will that work? Even if I go from you, I’ll still be thinking about you, still wanting to know God so that I can return to you.”

  “Well don’t!” was Jenny’s counsel. “Don’t do it for me. Do it for you. (‘Do it for God’ will come later! Promise.) Besides, if you come back, and it’s not the real thing, believe me, I’ll know. And I’ll say No! I don’t need a man who is partway for God. To become one, we need to be equals, spiritually. I can’t lift you up, and I won’t have you dragging me down. I need a man who knows himself, who is sure about what he believes and about what he wants. All women need that; but I need one who is sure about God too.” She seemed much more demanding than last night, when ‘being ourselves’ was allowed, when ‘moving towards grace’ was enough, and when ‘the man in the white rawhide Stetson’ was the one she had been waiting for. Luke mumbled this sad reaction, but was encouraged
by her response. “You are the one I want, Luke. You are the one I choose! But I want the same thing that you want: I want the Luke I love and cherish to be the finished Luke. Not the Luke that gets as far as Prince Edward Island and calls it quits, but the Luke who goes on, and becomes what he is supposed to be.”

  “I want to be what you want me to be,” Luke said defensively, thinking he was agreeing with her.

  “Well I want you to be what God wants you to be. When you want that too, then you’ll be ready.”

  Like he had done after meeting the four English teachers back on the mainland, Luke tried to sort it out in his head, to find out what things he still needed to do on this journey, so that he could return to her, as the genuine article. This time the list was even shorter. “So basically, I have to choose God. Then I can come back.”

  Jenny stopped him right there, however. “You don’t choose God. He chooses you!” This reversal surprised Luke. He was sure he had the word Choose in his notes somewhere. Thankfully, as always Jenny sensed his confusion and elaborated. “You merely choose to be ready, willing and able. God will do the rest!”

  “I’d rather be Cain than Able!” Luke joked, remembering what had happened to Abel in the Bible.

  “Then you haven’t chosen to be ready or willing yet either,” Jenny rebuked him. “It’s better to be a martyr than a murderer, better to die trusting than to live faithlessly.”

  That sounded to Luke like a pretty serious commitment. The least he could ask in return was a definite reward. But ‘God chooses you’ sounded uncertain, unpredictable (to one who didn’t yet know the constancy of God.) “So I could do all that work preparing myself, and still not get to know God? He might choose me and he might not?”

  Jenny comforted him: “There is nothing so certain as the love of God! If you are ready, if you are willing, of course He will choose to save you! We have his sure promises!”

  “So what’s the difference then, if it’s that much of a lock. If choosing to be willing gets the same results as choosing God?” It seemed like a semantic distinction.

  “All the difference in the world!” Jenny corrected him. “It’s the difference between works and grace. If your choice is what saves you, then it’s not really God saving you is it? It’s you. But if it’s God’s hand that moves to pluck you from the fires of hell, then He deserves all glory! So that’s the difference: knowing that God chooses you recognizes that He alone is in charge. Of all things. Of our lives. To understand that, you have to humble yourself. Submit to him. Then you’ll be surprised how much less time you spend searching, and how much more time finding!”

  It sounded good, and Luke believed it. As he memorized her treasured face, with its faint freckles and its darting emotional eyes, he knew that Jenny, in her beloved trusting obedience, was the Meek who would personally inherit the earth; Jenny the recipient of the promise “All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s”. He only hoped to return and share it with her! But for now, it was still Luke’s job to search. So he went back to the barn to pick up his guitar and Bible, and then Jenny walked him to the pier.

  The ship was still there, Luke saw sadly. He and Jenny talked for a few minutes, making the most of their last brief time together, one eye on the ship to watch for signs it was preparing to depart. Luke realized he still hadn’t specifically asked her for her advice, her wisdom, her special words to add to his notes. “Any last words?” seemed an appropriate way to ask it, given the tragic finality of the situation.

  “You’re being over-dramatic!” she laughed. “How much time did you say you spent with my sister? Okay, let me think. Some good not-the-last words. How’s this? ‘Remember Love.’ I figure that will direct you to the One you seek, for starters, but it will also remind you,” poking Luke in the chest with a tough, loving finger, “who you’re supposed to come see once it’s over!”

  “How could I forget?” Luke grinned.

  But to make sure, she offered a gift: “I wrote a going-away poem for you. About us.” Luke was embarrassed, and said he felt bad, that he hadn’t composed one for her. She waved that care away, “Oh, I owed you one! The one about the dishrag, remember?”

  “I thought you didn’t like that one!”

  “Best love-poem I’ve ever been given,” she corrected cheerfully, and sincerely, as her earnest eyes flickered over his own. “Because it’s so you. But do you want to hear this or not?” Luke nodded, and didn’t interrupt again.

  “On an evening fair he came to me,

  My one true love, my chosen one;

  On winds of peace, through mists of dreams,

  He sailed to me, my lover.

  On a striking day he stole my heart,

  My hero bold, my chosen one;

  On a day of bliss, our spirits kissed,

  And he changed my life, my lover.

  On a lonely eve he left me there,

  My questing youth, my chosen one;

  Towards tides of truth and waves of grace,

  He sailed away, my lover.

  On a winter’s morn he came once more,

  My shining man, my chosen one;

  With bands of love and eyes of faith,

  He returned to me, my lover.”

  Luke loved the happy ending! “But you tell the future as if it already has happened. Can you do that?”

  “Sometimes saying it helps make it happen,” Jenny told him. “Besides, it will happen! God’s sure promises, remember? That and the fact that you’ve got me praying for you... not to mention Lou-ise,” she finished, a little mockingly, a little jealously, but mostly just playfully. That was Jenny. It was also, appropriately, the last thing he would remember her by, for the good ship TrogDogJonah started throwing off ropes and raising the anchor, as Bert and Chains spotted him and gave him the Come on! gesture.

  The longest hug that time would allow, and then the best kiss ever (“A free sample! I want to make sure you come back, after all,” she beamed), then waves, blown kisses, the ship leaving, and salty, stinging tears.

 

  “You missed a great party,” Bert told him, trying to take Luke’s mind off the girl. (No tears allowed on deck, after all--Admiral’s orders.)

  “I didn’t miss a thing,” Luke said certainly, wistfully, happily.

  Bert admiringly watched Jenny Harris walking away from the harbor, with her pretty red hair, and her swaying skirt, and her casual grace. “True,” he agreed, letting his lecherous gaze linger. Then, he couldn’t help himself: “Say, does she have a sister?” Luke grinned, but kept silent.

  Later, he got out his Bible, and read a double portion, in honor of Jenny, and then added her words in the back: Renewal, Ourselves, Follow, Promises, and both Remember and Love. Then he looked at his list and added Love again a second time, beside the first one, so that it said ‘Love, Love’. Twice as much as any other. He smiled, and cried.