A Story about the Spiritual Journey Read online

  “Well, God bless you, Heather.” Hannah’s heart was so disconnected from her lips that she didn’t recognize her own voice speaking the polite benediction. “I hope it’s a fruitful time for you.” Really? Did she actually want this fresh-faced neophyte to thrive as her surrogate? Or was she secretly hoping her substitute would flounder so miserably that Westminster would be clamoring for her immediate return?

  She didn’t want to answer that question.

  Sneaking one more furtive glance at her house, Hannah followed her friend Nancy Johnson out to the car. Hannah had loaded her ten-year-old Honda with as many books from her office as she could manage. If she was going to be forced into time away, she could at least make her sabbatical as productive as possible.

  Clothes were an afterthought. Hannah often joked that she could get dressed in the dark with her monochromatic wardrobe. In fact, she often did throw on clothes in the middle of the night for emergency hospital visits. Everything she owned was easy care and travel friendly, and she had stuffed the essentials into a single suitcase and a duffel bag: her sheepskin slippers and flannel pajamas, a few pairs of jeans and sweats, some casual tops and travel knit pants, a winter coat and fleece pullover, comfortable shoes and boots. She’d pick up clothes for warmer weather in the spring. That way she would have an excuse to go back home.

  “I know this must be hard for you,” Nancy said quietly.

  You have no idea, Hannah replied to herself. She still couldn’t believe this was happening.

  She shoved the last box onto the floor behind the driver’s seat, hoping Nancy hadn’t glimpsed its bulging contents when the lid popped off. The box was full of old journals and other personal mementos Hannah hadn’t wanted to risk leaving behind. She didn’t know how nosy Heather would be, or who else might be wandering through her house while she was away. Even if she never opened the box during the sabbatical, she didn’t want anyone else discovering it.

  “Doug and I are praying you’ll be able to rest and meet God in new ways,” Nancy said, reaching into her pocket to pull out a key. Nancy and Doug had generously given Hannah their Lake Michigan family cottage for the next nine months. Though Hannah had never been there, she had seen pictures. It was beautiful.

  “This is for the front door,” Nancy went on. “It sticks a little bit, so you have to fiddle with it. And here are the directions for how to get there. Let’s see—what else? Oh—make sure you drink the filtered water. The well water doesn’t taste very good. I left a binder for you on the kitchen counter with all the other details you might need to know, but if you have any questions about anything, call us. And remember, we’re only three hours away.”

  “Thanks, Nancy. Thanks for being so incredibly generous.” Hannah sighed and tucked her uncooperative hair behind her ears again. “There must be something seriously wrong with me. Who wouldn’t want nine whole months of paid vacation? I must be crazy.”

  Nancy wrapped her arm around Hannah’s shoulders. “You’re not crazy, just driven. Passion about your work is a good thing. It’s one of the things we love about you! But Pastor Steve is right. You’ve been carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. It’s time for you to rest.” Nancy kissed her furrowed brow. “Besides, it’s a special work of grace when God helps us shift from being the giver to the receiver. At least, that’s what you told me after I had surgery.”

  Hannah laughed ruefully. “I hate it when my wisdom comes back to bite me!”

  Hannah arrived at the Johnsons’ Lake Michigan cottage just in time to watch the September sun descend with crimson pageantry. Seating herself in a weathered gray Adirondack chair on the deck, she stared across the shimmering lake and breathed deeply.

  The simple poetry of dwindling daylight stirred her. Something she had yet to understand or articulate was setting beneath a horizon in her life too, and she had no vision to imagine what would rise in its place.

  Help, Lord, she prayed, watching fiery ribbons unfurl across the sky.

  The last splashes of color were fading when Hannah crossed the threshold into her borrowed home. A single whiff of the damp mustiness, and she was eight years old again, skipping through the cottage her parents had rented for a week on the California coast. “Daddy, look!” she’d squealed, surveying her kingdom. “Bunk beds! I’ve always wanted bunk beds!”

  Now she wandered slowly from room to room, trying to decide where to land. The cottage was at least twice the size of her two-bedroom house in Chicago, and even though it was decorated simply, it still felt far too luxurious. Nancy had finely tuned, elegant taste. This wasn’t one of those cottages furnished with thrift store knickknacks and cast-off wedding gifts. This was the sort of place where Hannah would be reluctant to put her feet on the furniture—except Nancy had specifically commanded her to put her feet up.

  Hannah sighed as she removed the pink cellophane from a large wicker gift basket overflowing with cookies, chocolate, homemade strawberry preserves, and a dozen varieties of tea.

  Tea. That’s what she needed—a cup of tea to soothe and settle her. Then she could begin organizing books on the shelves Nancy had so thoughtfully cleared.

  She chose a packet of decaf vanilla chai, filled the electric kettle, and read the note on the counter: “This is your home, Hannah. Rest and play here with joy!”

  Rest, play, joy.

  Those weren’t words Hannah ever strung together. Not for herself, anyway. Her joy was her work. Her joy was being useful and productive. She could still see the intern standing there on her front porch, blithely jingling the keys to her life.

  How could Steve do this to her?

  As she waited for the water to boil, she thumbed absent-mindedly through a stack of Michigan travel and event brochures. A plum-colored flyer finally captured her wandering thoughts. The New Hope Retreat Center in Kingsbury sounded familiar, and then she remembered that Nancy had attended a prayer group there during the summer. Hannah paused to read: “Jesus says, ‘Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly’ (Matthew 11:28-30). We invite you to come take a sacred journey.”

  Hannah stopped reading. The words from The Message paraphrase gripped her, bringing a well-known passage to new life. Tired? Worn out? Burned out? Steve had answered for her: yes, yes, yes.

  And Jesus offered an invitation to the weary: Come. Get away. Walk with me. Work with me. Watch. Learn. Keep company. Live freely and lightly.

  Come take a sacred journey.

  With a cup of tea in hand, Hannah settled onto the couch to pray. As she tried to focus her thoughts, however, she realized it wasn’t just the stress of packing or the three hour drive from Chicago that had worn her out. She was tired. Truly tired. Fifteen-years-of-uninterrupted-ministry tired.

  Before the tea was gone, Hannah was asleep.

  Charissa

  The eighth grade honors math teacher always returned tests the same way: highest scores first. On the day he returned Charissa Goodman’s test second, there was a collective gasp in the room. He raised his eyebrows and handed an externally composed Charissa her exam. “First time for everything, eh? Not so perfect on this one.”

  Charissa stiffened and sat even more uprightly in her chair. Sensing the riveted gaze of her classmates, she scanned the paper for red. There it was—a ridiculous mistake she hadn’t caught in her double- and triple-checking. How could she have missed that? She took the offending paper and slid it out of view into her binder.

  She would have to be more careful next time.

  John Sinclair arrived at the Kingsbury University library right before eight o’clock, just in time to meet Charissa after her evening class. He had spent the past two hours at their apartment, carefully preparing his wife’s favorite meal
: lemon herbed chicken with tomato and feta salad. He had even stopped by the bakery after work to pick up a fresh loaf of focaccia. Wednesdays were long days for Charissa, so John always tried to do something special for her when she got home.

  As he watched her approach the car, he couldn’t suppress a low whistling, exhaled breath. Even from a distance Charissa was strikingly beautiful: her flawless Mediterranean olive skin, her sculpted figure, her silky jet-black hair. Everything about Charissa Goodman was perfect. Absolutely perfect. People were often surprised that John and Charissa were married. He was so “boy next door” with his thin brown hair and small brown eyes—the type of guy whose high school yearbook was filled with inscriptions about his “sweet personality” and “great sense of humor.” Charissa, on the other hand, turned heads wherever she went. It wasn’t just her statuesque beauty that attracted attention. She had a certain grace about her, carrying herself with practiced poise.

  John’s friends had discouraged him from even attempting to get a date with her when the two of them first met as sophomores at Kingsbury University. “The Ice Princess doesn’t condescend to anybody,” they warned him. “Give it up, John.”

  But John had never been one to give up. Though he hadn’t been granted his desire for an athlete’s body, he had the heart and determination of an Olympic champion; and he had been determined to make Charissa Goodman laugh. Even the Ice Princess eventually thawed in the warmth of John’s good humor.

  He grinned as he called through the open car window. “Hey, gorgeous! Want a ride?” Charissa tossed her bag of books into the backseat and then slid in beside him. “How about a kiss for the guy who loves you?” he asked, leaning toward her.

  She kissed him on the cheek. “Sorry. Distracted.”

  “I can tell. What’s up?”

  “You know that Saturday morning class I mentioned to you?”

  John nodded as he turned left out of the parking lot. “Yeah. What did Dr. Allen say about it? Is it safe?”

  She laughed. “He says I’m already surrounded by heretics.”

  “Cool! I’d love to meet some! We can have them over for dinner, now that we actually have a table. I’ll even cook.”

  “You always cook.”

  “Well, we need to eat. Hey! Ouch!” He beamed as Charissa punched his arm playfully. “I’m only saying you have different gifts, honey. Great intellectual gifts, just not culinary ones.” She pretended to pout. “So,” he continued, “is it worth giving up two Saturday mornings a month? And before you answer, remember that class competes against my famous chocolate chip pancakes.”

  “I know. I’m counting the cost.” She fiddled with her long dark hair. “Anyway, Dr. Allen asked me why I was interested in going. I said, ‘To learn.’ And he stared at me with those penetrating eyes and said, ‘Wrong answer.’”

  “My wife? Wrong answer? Impossible. Gimme his phone number.”

  “John!”

  “Sorry, Riss. Go ahead. I’m listening. Really.”

  She sighed. “He said if I went for any reason other than encountering God, then I was going for the wrong reason. And I can’t stop thinking about it. I mean—he’s the one who told us we needed to find something to supplement his class. And if the goal of all of this isn’t learning, then I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.”

  John had spent the first year of their married life trying to perfect his Greek mother-in-law’s recipes, and he was becoming increasingly proficient in the kitchen.

  “Well, what do you think of my lemon chicken?” he asked, watching Charissa from across the candlelit table.

  “Mom would be impressed. It was great, John. Thanks.” While he cleared away dishes, she went to her backpack and pulled out her laptop and some books. Flipping on the overhead light, she seated herself at the table again and began to work.

  “Can I get you anything?” he called as he loaded the dishwasher. She was so focused, she didn’t hear him. He came out from the kitchen and stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her. “Need anything?” he asked, kissing her neck. She shook her head and kept typing as he massaged her shoulders. “You’re tense,” he commented, pressing his fingers more firmly into her smooth skin. “I’ve got a remedy for that, if you’re interested.” He breathed in the citrus fragrance of her hair.

  She spoke without looking at him. “I’m totally swamped. I’m already going to be pulling an all-nighter just to get this paper finished by tomorrow morning.” He gently released her.

  “I know,” said John. “The work of a grad student, right? It’s never done.” He kissed the top of her head before he blew out the candles.

  When Charissa finished her Shakespeare paper at 4 a.m., she was far too caffeinated to sleep. Since it was too dark to take her morning power walk, she started cleaning. Cleaning was one of her favorite forms of stress relief, and she cleaned frequently.

  She had promised their irascible neighbors she would only vacuum between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. Not that there was much to sweep: only a small family room and dining area off the kitchen, one bedroom, and a narrow hallway. But Charissa often said that a carpet swept in a precise sawtooth pattern did wonders for her mental health. Sometimes she vacuumed twice a day.

  Because it was too early for carpets, she blitzed the pantry. Organizing shelves was not a high priority for John, and since he did all their cooking, the pantry rapidly deteriorated into disorder. At least once a week she imposed her will: cereal boxes in descending height, spices in alphabetical sequence, grains and pasta grouped by color.

  “A place for everything and everything in its place.”

  That was Charissa’s rule of life. If she hadn’t decided to become a professor of literature, she would have excelled as a personal manager. She had never understood how people tolerated chaos.

  While she segregated the tomato, Alfredo, and barbecue sauces, she pressed the replay button on Dr. Allen’s rebuke. Wrong answer. Wrong answer. Wrong answer. Why was “learning” the wrong answer?

  Charissa hated being corrected. Usually she managed to correct herself before anyone else had the opportunity. And now Dr. Allen—whose good opinion was crucial to her academic success—had offered a mysterious reproach instead of his customary praise. She couldn’t fathom what he had meant. She also wasn’t going to ask for clarification. Charissa rarely called attention to her ignorance by asking anyone for help. She would simply go to the class and fulfill his recommendations for the semester.

  She finished ordering the chaos, picked a piece of stray fluff off the carpet, and tried to decide what else she could clean before her regularly scheduled quiet time.

  Mara

  Mara Garrison took a mug of peppermint tea from Dawn and eased her plus-sized body into the familiar armchair. What pounds of pain should she talk about today?

  Every month she sat in Dawn’s counseling office, going round and round on the same issues. Trust. Shame. Rejection. Self-worth.

  Circles. She was walking in circles.

  “I feel stuck,” Mara said, shaking her head. “I feel totally stuck. It’s like I understand how I ended up here, but I don’t know how to move forward. I’m fifty years old, and I’m starting to wonder if I’m ever gonna get anywhere.”

  “You’ve come such a long way, Mara. Truly.”

  Dawn was always so encouraging. Mara wished she had a friend like Dawn—someone she could sit and share a cup of tea with, without having to write a check at the end of the visit. Dawn knew Mara more intimately than anyone had ever known her. The only thing Mara knew about Dawn, however, was that she had two beautiful, brown-eyed, ebony-skinned daughters who looked just like her: Kendra and Essence. Mara knew them from the smiling photos on Dawn’s desk. Such lovely girls.

  Essence. Mara wondered if her life would have been different if she’d had a name like Essence. Essence Payne Garrison.

  Probably not. She supposed she would have been teased and rejected with that name too.

  Mara Payne. She had always disliked h
er last name, enduring its cruelty for thirty-five years before marrying out of it. Of course, by marrying Tom Garrison she had just exchanged one kind of pain for another. But she wasn’t going to talk about Tom today. She was tired of talking about Tom.

  “You’ve done the hard work of exploring the reasons behind some of your struggles,” Dawn was saying. “Maybe now there’s a deeper level of faith and spirituality for you to explore—an opportunity for you to lean not on your own understanding, but to trust God in a new way.”

  Mara ran her index finger round and round the rim of the mug. Circles, circles, circles.

  “I’m actually glad you’re this frustrated,” Dawn said.

  Mara stopped circling. “Whaddya mean?”

  This wasn’t what Dawn usually said. Usually Dawn tried to convince her that her circles were ascending spirals up a mountain, not endless cycles leading nowhere. Usually Dawn tried to help her see that just because she was revisiting an issue didn’t mean she had gone backwards. She was simply viewing it from another vantage point, from higher up the mountain.

  “You’ve reached a place of holy discontent,” Dawn said. “The frustration you’re feeling can actually be a gift to nudge you toward something deeper. I’m hearing restlessness in you, and restlessness is movement. You may feel stuck, but your spirit is moving.”

  “But I feel agitated, not peaceful. I thought the Christian life was all about peace and joy, and I don’t have it. I swear I must be doing something wrong.”

  Dawn leaned forward in her chair. “Agitation is also God’s gift to us, Mara, strange as that sounds. Imagine yourself standing in a doorway, at a threshold. Your discontent can move you out of the old and into the new. When you reach the end of yourself and say, ‘I’m tired of living this way. I want something more!’ then God is there, helping you to let go and move forward. Does that make sense?”