A New Beginning (21 page)

“What does all this have to do with my writing?” I asked after we had again sat thinking silently for a few minutes. “Does looking at the lasting and eternal importance of everything mean I should only write about spiritual things? I doubt Mr. Kemble would be very excited about that.”

Christopher laughed lightly.

“I'm not sure
that's
what it means, and that wasn't what I was trying to say. You know me well enough by now to recognize that the term
spiritual
for me encompasses all of life, not just things connected with church services, hymns, and Bible verses.”

“What did you mean I should do then?”

“You'll have to pray and ask the Lord to answer that question more clearly than I can.”

“I want to know what you think anyway.”

“Well then . . .” began Christopher, then paused, pursing his lips and scratching his neck as he thought about it. “Maybe I would say this—that God is probably able to use any kind of writing, just like he is able to use any other kind of thing people do—whether it be preaching, working a gold mine, or running a bank—to draw men and women closer to him. I don't know that it's so much what you write about exactly, but that the process helps
you
in the development of
your
Christlike character and enables you to help
others
toward that same end.”

I reflected on what Christopher had said for a moment.

“But,” I said at length, thinking out loud, “writing is different than everything else. Your readers don't actually see you living your life in a daily way like Mr. Royce was able to see Pa all these years. So how could I possibly have an impact in people's lives toward Christlikeness unless somehow I wrote about it more directly?”

“Hmm . . . I see what you mean.”

“What possible difference could it make whether somebody votes for so-and-so—after we get to heaven?” I asked. “I hope Mr. Grant wins the election. But how can that be a so-called spiritual thing? What eternal difference does it really make?”

“In other words, what could be more temporal and passing than politics?”

“Maybe that's what I'm asking, and if that is true, why should I expend energy and time writing about it? How does that help people toward developing Christlike characters?”

I stopped, and kind of half shook and half nodded my head with indecision.

“And yet . . .” I went on, “I
love
to write. I admit it. I don't think I could ever
not
write.”

“Then by all means keep writing!” said Christopher. “I would never want you to stop.”

“But about what? Most of what I've written articles about in the past isn't of much eternal significance.”

“Writing doesn't have to be published to have value. Maybe you'll write articles in the future, maybe you won't. But you should keep writing regardless. Maybe your audience won't be newspaper readers at all. What about the journals we both keep?”

“I don't write in mine much anymore, it seems,” I laughed. “Remember my hospitality entry!”

“How's it going?”

“The page is still empty, but I'm going to go back and fill it pretty soon!”

“But however much or little time we find for such writing, it is still important, even though mostly it's just for ourselves and our thoughts when we're alone with God.”

“I suppose you're right.”

“And with the other writing you do—we don't always know who our audience is going to be when God is writing the living epistles of our lives. Your father didn't know Mr. Royce was ‘reading' him. I simply think if you write—write whatever the Lord gives you to write—he will make use of it in his own way.”

I nodded.

“Would you like to know a different kind of writing I've been doing in my own journal over the last year or so?” Christopher went on.

“Yes . . . of course,” I answered.

“Actually it began after I'd come here and had begun to think of marriage in a more personal way than I ever had before. I never said anything to you about it, however, because it seemed somehow premature to talk about us having a family before we were married. And then it's never come up since the wedding.”

“Go on, then, tell me,” I urged.

“I've found myself thinking, again as if I were an old man like I sometimes do, of what I would want to say to my sons and daughters—
our
children, I mean!—if I knew I was about to leave them. What would be the spiritual principles I would want to pass on to them—almost like a legacy?”

“Oh, Christopher, it's almost too much to imagine our really having children someday.”

“I certainly hope we do. Don't you?”

“Of course. But doesn't the thought seem, I don't know, frightening?”

“How so?”

“I never anticipated being a wife—but being a
mother
, now that seems even more of an awesome responsibility! Although what woman isn't eager for it at the same time. But go on with what you were saying.”

“Well, sometimes thinking of being a father helps me pray and focus on what the truly important things in life are now. It has helped
me
, even if no one else ever does read it.”

“Oh, I
want
to read it . . . that is, if you would let me.”

“You will. But I was only telling you to suggest that you could do the same in your journal. You have learned so many things over the years as you have been growing with the Lord. Do you remember what you told me you were going to do with the journal I gave you back in Virginia?”

“Of course. I said I was going to write down very special thoughts and ideas and spiritual truths that were important and that I didn't ever want to forget.”

“Have you begun?”

“I've done some of it.”

“Well, that's the kind of thing I mean. That's what I'm doing in my journal too. Just imagine what a heritage these will be to pass on to our own sons and daughters someday.”

“Oh, it
would
be. I see what you're saying! Sometimes I so long to know what Ma was like—I mean really like down inside. I want to know what she thought about spiritual things, how she talked and listened to the Lord. I was so young then that I wasn't able to see that part of her. Now that I am an adult myself, married, and the same age as Ma was when I have memories of her, sometimes I hunger so much to know more of what
she
thought and felt.”

“I think all children long to know their parents better, especially, as you say, when they reach maturity themselves. I share that feeling so intensely, mostly for my mother because she died when I was young, but even for my father in a way too, even though I was afraid of him. I even find places of fondness occasionally springing up within me toward his memory, realizing how little he understood the role of fatherhood with which God had entrusted him. Now that I think about being a father myself, I find my feelings toward him much more tender than when I was younger.”

“I feel it more for Ma too,” I said. “Maybe it's because she's gone, or because I'm her daughter. Though even as wonderful as Pa is, sometimes he can be so exasperatingly tight-lipped. I long to know what
he
thinks and feels too.”

“One of the great problems we men have,” laughed Christopher.

“That's one of the things I love so much about you, Christopher! How can I have been so lucky as to get a man who talks and communicates!”

“Just think what a treasure it would be if we had in our possession letters, thoughts, journals of our mothers,” he went on, not to be sidetracked by my outburst.

“It would be priceless!”

“Especially their spiritual ideas, their struggles, their walks with the Lord, what they placed values on, what their priorities in life were, what principles they tried to live by. What a wonderful gift to be afforded such a glimpse into our parents' hearts.”

I sighed. As exciting as the thought was, how could I not be saddened at the same time by the realization that I never would know my mother as well as I might wish I could—not in this life, at least.

“That's why I've begun writing down those kinds of things,” Christopher said quietly, sensing my mood. “If the Lord honors me by allowing me to be a father one day, perhaps a grandfather many years from now, I want to have just such a treasure to pass on to our sons and daughters, and their sons and daughters after them—to all our descendants perhaps even into the next century—of the things that this husband and wife—you and me, Corrie—valued in our lives with God our Father.”

I sat thinking for a moment about what Christopher had said. Then another thought occurred to me and I smiled.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“About something you said in your first sermon at the church,” I answered.

Christopher arched his eyebrows in question, waiting for me to go on.

“Do you remember when you said that if they made you their pastor, you would constantly challenge the people of Miracle Springs?”

“I remember.”

“I find your words now a great challenge to
me
.”

“How so?”

“To think of my writing as something longer lasting than newspaper articles and political elections, or even books . . . to look beyond writing to be published to the writing of spiritual truths that can be passed on to future generations—our own children and grandchildren, and who knows who else.”

“I guess that is something like what I have been thinking, though I wasn't consciously trying to issue a challenge.”

“What an opportunity—to actually be able to frame a legacy to leave to those that come after you, about the times you've lived in, and mostly about what truths the Lord showed you about life and the world, about people, about yourself, and about him.”

“That is exactly what the Lord has been impressing upon me. And since we both enjoy expressing ourselves with the pen, it seems we ought to be attentive to his leading.”

“And write, you mean?”

“Yes. I'm certain the Lord will continue to use your writings to help people know him better, Corrie, though henceforth it may be in new ways different from what he has done in the past. I hope he might even be able to find something to use in what I am compiling too.”

“He will—I'm sure of it, Christopher. And as long as you're part of it with me,” I said, “I will look forward to whatever changes the future brings with anticipation and eagerness.”

When Franklin Royce came to call again, it was one afternoon when Christopher happened to be alone at the church. The banker walked over from town rather than riding his buggy. He wanted no one to know that he and Christopher were having a private conversation, for reasons which Christopher only told me about much later.

“You know your family tithe fund that's in my bank?” Mr. Royce began once they were seated.

“The
church's
fund,” said Christopher.

“Yes . . . right. A tithe is ten percent, is it not?”

“That's correct, Franklin.”

“Well,” Mr. Royce went on, “I've been thinking more about what we talked about before . . . you remember, about Zacchaeus and returning fourfold, and all the rest.”

Christopher nodded.

“I've come up with something else I'd like to do in addition to lowering my interest rates.”

He paused and smiled a little timidly, an altogether new and childlike expression on the face of the former Mammon-loving banker.

“I hope you don't think it's silly of me, Mr. Braxton,” he said, with something like a nervous chuckle, “to try to base so much on one particular story I read in the Bible.”

“Believe me, I find it far from silly,” replied Christopher. “I find your experience to represent the very essence of the walk of faith.”

“Never has anything I've read spoken so personally and directly to me,” said the banker enthusiastically. “I do not think I exaggerate when I say that the story of that rich man Zacchaeus quite literally has changed my whole outlook on what it means to be a Christian. Suddenly it's all so . . . so very practical, so here and now. It is exactly as you said in that sermon of yours—it's so
do-able
.”

“I'm glad you find it so, Franklin. I have always found the Christian life the most down-to-earth of all possible creeds, and the four Gospels the most practical of all guidebooks.”

“In any event,” the banker went on, “I would like to begin giving twenty percent of all my bank's income to the church.”

“Twenty percent!”

“Lowering my rates was the first thing I felt I ought to do. Now perhaps this will be the secondfold action on my part, so to speak.”

“How do you mean
secondfold
?”

“Just as Zacchaeus did. I intend to continue praying that God would show me what threefold and fourfold ways I might return some of my money to this community.”

Christopher took in the words with a solemn sense of awe at the fact that this man before him was now seeking God's guidance for every decision of his life.

“Franklin,” Christopher said, “I would like to ask you a question. Do you in any way feel that this giving will make things different between you and God?”

“Ah, I see what you mean,” replied Mr. Royce. “No, I know that God accepts me as I am and for who I am. These are things I
want
to do.”

“But if I may ask another question,” said Christopher after a brief pause, “you don't, do you, feel as though you have taken from anyone
falsely
or
wrongly
, as in the story of Zacchaeus?”

“Perhaps not in so many words,” replied Mr. Royce. “I do not know that I ever broke the law, if that is what you mean. But my motive was entirely for myself and not for my neighbor. My intent was to squeeze as much profit from this community as I possibly could. So whereas perhaps I did not intentionally swindle my customers, I nevertheless profited more than was proper. I grew rich while the people of this community labored to eke out their sometimes less-than-modest livings. It was not right. So what other conclusion is to be drawn but that I did wrong?”

“Yet perhaps the fourfold repayment of Zacchaeus is more than is required in your case.”

“Perhaps. But all my life I have been giving
less
than is required. Why should I not now give
more
than is required. Does ever a man suffer from giving too much to God?”

Christopher smiled. “No, Franklin,” he said. “No, I suppose not.”

“And besides, I'm enjoying my money now far more than I ever did letting it gather dust and interest in all my various investments!”

“Well then—I heartily endorse your plan. In fact, I think it would greatly encourage the town for you to share the impact this Scripture has had upon you one Sunday evening.”

“Oh no,” rejoined Mr. Royce quickly. “No one must know of this. It must remain just between us two.”

“Of course, I will respect your wishes if that is your desire. But may I ask why?”

Again a sheepish expression came over the banker's face.

“I'm afraid you will eventually think me silly,” he said, “if in everything I point to some Scripture or other. But I must confess that two or three days ago I was reading—again in the Gospels, just as you recommended, although this time in Matthew—when Jesus spoke about how we are to give. You are no doubt familiar with the passage.”

Christopher nodded knowingly, sensing what was coming.

“He said something like, ‘Make sure when you give to the poor, that you don't do it to be seen by other men. Don't blow a trumpet when you do good like the Pharisees and hypocrites do. Don't even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Do it in secret so only God will see it.' Those are my own words, of course, but that is something like it.”

“I am familiar with the passage,” smiled Christopher. “You have captured its meaning, I think, very accurately.”

“If ever there was a Pharisee and a hypocrite,” Mr. Royce went on, “it was me—though I cannot say I ever did much giving in my life, even
to
be seen by others. So if I am going to make a new start, I certainly don't intend to blow a trumpet and announce it, as it says.”

“Then I will happily respect your wishes,” replied Christopher. “But tell me—why do you then come to tell me of it now?”

“Because if I merely deposited money into the church's family-tithe account, one day it would certainly come to your notice that there was far more money present than you had deposited. I'm sure you believe in the principle of the loaves and the fishes, but you are also a practical man, Mr. Braxton, and I have no doubt you would investigate the thing, possibly mentioning it to the church committee before coming to me, and the whole affair would come out.”

“I see,” laughed Christopher. “You have thought of everything!”

“Now that I have you in on my little scheme, so to speak, I will be free to add to the account, and you will be free to make use of the account, without anyone else sharing our secret.”

“I must say, Franklin,” laughed Christopher, “you are proving as shrewd in your obedience to the Scriptures as you have been as a businessman.”

“Isn't there something about being wise as serpents but innocent as doves?”

“Indeed there is!”

“And I would ask one more thing of you, Mr. Braxton . . . er, Christopher,” said the banker.

“Name it.”

“That if a need should arise in the community, or on the part of any individual, which cannot be met by the church fund, or which you feel would not be an appropriate expenditure, I would ask that you come to me in confidence and share it with me. There may be some way in which I can help.”

“The third and fourthfold repayment you spoke of?”

Mr. Royce nodded. “Though such was always my goal up until a very short time ago, I do not want to die a rich man. Therefore I must find worthy means to dispose of my wealth gradually and quietly and without show. I can think of no more worthy means than investing in the lives of those in need.”

“I will certainly do as you ask, Franklin,” replied Christopher, fighting back the tears that now sought to rise in his eyes.

Mr. Royce stood and the two men shook hands, almost as if they were now business colleagues who had entered into a new agreement. In truth, as Christopher said when he told me of the interview, it was an eternal partnership in the affairs of the kingdom.