A Time to Dance/A Time to Embrace (25 page)

Abby uttered a quiet chuckle. “Sweetheart, when your Grandpa Reynolds passed away he left us plenty of money. Believe me, getting you married is not causing us any financial worries at all.”

Nicole leaned her weight on one hip and surveyed her mother’s face. “Honest? Everything’s okay?”

A flash of something shadowy and dark crossed her mother’s eyes, then just as quickly disappeared. “I told you, honey. Everything’s fine.”

Nicole reached out and took hold of her mother’s fingers. “Come on, I wanna show you the goods.”

Her mom stood up slowly and stretched. “I looked at them once already, Nick.”

“I know, but I’ve got it all organized. You know, blenders and toasters on one side of the table, sentimental gifts on the other side.”

“Oh, all right.” Mom smiled and hugged her as they walked into the living room side by side. “Lead the way.”

They were only partway there when Nicole stopped and held her mother tighter. “Thanks for the Bible, Mom.” She pulled away, looking deep into her mother’s eyes once more. “It’s my favorite gift of all.”

“Good. Keep it that way and you and Matt will spend the next fifty years in love. Mark my words, honey.”

Nicole smiled and linked elbows with her mother, moving happily beside her as they found the gifts in the center of the family room. They studied each item and chatted about the party and the coming wedding, Nicole knew that the prompting she’d felt from the Lord to pray for her parents was a good thing. Even the strongest couples needed prayer. But Mom and Dad were fine. Nicole felt certain that her strange feelings of concern were nothing more than an overactive imagination.

That and a good case of engagement anxiety.

Sixteen

D
ENNY
C
ONLEY WAS TOO NEW AT THIS
C
HRISTIAN
thing to know where else to go. He only knew he had a lot on his mind, and only one Person he wanted to share it with. Besides, taking his troubles to the Lord late at night like this had become something of a routine.

Denny knew one thing for sure: it beat the old routine, hopping from bar to bar and wondering every morning how in the world he’d made it home.

The church was small, not like the big chapels closer to the city. And that Monday night in late March it was almost pitch dark inside. Denny had a key because he’d been doing janitorial chores for them lately, and he kept it on his personal key ring, right next to the one that opened his apartment.

Quietly, so that even the church cat wouldn’t be bothered, Denny made his way to the front row and eased himself into a pew. Like he’d done a dozen times in the past few months, he stared in awe at the life-size wooden cross.

Denny had been raised Catholic and he’d seen his share of crosses. Crucifixes, really. The kind where a pained-looking Jesus hung from shiny brass beams. Nothing wrong with crucifixes except they put the focus on the suffering.

Sometimes that was a good thing, remembering the Lord’s pain. In fact, it had been after coming home drunk one night a few months earlier that Denny had spotted the crucifix on his bedroom wall and moved in for a closer look. Was it true? Had an innocent man named Jesus really hung on a cross like that and died for Denny Conley’s sins? He found it hard to believe. Why in the world would someone do something like that? For a person like him, no less?

By then it had been four years since his son had gone and found this personal relationship thing with God. It was all Matt ever talked about back then. Golly, it was all he talked about still. But Denny’s encounter with the crucifix happened on a night weeks after the last time he’d talked to the boy. Denny had been wobbly and ready to pass out from the whiskey, but something in the way that Jesus hung there—taking all that pain and not complaining about it—all so people like Denny and Matt could make it to heaven.

Well, something about that was almost more than Denny could bear.

The next day he looked up churches in the phone book and found him a nice community-sized one with a picture of a friendly looking man named Pastor Mark. Denny had stopped in that afternoon and met with the guy, and sure enough, Pastor Mark told him the same thing Matt had been saying from the get-go. Jesus died all on His own, regardless of whether you were a good person or a bad person or some drunk hopping bars, halfway in-between. Either way, it was up to Denny to accept the gift of heaven or walk away from it and keep living life on his own.

Denny remembered the decision better than he remembered almost any other detail of his life. He had made some awful mistakes in the past. Walked away from Jo when Matt was just a little tyke, married another woman, and spent two decades drinking his life away. That night, drunker than a skunk, he was single again and looking for offers.

Never, though, had he been offered anything like what Pastor Mark offered him that afternoon. Eternal life. Already paid for. And all he had to do was ask Jesus to forgive him of his past sins and then grab hold of the gift that was already his for the taking.

It was too much to bear, really. An offer Denny simply couldn’t refuse. He asked Christ into his life that night, and the change in his heart was almost instant. First thing he did when he got home was phone Matt.

“Your old man’s a believer, Matt. Just like you.”

There was a pause, and Denny wasn’t sure but he thought Matt was crying a little on the other end. That conversation had been only the beginning. They’d talked more in the last few months than all their years combined, but they still hadn’t seen each other. Not once since Denny had walked out on him and Jo, back when the boy was four years old. Matt had wanted to see him after Denny’s first phone call, but Denny hadn’t wanted the boy to see him drunk. And back then there weren’t many days . . . well, there weren’t many
hours
when Denny wasn’t stone-flat plastered.

But the day he began believin’, Denny believed for something else, too. He believed that if God could raise Jesus Christ from the dead, He could certainly deliver Denny Conley from the demons of alcoholism.

Denny smiled up at the cross. It had been four months since then, twenty-four church services and fifty meetings with a Twelve-Step group designed to help break the addiction of drinking. He was gaining weight, losing the ruddy complexion he’d developed during the years of drinking. In fact, he might almost be ready to see Matt. Every day, every hour, found him clean and sober. And it was all because of Christ.

Which brought him to his current prayer, the one that had been drawing him to church late at night, the one he’d been laying directly at the foot of the cross. It was a prayer for Jo’s salvation. Denny knew from Matt that his mother was cynical about the whole Jesus thing. She was probably bitter and angry and frustrated at having lived a lifetime as a single mother. It wasn’t going to be easy for her to accept the truth.

That Denny Conley was a new man.

Denny sighed. Something about the coming wedding made the whole thing seem more urgent. He was going, after all. Sure as the sky was blue, he was going to be in church when his son married that young bride of his. And if God heard him good, he was going to take a few minutes and talk heart to heart with Jo.

Then maybe, just maybe . . .

Denny bowed his head and closed his eyes. “Lord, my Jo’s hurting right now because of me . . . and because she doesn’t know You yet. She needs to, Lord. But . . . well, I’m not really the one to tell her, know what I mean? I hurt her pretty bad all those years ago and I’m awful sorry. You know that and I know it. But Jo . . . she thinks this whole Jesus thing is just a phase. Maybe my way of connecting with Matt after so much time’s gone by between us.

“Anyway, God, You know what I mean. Reach down and touch Jo’s heart, Father. Make her feel uneasy so that nothing gives her peace except You. Save her, Lord. And work it out so the two of us can have a talkin’ to. Together, I mean, maybe at the wedding somehow. Make her ready to see me, God. Please.” He thought for a minute. “I guess what I’m askin’ for, Father, is a miracle for Jo. Just like the miracle You gave me and Matt.” He hesitated. “In Jesus’ name, amen.”

When he was finished praying, he let his eyes linger on the cross awhile longer, grateful that Jesus no longer hung there but that He lived, that He was alive forevermore. With his gaze still upward, his thoughts on his Savior, Denny did the same thing he always did after these prayer times.

He sang.

Pastor told him the song had been around for more than a hundred years, but it was brand new to Denny Conley. As far as he was concerned it could have been written for him alone. Like the hesitant notes from a dusty piano, Denny’s voice rang out and lifted to an audience of One. It didn’t matter if he couldn’t carry a tune or if the cat woke up and thought he was crazy. All Denny cared about was the song.

The words to the song.

Great is Thy faithfulness, oh God my Father
There is no shadow of turning with Thee.
Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.

He hummed a bit then, because he didn’t yet know all the words. But one day he would. Until then, he would sing the part he knew.

Great is Thy faithfulness, great is Thy faithfulness
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.”

It was Thursday night again, and the craft store scrapbooking class was empty except for Abby and Jo and two other women. Abby was midway through Nicole’s high-school years and making good progress, despite Jo’s ongoing banter.

There were two hours left in the session when Jo took a deep breath and leveled a new line of questions in Abby’s direction.

“You think you’re going to heaven, Abby? I mean really . . . like there’s a place called heaven that some people go to when they die?”

Abby blinked and set down the photograph in her hand. It wasn’t something she’d thought about much lately, but surely it was true. She’d given her life to Christ ages ago, and even though her personal life was a mess, that didn’t mean God had rejected her, right? She gulped discreetly. “Yes, I’d say I was going to heaven.”

“A real place called heaven? You think you’re actually going there someday?” Jo rattled off the next question without giving Abby time to answer. “Not just a fantasy place, like an idea or a dream, but a real place?”

Abby sighed. It was enough to be racked with guilt where John was concerned, but being forced to think about heaven, too . . . it was almost more than she could bear. They were halfway through the six-month prison sentence of pretending they were happily married, halfway to the day when they would file divorce papers.
What do I
know about heaven?
“Yes, Jo, it’s a real place. As real as anything here.”

For the first time since she’d met the woman, Jo Harter had no response. She let Abby’s comment sink in for nearly a minute before she thought of another question. “If you’re right . . . if this heaven place is real, then that means hell’s real, too. Would you say that was so, Abby?”

Abby rested her forearms on the edge of the table and looked carefully at Jo.
I’m the most imperfect example here, Lord, but use me, please. Even as far gone as I’ve been lately I know this much: her salvation is bigger
than anything I’m dealing with.
“That’s right, Jo. Hell’s a real place.”

“Lake of fire and the whole works? Torment and torture forever and ever?”

“Right, that’s how Jesus describes it.”

“But it’s only for the bad guys, right. You know, murderers and people who fish without a license?”

Abby was completely caught off guard.
Help me, Lord. Give me the
words.
She brought her fingers together and tried to look deep into Jo’s eyes, tried to exude the compassion she suddenly felt in her heart for this woman, her daughter’s future mother-in-law. “Not according to Scripture.” Abby paused. “The Bible says hell’s for anyone who chooses not to accept His gift of salvation.”

Jo released a tired huff. “Now that’s the part that always gets me. Everyone goes on about how loving their God is and then we get to this part about Him sending people to hell and I have to really wonder about that.” She grabbed a quick breath. “What kind of loving God would send someone to hell?”

I’m not up to this, Lord. Speak for me here, please.
Her heart filled with words that were not her own. “People get a little mixed up when they think about God. See, when a person dies, God doesn’t really
send
him anywhere.”

Jo’s face wrinkled in confusion. “There’s only one God, right? Who else might be doin’ the sending?”

Abby smiled.
Lord, she really doesn’t know. Thank You, God, for the
privilege of telling her
. “The way I understand it from Scripture, we make the decision for ourselves. When we die, God simply honors our choice.”

“Meaning?” Jo had all but forgotten her scrapbook layout, her eyes wide with fascination.

Abby was consumed by a feeling of unworthiness, but she continued on, believing God for every word. “Meaning if we’ve admitted our need for a Savior and accepted Christ’s free gift of salvation, when we die God honors that choice by welcoming us into heaven.” Abby didn’t want to give her too much at once. She hesitated, letting that first part sink in. “But if we’ve decided not to pursue a relationship with Jesus, if we’ve ignored the opportunities Christ presents for us, then when we die God honors that choice as well. Without the covering of grace from a holy Savior, a person could not possibly gain entrance into heaven. In that case, hell is the only other option.”

Again Jo was silent for a moment. “So you think the whole thing’s true? And if I died tonight . . . I might not . . .” She didn’t seem able to bring herself to finish the sentence. Instead she picked up her photograph and began cutting. Then without looking up she changed the subject. “Did I hear Nicole right that we’re planning a girls’ getaway the week before the wedding? I can’t think of a better idea, to tell you the truth. I mean a getaway to me suggests a cabin and a lake, and if there’s one thing I love to do when I’m on vacation it’s take in some good old-fashioned fishing . . .”