Heathersleigh Homecoming (50 page)

 104 
Respectable Prodigality

Amanda had never heard the likes of such a sermon.

Something about the words themselves, even an occasional phrase, sounded oddly familiar. But she knew she had never heard Timothy preach like this. In some peculiar way, it did not even sound like him.

And what was the compelling aura about it that drew her so? Why did the sensation of familiarity make her heart flutter and momentarily make her forget as she listened that her father was dead?

She continued to sit spellbound on the steps outside, heedless of the occasional stares of passersby. The pause in the midst of the message, though Amanda could not know it, came now because Timothy at last had had no recourse but to bring out his handkerchief and attempt to dry his eyes.

“Yet that intimacy,” Timothy went on after a moment in a faltering voice and more reflective tone, “between God and his sons and daughters, is not easy to come by. Indeed, it is far easier to fall on one's knees in remorse for a life of evil, and pray a prayer of salvation for one's sins—this is far easier, I say, than to lay down what must be sacrificed in order to enter into intimacy with the Father.

“What is it that prevents this intimacy? What is this most difficult sacrifice I speak of?

“It is not primarily sin in the world, nor the wickedness of the ungodly. It is not poverty nor cruelty, not injustice nor inequality, not war nor killing nor greed. I speak rather of the sin which prevented me for most of my own life from entering into intimate relationship with my heavenly Father.

“I speak of the great invisible enemy of God's highest purposes—nothing more nor less than prideful independence of heart, that determination which says—
I am my own
. None other shall control me, none other shall dictate to me, none shall be over me. . . . I shall bow my knee to no one.

“This is the spirit that rules in the far country to which we modern respectable prodigals have given our citizenship.

“Do you hear me, men and women—simple
independence
 . . . that quality so admired by modern culture is in fact a mountain ten miles high and impossible to cross between that land where we have built our impoverished dwellings and the home of our Father.

“
Independence
is the great silent evil, not because its sin is so perfidious but because it keeps otherwise good and moral people ruled by their Selves. It keeps them eating spiritual swine husks rather than the meat of fellowship with Jesus and his Father. People like you, good listener . . . and me.”

The words rocked Amanda where she sat. Had she not known otherwise, she would have said of a certainty that the words of this sermon could not possibly be Timothy Diggorsfeld's, but must have been the words of Hope Guinarde herself.

So whose were these powerful words!

But today Amanda did not try to block her ears or keep from listening. No anger arose in her heart on this morning. The time for listening had come. Amanda sat calmly and allowed her heart at last to drink in the painful astringent of truth.

“The
Self
—that region of thought and deed, of motive and attitude—keeps
me
on the throne of life, and God off it. It keeps
you
on your own throne too, my friend. As long as you are on the throne where your
own
will rules supreme, God cannot exercise his true Fatherhood in your life because there can be only one Father and one child. Self-rule says—
I need no Father over me
. Self-rule is the god of the far country.”

Amanda saw how right Sister Hope had been. How could she have known her so well!

Amanda had always ruled her own life. Her enemy was never her father, as she had supposed. The enemy had always been her
Self
. Her father had been but a mirror held up to her own willful determination to bow before no one but herself.

She had been her
own
enemy. Her father had done his best to help her overcome that
Self
.

Alas, she had rejected that help. He had only tried to help her win the battle against self-rule. Her father had tried to help her become a young woman of virtue. But she had angrily thrown that help back in his face.

“We are all prodigals together, my friends,” said Timothy. “We have made self-rule our god. As a result we have become a prodigal humanity. Thus we do not know intimacy with our Creator and our Father.

“But we
can
know it. Jesus came to show us how. But we must return. We must leave the land where pride and self-rule reign as gods. We must be reconciled with our Father.

“‘How?' you ask.

“God will show you. But first we must say, as Jesus taught, ‘I will leave this country. I will return to my Father's house.'

“That is something we can do in our own hearts. Now . . . today. We can say to him,
‘I
am sorry for being a respectable worshiper of Self. I
am sorry for thinking myself capable of living my life with no Father over me. No more do I want
to rule my own life. I want a Father. I
am ready to be a child. I am eager to
become a true son, a true daughter. I ask you
to be my Father.'

“With such a prayer, we have indeed begun the journey home to our Father's house. Reconciliation is under way. Thus only can we enter into that intimacy for which we long and for which we were created.”

As she listened, Amanda realized there was a double message in these words for her. She had been estranged from
two
fathers, to whom she must arise and go.

Yet with the realization again came the bitter truth that it was too late.

Even as she sat on the steps, at last Amanda began to weep great tears of remorse and overwhelming grief.

Suddenly she wanted her father!

She longed for him, longed for his arms around her, longed to be his little girl again, and yet—bitter truth—he was gone!

Again Timothy had stopped. Not a soul stirred from the small chapel where only some thirty or forty sat listening to the personal and penetrating message. Some remembered it from years before. Others, hearing it for the first time, recognized in it a different quality than their minister's normal mode of address.

“He is fashioning of us people of character and virtue,” Timothy continued again. “He is building the fiber of mature spirituality within us. He desires to make us into men and women capable of carrying out his commands and walking in this world as individuals
recognized as sons and daughters of God. He will help us. His Spirit will transform our self-reliant, self-motivated wills, if only we will turn those wills over to him, lay them down on the altar of chosen self-denial . . . and become children.

“This process of humble growth into sons and daughters begins by turning around and setting one's face toward home, toward the Father's house, where
he
rules. We must return to him and say,
‘I choose for you to rule now, not
me.'
It is a journey to be made in the heart. He is waiting along the roadside to welcome us . . . but we must go to him, we must return to our Father's house and say, ‘
I will be your child
.'”

A lengthy interlude of silence followed.

Amanda could tell the sermon was over. Some rustling followed, then the sounds of a piano beginning another hymn.

Quietly she rose, eyes blurry and blinking back the tears struggling to overpower her, and walked away from the church.

She walked for perhaps five minutes, when suddenly from out of the depths of her heart something cried out,
“Oh, God, what am
I to do?”

The answer which stole into her consciousness the next instant was simple. It was not a mandate to change the world as had brought her to London so many years ago, but rather concerned only one person in all the universe . . . Amanda herself.

It came in a gentle, quiet, yet definite command.

“Obey me,”
was all the voice said.
“Then arise and go to your
father.”

 105 
A Meeting of Friends

Amanda did not go far.

She walked away from the church for five, perhaps six or seven minutes. Gradually aloneness overwhelmed her. Her heart began to ache with almost physical pain for sheer despondency.

Suddenly it dawned on her that except for the sisters at the Chalet of Hope, who were beyond reach at this moment, she had no one to turn to. She had only one true friend in the city, as much as at one time she thought she had despised him . . . and it was the very man behind her in New Hope Chapel to whom she had been listening.

The next instant Amanda had turned and was half running along the sidewalk back toward the church.

No logic of her mind could have explained whatever impulse compelled her feet along the walk. Her heart was suddenly so very lonely she thought it would break. The grief of her father's death bore down upon her with a crushing weight of misery and desolation.

She did not think she could bear it another instant.

She needed a friend!

As Timothy Diggorsfeld stood at the door of New Hope Chapel shaking hands with the men and women of his congregation filing out in ones and twos, it was all he could do to maintain his composure. With near herculean effort he blinked back tears and did what he could to smile and mumble words of greeting. Officiating the service, then delivering the sermon his friend Charles had written had been an enormous personal ordeal.

But this was near agony! He was physically and emotionally spent.

If he could just get the last few minutes of the morning over, then he might seek the solitude of his study. There he could weep one more time for his friend.

The line was nearly done.

Wearily Timothy glanced up as he wished Mrs. Fretwell-Phipps a good day.

What was that figure down the block standing . . . watching him . . . just standing there in the middle of the sidewalk like a lost, forlorn human sheep!

Suddenly he was stumbling down the stairs, leaving the remaining six or seven in line where they stood in the foyer of the chapel. He bumped past Mrs. Fretwell-Phipps on the steps leaving the church.

He was running now . . . running as fast as he had run for years along Bloomsbury Way, presenting a sight such as those wide-eyed of his congregation could never have imagined, black Sunday robe flying out behind their normally sedate clergyman!

The lost sheep began running toward him.

Timothy slowed, tears of so many emotions he could not have counted them streaming down his cheeks. He opened his arms.

“Amanda!” he said tenderly.

She fell into his embrace, trembling and clinging to him like a frightened child who has found its mother. At last the gushing torrent of grief overflowed its dam, and she sobbed convulsively.

Back at the church, what remained of Timothy's parishioners continued to watch the strange display. Not one had any inkling that the young lady in their minister's arms was none other than the prodigal daughter of him whose words they had just been listening to.

“I didn't know where else to go,” sobbed Amanda.

Timothy held her close for what may have been one minute, perhaps two.

“You cannot imagine how glad I am you came to me,” now said Timothy, stepping back and smiling. “I cannot say it makes me happy, for I doubt anything at this moment is capable of that. My heart is grievously sore. But I am very glad you came.”

Amanda wiped at her tears, then, to the extent she was able, returned his smile.

“Amanda . . . I am
so
sorry about your father and brother.”

She nodded and began to cry again.

“Come . . . come inside with me,” said Timothy. “We will have a talk.”

He turned and led the way back toward the church. “We have both lost a friend,” he said. “Now we shall have to be friends to one another.”

They met the astonished lady as they passed yet again on the walkway. “All is well . . . all is well, Mrs. Fretwell-Phipps,” said Timothy with a smile and a nod.

They walked up the steps. Timothy paused briefly to hurriedly shake the remaining hands, then led Amanda inside and to the adjoining parsonage.