The Kingdom Land (35 page)

“
Lord I can’t leave You because my
eyes can’t see. You have given me life, and I will wait and work
and see Your rains in my life.”

As he thought these thoughts, the sun once again
touched the horizon. His sight did not need to be sharp to picture
the scene. The image that had been painted years ago, the evening
before that trip to Sweet Grass, was once again before him. Once
again the sunset started with a slight tint of pink, and grew as a
spill until it totally engulfed the whole land with its scarlet. A
stray cloud caught fire on its border, and then burst to flames
engulfed by the sun. The alkali lake that before was stale and dead
suddenly become a pool of gold with the foxtail torches of tar. The
willow bushes near the coulee seemed to be touched by a spell to
become the King’s silver arrows.

This was the Kingdom Land as Erik allowed the King’s
reign. One could reason that the land was only painted that way by
a chance setting of the sun. To Erik it was more. To Erik, he saw
the hand of God reaching to him in His love. The dimness of his
sight did not take away from the sharpness of his vision. This was
no illusion. This was the hope of Christ, which Erik saw within
himself more real than ever.

He would stay in this land. He would stay with Christ
for eternity.

Erik knew he had never been and never would be alone
in this land.

Chapter
Thirty-Three

 

 

“
W
hat am I
supposed to do now? It's useless.” Erik was not referring to his
life but the laces of his work boots as they broke in his hands.
Erik had just begun to lace the boots for another day of work. As
he pulled them taut they had burst in his hands. They hadn't broken
at the end; that would have been easy. He could have tied a quick
knot and again pulled the laces tight and be to work. Instead, they
had broken in the middle, by the third eye, where the laces had
worn thin with wear. Here a knot would be blocked by the eye and be
unable to tighten. He would make the mend, but it meant working all
day with one boot loose and irritation with every step.

He was not talking about his life, but he might as
well have been. Really, it was silly to be putting on work boots
anyway. There would be no work today. There was little Erik could
do to work. He could get around fine; his vision was fogged, not
allowing him to see any details, but not completely gone. The
doctors called it “legally blind,” but he hated doctors for their
technical language that seemed to forget they were talking to real
people. Work on a farm with its large machinery was not an option.
He could do the chores he did as a six year old with his dad;
gather the eggs, by feel, in the places he knew the hens would lay,
fill the water tank and hold the light for his uncle.

These are things a six year old did, and at times he
felt as useless as those boot laces, with the constant irritation
of feeling rather than seeing details.

He knew that God was with him. There was a renewed
joy in Erik's heart that Christ was his Savior and God was his
Father, and the change in his heart had been dramatic. He knew that
God could make a life of beauty on this farm. He just didn't know
how it would be possible. His spirit had been renewed, but he still
lived in a land without purpose.

He thought of the hailstorm that his uncle had spoken
about. He knew that the Coopers hadn't lost the farm and God had
been faithful to protect their lives even as the crops were
destroyed. What Erik didn't know was the exact “hows” of how it all
worked out. Certainly, his uncle had said there were tough times.
Just how tough was the wait to find the answer and how long did
they have to wait to see the answer?

Erik could have asked his uncle those questions, but
the answer to the hailstorm was not the answer Erik sought. Erik
wanted to know from God how long he would feel as useless as those
boot laces before he could fully strap on his life and get on with
a purpose to his life.

Every morning his first thought was to look. He would
look at the room around him and see if he could pick out new
details. Was the edge of the bureau more apparent and defined today
than yesterday? Had the operation begun to clear his eyes? Had the
Lord begun the healing process or even miraculously restored his
sight?

His first thought each morning was to look, but the
answer was a constant, “What am I suppose to do now? It's
useless.”

He had known the call of God and knew the beauty he
had seen in his belief. “But what now?”

He mended the laces as best as he could and went out
into the farmyard. He didn't have a destination or a task. He
merely wanted to be doing something, even if that meant walking
aimlessly around. There weren't any chores that needed to be done,
but he needed to be close to where work should be done.

It wasn't long before he tried. The walk didn't tire
him. The boredom of doing nothing did. As he walked around the
barns and sheds of the farm, he shuffled his feet in case there was
some undetected object that could trip him, and his hands were
extended in front in a defensive stance whenever he came close to
an obstacle. The frustration of his sight was the lack of
definition to anything. It was as if he could not see it, but could
only see a form. There was always a question of what lay outside
his small range of vision. The feeling it gave him was that of
being in the culvert as a kid with the round sides his world. As a
kid, he had sought refuge by the closeness of that place. As a
blind adult the borders of his sight were his prison.

He returned to the bunkhouse and once again flopped
on the bed. As usual, he picked up the Bible that lay close by and
he also reached for help. He had been given a device by the
Foundation that had two magnifying glasses stacked on each other
with an adapter for a flashlight to illuminate through the thick
lenses. If he placed the device flat on the page and used it as a
microscope. He could read the enlarged print. It would have been
easier to flip on the Bible cassette, but he needed to see the
words to prove he could.

He first turned to a page marked by
repeated use, Ephesians 6:10:
Finally, my
brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put
on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the
wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood,
but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of
the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in
the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God,
that you may be able to withstand in the evil days, and having done
all, to stand.

Some parts of those verses and their
implications were not clear to Erik, but one item he had repeated
to himself many times over the past month: …
and having done all, to stand.
He had
done everything he knew to do. He had prayed. He had believed. He
had seen the Lord touch his life. Now all he could do was stand,
but stand he must.

His thoughts were then carried to another verse, and
example, that was not as common to him. At first he wasn't sure why
he thought of this verse, but somehow that day he had felt as
helpless as David in front of Goliath, so he turned to 1 Samuel
17:45, and he read.

Then David said to the
Philistine,
‘
You
come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin. But I
come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies
of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you
into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you.
And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the
Philistines to the birds of the air and wild beasts of the earth,
that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. Then all
this assembly shall know that the Lord does not save with sword and
spear: for the battle is the Lord's and He will give you into our
hands.'

Erik thought back to those times that he had so
boldly exclaimed the greatness of his Lord. He remembered sitting
by the meadow on Chief Mountain and his determination to make
something of this land. He remembered his proclamation that his
greatest dreams and victories would not come from what he could
see, but from what vision the Lord had for his life. He remembered
those times of announcing the greatness of God, and he continued
the verse.

“
So it was, when the Philistine
arose and came and drew near to meet David…
“

Erik thought somehow it would have seemed nice or
right, after David had stood so strongly with the Lord that the
giant would merely turn and run. Maybe the giant could die from
fear or get hit by a bolt of lightning. God needed to do something
miraculous. Instead, the giant didn't stop. He still stood before
David and the giant moved even closer.

Erik had done all the right things, but his blindness
still stood before him.

And Erik continued reading,

“
So David put his hand in his bag
and took out a stone, and he slung it and struck the Philistine in
the forehead, and he fell on his face to the earth.”

Erik thought how he had been paralyzed by the fear of
blindness the last few months. Certainly, David had every right to
respond in the same fashion, but David did not forget his
proclamation that the Lord would finish the fight. David took his
small strength in that which he knew and let the Lord provide the
power of victory.

The thoughts made Erik stop and then pace the room as
he pondered the implications to his life. The boot with the mended
lace still rubbed sore against his heal. The mend had not worked.
He could tell a blister had begun to form.

It was one thing for David to take a stone and allow
God to use it. David had hunted with stones before. What did Erik
have that God could use? His quick inventory showed nothing. There
was nothing on the farm that a man with very limited sight could
do. There was nothing in Fairfield or Cascade County that a limited
sighted or blind man could do. He had no stone to sling. He had
nothing God could use.

All he had done all his life was dream in the
bunkhouse. His mind had created pictures of great beauty, but they
were only in his mind. His faith had pictures of His love, but his
faith could not drive tractors. He was a dreamer, a believer, not a
farmer. Even if he had his full sight he didn't know if he could
really farm, but certainly not now. Erik knew that it really wasn't
the farm he hated. He hated the thought of living without
aspirations. He hated the thought of working the rest of his life
at something he could only do half-heartedly. Now without his eyes
that fact was clear.

What did he have to give to God that God could use to
bring down the darkness before him and fulfill his dreams? Then he
realized he only had to offer what God had already given to him:
the dreams themselves. In the last few minutes, he, no Him, had
provided the answer. It was his dreams that were so sharp and so
real and changed everything he saw. The answer to his dreams had
always been in his grasp.

Just as he had realized by the oak tree that God had
stood next to him all along, he now realized that God had long ago
deposited a gift in his life. He had a stone the Lord had formed
years earlier and he would give it to Him for His use.

Those pictures in his mind, his faith that drew God's
hand in this land, they were his stones.

He went into the dormitory room. In one corner were
boxes that contained items that had no value. He found one that he
had packed years ago after high school. Below stacks of old
homework was a Smith-Corona typewriter. It was old, but a quick
check showed it still worked.He put the typewriter on a makeshift
desk made by a wooded crate. He pulled off the work boots to allow
the healing to begin as he straddled the crate. An old term paper
whose sheets had begun to yellow with age was reversed and fed into
the machine. He put his fingers on the home keys by touch as his
high school teacher had instructed, and he thought.

Soon the keys clicked out a rhythm. It seemed a
rhythm of dreams fulfilled as his mind quickly transferred dreams
to pages. In his heart he could hear a giant fall to the ground
face first in worship. And Erik wrote.

 

 

THE KINGDOM LAND

 

One

 

The last black of diesel smoke hadn't cleared the
stack before I swung open the cab door and slid down the steps of
the 9020 John Deere tractor. It was time to leave the thoughts of
the field behind. My day was done and on a Saturday afternoon I
wasn't about to spend an extra moment in the fields.

Without stopping I stripped myself of my
dust-covered shirt and snapped it in the air in a vain attempt to
rid myself of any association with the land. With long strides I
reached the old ‘54 Chevy pickup, and took the last drink from the
water jug that lay on the seat. The water was too stale and hot to
swallow, but it served well to rinse the dust from my mouth. When I
spat the water to the ground it was absorbed without leaving a hint
of mud behind. The soil was even thirstier than me after three
years of drought …

 

And Erik's dreams became his quest.

 

 

 

~Finite~

 

 

 

About the Author

 

 

Bart Tuma is one of seven children who grew up living
and working on a farm in northern Montana. He went on to graduate
from the University of Montana with a BA in English/Creative
Writing, and later became an adjunct professor of literature and
Creative Writing at Oral Roberts University while working on his
Masters of Divinity degree.