“You’re right, you’re right. I jumped ahead and got a little selfish. Take care of you first. But just remember what I said. Everything I said. I’ve been here.”
Paul appreciates the counsel and care. “I will. Thanks, man.”
Gary adds, “As for the interview, finish it or don’t finish it, totally up to you. But whatever this is, He’s for real or He’s not, either trying to hurt you or He’s not. So if you’re sure you’re not in any danger . . . and I mean really sure . . . well, you’re the one with the hotline to God. And you’re a smart guy. So you’ll figure it out. Right?”
Paul smiles and pats Gary on the shoulder. “Yeah, sure. And I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you about Sarah.”
Gary grins back, offering a reassuring nod of acceptance. “What are you waiting for? Now get outta here.”
Paul feels completely spent and exhausted in every way, and he wants to try to put matters of life and death aside for a while in an attempt to clear his head. Unsure of where to go, he retreats to his desk, hoping to lay low and hide there for a couple of hours.
But as his conversation with Grace continues to play on repeat in his mind, the need to speak with Sarah overwhelms him. He drops his bag and helmet onto his chair in the cubicle, grabs his phone, and heads toward the stairwell doorway at the corner of his floor. Everyone uses the elevators, so the out-of-the-way concrete vertical tunnels are typically abandoned.
As Paul goes out the large metal fire door and begins to walk up the stairs, he calls her. One ring. Two rings. Come on. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.
Grace is now aware of how Paul is blaming himself for the slow demise of his and Sarah’s marriage. She also has heard the depths of her sister’s deep-seated guilt and shame over the affair. Because Grace is the only person who knows the chasm between two of her favorite people is only growing wider, she knows she needs to go to her big sister right away and at least encourage Sarah to be honest with Paul about her feelings.
While Grace doesn’t share their beliefs, she respects them both and knows their faith, like their relationship, is hanging by a thread. She loves them too much to stand back and watch them fall apart.
After contacting her agent to cancel or reschedule her auditions for the day, Grace is now sitting knee-to-knee with Sarah at her desk at work. The two are deep in conversation. Her coworkers know something is up but are respectfully ignoring them and going about their own business. Since it’s a huge law firm, discretion and confidentiality have been implanted into everyone’s DNA. Don’t ask, don’t tell, see no evil, hear no evil. Do your job.
In the midst of some tears and heated whispers, Sarah’s phone, sitting face up on the desk, begins to buzz, vibrating enough to seem like it’s dancing in place. The two instinctively glance over to see Paul on the screen and his smiling face with his signature tuft of brown hair commandeering his forehead. Sarah is beaming but barely visible in the picture, standing behind him with her arms wrapped tightly around his waist.
Slightly panicked, Sarah grabs the phone and looks at Grace as if asking what she should do. “I almost just automatically picked it up. I want to talk to him.”
“So then why don’t you?” Grace asks.
Fighting back tears as the phone keeps buzzing, Sarah responds from a deep hurt, “Because I destroyed my marriage, not Paul.” She tosses the phone back onto the desk, stands up, and walks away, wiping her eyes.
Just as Paul reaches the door onto the roof, the one he learned long ago is always unlocked, the rings stop and Sarah’s voicemail picks up. “Hi, this is Sarah . . .”
He waits for the long beep and starts his message. “Hey, it’s me . . . I think I understand some things now. I . . . uh, something’s happening . . . hard to explain . . . Sorry, this is probably not making any sense, I know. Can you call me back? Please? I really need to talk to you . . . Okay?”
Paul disconnects the call. Looking up from his phone, to his surprise he is standing dangerously close to the edge of the building. Rather than instinctively backing away, he stays frozen in place, contemplating his life, questioning his existence.
Paul knows exactly why he’s lingering at the edge.
Looking around at the skyline, he realizes just how high up he is. He looks down and stares at all the people going about their busy lives on the streets many floors below. Then the thought occurs to him how this must look to anyone who might be watching from one of the higher windows of the buildings that surround The Herald.
Grace goes to find Sarah, knowing the restroom is the most likely and most isolated hiding place in a busy office. Walking in, she sees no one in there. “Sarah?” she calls out. “Sarah?”
Silence.
Grace pushes on every stall door. Sure enough, in the very last one, there she is, seated on the toilet lid, eyes filled with tears. With her large bright blue doe eyes, she does resemble a deer caught in headlights.
“Really?” she protests. Her face is fraught with sadness and shame. Gathering her thoughts, she continues, “I get it, Grace. Now Paul knows everything but he’s still blaming himself. But why should that matter? How many husbands take back a wife who cheated on them? How can he let that go and ever have any trust for me again?”
Before Grace can answer, Sarah continues her internal argument aloud, “But he was either at the library or working or gone. All the time. Then he stopped going to church and his men’s group because he lost his faith. And being completely honest, through all that, I turned my back on God too. And then I . . . I made it all about me. I didn’t even try to help Paul. I took it all personally and used his emotional, spiritual, and then physical distance to give me an excuse to meet my own needs. He was wrong, but then I just made everything worse . . . I threw everything away with a stupid decision.”
“But Sarah, he was gone,” Grace defends, her arms crossed and eyes fixed on her sister.
“But with how we were raised, my beliefs, my values, our wedding vows . . . Grace, I had an affair!”
“So you’re human, Sarah!”
Both young women fall silent.
Grace moves closer to her sister. “You know me, sis. I really don’t believe like you and Paul. Never have. I don’t buy into all the Jesus thing . . . and praying for help . . . But, you know, for you? Maybe you should?”
Sarah, a little shocked at the encouragement, responds, “You’re . . . you’re telling me to pray? About this? After everything I just said?”
Grace shrugs and offers a slight sheepish smile. “Can’t hurt, right?”
While most often ignoring her own spirituality, Grace has long admired Sarah’s rock-solid faith. One of the main reasons she wants things to work out for her sister is because, deep inside, it just might give her the hope she so desperately needs in her own life.
Sarah’s countenance grows darker as she shakes her head. “No . . . All the prayer in the world can’t reverse what I’ve done. There’s no coming back from this.”
Slowly, Paul backs away from the building’s edge, breathing a heavy sigh as he attempts to release the weight of all the bad news that has been piling up in his life. He slips his phone back into his pocket, disappointed and bordering on distraught that Sarah didn’t answer. Again.
After a few moments of alone time to take in some fresh air, Paul heads back down to his desk to listen through the recordings of his God project that Gary is now so pumped about. He’s still not at all certain whether he’ll even go to the final interview tomorrow, but maybe hearing the back-and-forth will make some kind of sense or provide a form of clarity.
At least that is his hope.
Back at the still-empty and deafeningly quiet apartment later that evening, Paul sits down at the eternally cluttered dining table where Sarah’s tea set seems to mock him with its now-missing fourth cup. He winces at his outburst of anger and the thought of how his wife will respond when she sees what happened. Well, that is, if she ever does come back home.
On a legal pad, he scribbles o
ut Questions for God and with a flourish, underlines the words. He considers what he has asked so far, what he asked and didn’t actually get answered, what he planned on asking but never actually got to, and what he still needs to ask to feel like he’s been thorough with such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Paul writes a question, and then scratches it out. Then re-writes it. Then strikes it out. He finally decides to just go for anything he is thinking in an effort to make sure he has enough to ask, just in case he goes, and just in case this time God decides to only answer his questions, nothing else.
Over the next several hours, Paul goes from the table, to pacing the floor, to throwing water on his face in hopes of waking up and stimulating a fresh thought, and back to the table. The reporter and the Christian inside Paul are entangled in a fierce wrestling match. Both battling for dominance, his head and his heart finally decide to just call it a draw out of exhaustion.
Head down on the table, Paul falls into a deep sleep. His mind drifts into a dream, returning him to the cargo bay of the plane. He sees the rows of coffins with the red, white, and blue Stars and Stripes draped over each. But there is no roar of the engines, only complete silence. Then piercing through the quiet, a whisper, a distinct voice asking, “Can you hear me?” The words are comforting, but he knows they are calling for a response.
Like coming up for air when there’s absolutely no breath left underwater, waking suddenly, Paul’s eyes open wide and his lungs expand with a deep inhale. He lifts his head to see his Bible was his pillow last night. Just a bit of drool soaked into Psalm 51, King David’s passionate plea for forgiveness and restoration. Morning light beams in through the window. “Well, I’m still alive,” he mutters. “That’s a good start.”
He downs the last sip of cold coffee in his mug, places his pad and pen in his bag complete with the list of final questions, grabs his usual fare, and heads out the door with his bike.
This morning, Friday, the day of the third and final interview with God, Paul feels and shows a sense of purpose, of mission, maybe even calling. He feels energy, a drive he hasn’t had in a very long time. Kind of like when a rider finally realizes they’ve come over the last hill on a really long ride home.
After pedaling hard to his destination, the location set for today’s interview, Paul skids to a stop. He jumps off his bike and leans it against a wall. Somehow this morning, the usual protocols are just peripherals.
He stares at the nondescript building, and then finding a side entrance door, heads inside. Today, he sees no familiarity or connection to the part of town or the location. The farther he walks, the deeper he goes into the hallways, the more urgency he feels. His pace quickens until he’s close to a run. Thus far, he has seen no one. Although the stark florescent lighting is clinical and bright at every turn, this place feels abandoned just like the theatre yesterday.
Is this a hospital? A research lab?
A psych ward?
Paul recalls the room number once again—22. He looks at the placards on the doors as he passes. 19 . . . 20 . . . 21 . . . 22. At the end of a long hallway, a set of heavy double doors. The kind surgeons and nurses wheel a dying patient on a gurney through with the hopes of getting them there in time to save their life.
He places his hand on the right-hand-side door, then pauses a moment to gather himself.
Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath.
Chapter Six
God—Session Three All-Consuming Confrontation
Paul cautiously makes his way through the doorway into the room, with the odd sensation that he’s entering some sort of different realm. Surprisingly, he has no fear. The space is more like a modern art gallery, sans the art. The clinical vibe of the hallways is gone. The lighting is warm, the style inviting and cozy. Six columns ring the perimeter of the room. At the far end, the outside wall is all glass, providing an expansive view of the city. Two boutique benches are placed exactly in the center of the room, facing one another—the only furniture.
God is standing in front of the far bench, facing him. Quiet, still, but ready to converse, He looks exactly as He has the previous two days, everything perfectly in place. He meets Paul’s gaze, and the now-familiar warm and genuine smile travels across His face. “Welcome back,” He says sincerely.
“Thank you.” Paul answers in a slightly confrontational and desperate tone as he walks over and sets his now-predictable paraphernalia down. He removes his jacket and takes out his phone and the list of questions that he labored on so diligently the night before and early that morning.
God looks at the array of scribbles all over the legal pad, then back at his young friend.
“This is our last interview, and I want to come to some conclusions,” Paul demands.
Without missing a beat, God responds, “Good. So do I.” He intently watches Paul, waiting for him to take the lead, hoping for personal progress on this third day.
Paul swipes the screen of his phone, taps the recording app, and hits the red button. “Interview three . . . Friday, June third. Final interview.” With a determined look on his face and an invisible chip on his shoulder, he looks a bit wild-eyed. “Sei l’unico vero Dio?” (“You are the only true God?”)
God fires back, “Io sono l’unico vero Dio.” (“I am the only true God.”) He smiles. “Your Italian is very good, Mr. Asher.”
Today, Paul is determined to stay in charge and keep it all business. “Loyola Rome, junior year abroad.”
“Ah, well, time well spent.”
With that test seemingly passed and no let-up at all, Paul changes direction. “You gave me some pretty disturbing news yesterday.”
“Was it really ‘news,’ Paul?”
“You keep saying You’re here because I prayed. That You’re here to help.”
“That’s right.”
“And yet You told me I’m going to die. How does that help me?”
God shrugs as if the answer is obvious. “You’re a journalist. Surely you of all people would appreciate the value of being given a deadline.” Paul obviously does not appreciate the analogy today, so God adds, “I knew it would get you back here.”
“So it was just manipulation then?”
“Motivation is more the word I would use . . . And here you are . . . And here . . . I Am.”
“So You were pushing me?”
“Yes. Of course I was.”
“Like You’ve been pushing me from the very beginning,” Paul says. “At the park. The theatre. The voices or whatever they were in the wind and my apartment. My dream last night.”
“Did you not need a push? Why then did you pray?”
“Is that Your job? Pushing us?”
“I told you the very first day within the first five minutes that I play an active role in the lives of My children. And as I said yesterday and I say again now, let’s stop wasting time on the things you already know and move on . . . So you can cross that first question off your list.”
Paul glances down to remind himself of his first question, which is honestly difficult to find on the busy page. Reading out loud, he asks anyway. “Is God just a ‘clockmaker’?”
“Ah, yes, the theory that I created everything and then just left you alone. Well, now you know.”
Paul grabs his pen and scribbles back and forth over question number one. Still with a defiant attitude, he asks, “So this is how it works when You answer prayers?”
God points to the recorder and looks at Paul as a father attempting to reason with his child. “Check the record. I never said I was here to answer your prayers.”
“Yeah, right. But You said You came because I prayed, so maybe You can see my confusion here. So apparently it was just to deliver some bad news in person.”
God looks into Paul’s eyes, never blinking.
Desperate, on the brink of tears, Paul works to assure himself. “’Cause you know, I feel fine.”
“Are you trying to bargain with Me now?”
Paul
hesitates, his mind racing. “No . . . I’m not.”
“Then, as I said . . . let’s move on. Shall we?”
Paul looks over his list of questions. They all seemed so strong before, but now . . . He then raises his eyes back to God. “Okay. Let’s talk about salvation again.”
“But that’s not on your list. And we discussed that subject yesterday, right?”
Paul appears surprised by the pushback, especially in light of the subject. “But I have more questions on that. Follow-up.”
God holds His ground. “I really think we covered it well yesterday. Very clear.”
“Well, yes, but it’s a big topic. Critical to the interview.”
“Yes, I know. Well aware.”
As if reminding the both of them that he’s a reporter, Paul says, “It’s a big topic for my readers.”
“And Mine too.” God smiles ever so slightly.
“So what’s the problem with a few more minutes discussing it?”
“We covered salvation thoroughly. And got nowhere. Yet here you are . . . still chasing the subject.”
“Well, maybe now it just feels a little more personal to me.” Paul shows the first signs that a white flag might be in his back pocket.
“Yes, I thought it might.”
“Really? That’s all You got for me? ‘I thought it might’?”
“Paul, what more did you want? What do you want? Tell Me.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe some answers? Answers would be good. Like what I prayed for!” Paul throws his hands in the air, exasperated and out of patience. “See! This is what drives good people crazy regarding You.”
God shows great patience in the face of Paul’s meltdown, not at all put off by his attitude. “Oh. How so?”
“I try to be good. I try to please You. But I just need a few answers. But what happens? I mean, really . . . Do You know how that feels? Like you’re being judged every day? Do You?”
God sits quietly, allowing Paul to keep venting and being honest about his struggles and feelings.
An Interview with God Page 9
