AFTER DINNER THAT evening, about two hours before dark, the men left to hunt again.
Braxton was resting by the fire pit as Pastor Tom joined him, offering him a cup of coffee and trying not to spill it as he gingerly limped over to the chair next to the man with the crutch.
Sitting there in silence for a while, they watched the flames growing bright as the sun began to sink below the mountains, each man lost in his own thoughts.
One was reflecting on how bad his life had turned out and wondering how it could have been different, while the other thought about the journal he had read, speculating about the man next to him and if it was possible to help him.
Breaking the silence Braxton turned to Pastor Tom and asked, “Are you happy with your life, Pastor?”
Tom, surprised by the abruptness of the question answered honestly, “Yes. I can say that I am. How about you? Are you happy?”
Braxton sat there looking into the fire, brooding, so unhappy and hurt by life, so lost. Then he said softly, almost inaudibly, “Not like I wanted to be.”
Pastor Tom sat there trying to decide what to do. He asked for wisdom and discernment from God. He decided to see if he could help, to step over that line of social safety and risk ridicule and contempt to help another… in love, if he could.
“Braxton, do you want to talk about what’s bothering you? I’d like to help if I can.”
“What makes you think there’s anything wrong,” he asked defensively.
“Isn’t there?”
“How could you understand unhappiness, loss or bitterness?” the man said in pain. “Have you ever lost anything that you loved?”
Tom sat quietly, remembering long ago of another time and place with those that he had loved very much.
He said softly, looking into the flames, “When I was seven, I lived on a farm in Kenya with my parents. I had a wonderful father, good, strong, and honest… a man of character and faith. My mother was very loving and affectionate, always laughing even when life was hard, and a good strong Christian woman as well. Then the war came to our place in the form of angry, merciless men. In the kitchen they shot my father down, ransacked and burned our place, and killed my mother somewhere down the road, horribly… at least that’s what I was told by the woman who found her body and rescued us.”
Tom turned to Braxton, “I know what it’s like to lose someone so close, so dear, that the loss will remain with me the rest of my life,” he said hurting, missing his mother and father still.
Braxton’s face changed as he witnessed the tears in the pastor’s eyes. Then Tom continued, “But I also possess a deeper love, a true love for the God who made me and keeps me until my time to leave this earth. Then I’ll be with those I love again.”
Braxton could see the deep loss this man was feeling, yet he also could see a peace in the man, one he didn’t understand. He craved that peace, that contentment in life. But how could he have it? His bitterness wasn’t easily moved.
“And you can love a God who allowed your parents to be killed in such a horrible way? How can you sit there and tell me you love Him, when He permitted that to happen?”
“God didn’t do it, Braxton. It was the evil in man that did it. They chose to hate. They chose to kill. They chose a path of their own choosing and not God’s. His way is the way of love, peace, kindness and light. If we all lived His way, my parents would still be alive, we would all have the love we so deeply desire, and the happiness that eludes a lot of us.”
“You don’t know what I’ve been through,” Braxton expressed, hurting.
“I know some of it. At least what is written down in Pastor Andrew’s journal.”
“Journal! What journal?” Braxton was shocked and suddenly afraid of exposure, of what might be written there.
“I believe Pastor Andrew started that journal as a way of coping with the pain he was feeling from those around him, by those that were trying to control him. He had the journal hidden in the wall of his study, not meaning for anyone to see it, I’m sure. It was a tool he used for working out his problems. I only found it this summer when we were working on the office.”
“You had no right to read it, did you?” Braxton stated accusingly, hurt, indignant.
“He’s been gone for ten years, Braxton, under mysterious circumstances. It was necessary to read it to understand what might have happened to him.”
Braxton glared at the fire, wanting to leave… to get out of there, to escape.
“Braxton, won’t you let me help you?”
The man remained silent.
“I do understand the pain of loss. Almost everyone has suffered that type of pain, in one way or another. But, some of us seek to control others, to provide ourselves with comfort, security and safety as a result.”
“It’s been my experience that controlling people, even those who think they are doing good, to those who cross the line and physically demand obedience from others, have one thing in common. They create resentment and even fear in those they love. Love is never returned. And because control causes emotional damage and even harm, their relationships suffer, and even cease to exist.”
“Are you saying that parents shouldn’t control their children?” he responded crossly to the young preacher.
“No. When you teach a child you guide them, not control them. And sometimes you have to discipline them to protect them, but it’s always done in love. And it should be done in God’s true love and not with the worldly love that most of us know, from our own selfish viewpoints.”
Pastor Tom paraphrased from his heart, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, “If you wish to love, you must be patient and kind. You must never be jealous of another, or boastful and proud, hurting those around you. You can never put someone down, nor seeks to satisfy your own needs over those of another. If you truly love, you won’t get angry easily, nor keep a mental list of the wrongs done. God’s love doesn’t delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It always protects. It always trusts. It always perseveres. Love never fails.”
Braxton cringed, his heart breaking from the images of his past. He tried to hide his grief, as he furiously wiped away the tears.
He could see clearly how he had destroyed his marriage with his jealous rages, his beatings of Sheila and the fear she returned to him, instead of the love he wanted. He hadn’t been patient or kind. His relationship with her, or with anyone, had always been about him and how he had been treated. He didn’t care about any of them, just about himself. And the list of wrongs he kept in his heart was such a long list. He had even resorted to revenge, hurting those who hurt him when he had the chance, to pay back the wrongs done.
Pastor Tom said softly, “There’s only one thing in this life that really matters Braxton, and that’s letting God save us. We need to open our hearts to His True Love and let Him cleans us from the sin that is destroying us, each day we live without Him. Evil eats away at us, corrupting us, hardening our hearts to the point of death. And with the full weight of our sin attached to us, it follows us to the grave, unless we repent.”
“Only He can save us from that fate,“ he continued, “and all we have to do is accept Him into our hearts and let His wonderful, loving Spirit teach us His ways, His righteousness, and His True Love.”
Braxton moaned, covering his face with his hands to hide his emotions. But his grief was too much and it showed.
Unexpectedly, all the fight went out of the man. He didn’t want to resist anymore. He didn’t want the life he was living. He was so lonely, so tired, so hurt.
Are you there God? he asked quietly to himself, wanting Him to be real, wanting Him to come into his heart, wanting Him to save him. And as he opened his heart to the possibility, a warm, loving, feeling of light and love made him tingle all over. It made his heart light, releasing him from the heavy weight of sin. He felt the love of his Creator and the Master of Life, as the Son of God walked into his heart and filled him with His living water.
Pastor Tom could s
ee the change in the man next to him and silently rejoiced, knowing that another soul had been saved from the chasm of death.
God’s servant listened to the man as he told him about the sins of his past, and witnessed the freedom the man was feeling after becoming one of God’s many sons. The minister sat next to this new, born again child and prayed for him.
They talked for a long time and Pastor Tom counseled him, helping him find his way in this new world, preparing him for the journey ahead, learning the new ways of God.
* * * *
A Tale Of True Love Page 29
