He needed to sort through his feelings before driving back to the farm. Instead of getting on the freeway, he stopped at The Coffee House, the place where he and Reese once shared a hundred private moments. He parked his truck and went inside.
The host was a teenage kid Zack hadn’t seen before. He smacked his gum a few times as he walked up to Zack. “Can I help you?” The kid clearly didn’t recognize him, something Zack appreciated more all the time.
“Table for one.” Zack followed the guy to a booth and sat down. He ordered coffee but when it came, Zack barely sipped it. He couldn’t believe what had just happened. There was no way running into her was pure coincidence. Not when he prayed for her and for the two of them every day.
Could it really be, God? Could we still have a chance?
No answer came, but a verse spoke quietly in his heart. The one from Jeremiah 29:11. God knew the plans He had for Zack and for Reese. Plans to give them a hope and a future. Whether together or apart.
But now . . . now Zack had to believe this was a beginning. Reese hadn’t made up her mind about moving permanently to London. There was still time to change her mind. Zack breathed in, happier than he’d been since before Fifteen Minutes. He could hardly wait for tomorrow.
The host was back at his table, bringing the check, but something had caught the kid’s attention. Zack followed his gaze and there on the nearby TV screen was a segment of entertainment news. An announcer was talking about Fifteen Minutes. “It’s that time of year.” He smiled into the camera. “Around the country hopeful singers are packing up and heading out to six major cities for the chance at being the next Fifteen Minutes winner.”
“That’s so cool.” The guy set the check on the table, his eyes glued to the screen. “Winning that show . . . that’d be a dream.”
“You sing?” Zack looked at him.
“Yeah.” He glanced at Zack and back at the screen. “I’m decent. I’ll probably audition next year. Gotta save up some money first.”
“Hmmm. Well, good luck.” Zack watched the guy go. He could only hope he wouldn’t see the kid on the show next year or any time after.
The segment was still playing. The announcer was talking about Zoey Davis. “Last year’s winner continues to grab headlines.” Images flashed across the screen, Zoey on Ellen and The Tonight Show, articles declaring that she was breaking record sales. “Of course,” the announcer said, his voice concerned, “not all news about Zoey Davis has been good.” They cut to a short video feature showing a different series of headlines about Zoey Davis. She was too thin or addicted to drugs or cutting herself. A few months ago she’d spent a week in rehab.
Zack felt his heart sink. He had only heard a quick thank-you back from her after his private Facebook message a year ago. Since then they hadn’t talked, though Zack followed her on Twitter. Last week Zoey had tweeted that she’d completed rehab for her “struggles with exhaustion.” Another of Zoey’s tweets appeared on the TV screen now. Thanks for your prayers, everyone. I’ve learned how to pray. It helps. I may have finally figured out how to live.
The tweet made Zack smile. Maybe she’d had the talk with Jesus he had told her about. It was what he had prayed for. But the struggles and pressures of fame would remain, whether Zoey prayed or not. Like Chandra had told him, the prison of celebrity was unbending no matter who was trapped within its walls.
On TV they were showing contestants lined up in New Orleans, home of the first round of auditions. An on-site reporter spoke loudly against the backdrop of excited contestants. “I’m here in New Orleans where tens of thousands of hopefuls have gathered for the first round of Fifteen Minutes auditions.” He motioned for two teenage girls to join him. “What brought you here today?”
In unison the girls squealed. “We want to be the next winner of Fifteen Minutes!”
“There you have it.” He looked into the camera. “And so season eleven begins. Back to you in the studio.”
Zack had seen enough. He paid for his coffee, and as he headed out the door, the announcer on the TV kept talking. “In other news, one of America’s favorite teen actresses is back in jail after being arrested again for drunk driving. Prosecutors say this is her final strike in her ongoing battle with . . .”
Zack walked out and the door closed behind him.
He didn’t want to think about Fifteen Minutes or the upcoming season or the trouble with another teen actress. He’d lost enough time on such emptiness. Lost more than he ever could’ve dreamed the day he drove off to Atlanta. Chandra had been right about the cost.
But he couldn’t think about that now.
Instead, he walked across the parking lot, breathing in the sweet Kentucky summer air. He had groceries to put away and news to share with his family and a song to finish. Then tomorrow . . . maybe a coffee date with Reese Weatherly. And if God allowed a miracle to play out, sometime in the weeks ahead he might have something else.
A horseback ride at dawn with the girl he still loved.
Keep reading for an excerpt from Karen Kingsbury’s upcoming Bible study, The Family of Jesus!
A Brother’s Love
A fictional tale of Jesus and his unbelieving brother, James
All of Nazareth was in an uproar, and James was sick of it. He stepped outside his house and leaned on the doorframe. Craziness. Jesus was having dinner down the street, and even from this end of the block James could see the multitudes gathering around the dwelling, pushing their way inside.
“Jesus! Help us . . . Jesus, over here!”
“Let me through!” A man came screaming down the street, a child in his arms. “We have to get to Jesus! Please . . . let us through!”
James scowled. Ridiculous. This whole Jesus thing made absolutely no sense. James wiped the sweat off his brow and peered at the distant chaos. Five men were shouting at the followers of Jesus, telling them they were crazy. A long sigh rattled from James’s chest. Every time Jesus came through town, people picked sides. There were the sick, the lame, the down and out, clamoring for his attention, looking for healing or some sort of inspiration, jumping on the bandwagon. The other camp was just as loud. Family mostly, to be honest. Cousins, aunts, uncles. People who knew the truth about Jesus.
He was a carpenter’s son.
Not God in the flesh the way his crazy disciples seemed to believe. James should know. Jesus was his brother, after all.
He stepped back inside the doorway and rolled his eyes. Maybe it was time to put an end to the madness. He had authority with the people in Nazareth, and he could get his mother and brothers to come along. His mother believed Jesus’s claims, or at least James thought she did. But she didn’t like hearing him mocked by the rest of the family. She would come along. And his brothers felt the same way he did. Jesus was embarrassing himself and worse, he was embarrassing the entire family.
A quiet chuckle came from James. The savior of mankind—the Emmanuel spoken of in Isaiah—a carpenter’s son? In a town like Nazareth? He grabbed a cup of water, downed it, and slipped his cloak on. Yes, it was time. Enough was enough.
He walked outside onto the hot, dusty street and shut the door behind him. Fifteen minutes later he had gathered his mom and three brothers and hatched a plan. They would stay in a tight group, push their way through the crowd to the front door of the house and tell the owner that Jesus’s family needed a word with him. Then with loud, dramatic discussion, they would fully and finally put Jesus in his place.
“It’s the only way,” one of his brothers agreed. “The kindest thing we can do for the people of Nazareth . . . and for Jesus.”
On the walk down the street, James was seized with a mix of anger and sorrow, distressed that his relationship with Jesus had come to this. When they were younger, James and Jesus had been the best friends two brothers could be. James looked up to Jesus in every area of life. When Jesus studied the Scriptures, James studied them, too. When Jesus told a funny story, James was the first to laugh. They went everywhere t
ogether. No better big brother anywhere, that’s what James grew up thinking.
As far as he was concerned, Jesus could walk on water.
But as soon as Jesus left the carpenter’s shop, he began to think he really could. He even told people he’d done just that—walked across the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the storm. On top of the water.
James coughed again. At first he figured it was just a stage, a strange season in his brother’s life. Jesus would come to his senses, come home, and they could go on being a family. Making memories and sharing meals. James and his best friend, Jesus. His big brother.
But Jesus continued the madness, spinning the insanity until now it was out of control. Jesus made his way throughout the entire region, doing some sort of magic nonsense and causing people to believe he was the Messiah. The Messiah, of all things!
It had been a year since he and Jesus had laughed together, shared a conversation, just the two of them. James had tried to make light of the situation. “Come on, Jesus, we miss you back home. Don’t you think it’s time to stop the traveling?” He gave Jesus a light slap on the shoulder. “I need you, brother. You and me, like it used to be.”
But Jesus only looked at him—that same unconditional love he’d always had for James—and a smile tugged at his lips. “I have to go. It’s what my Father has called me to do.” His smile fell off a little. “It’s my calling. Please, James . . . try to understand.”
Now, though, Jesus had forgotten him. What sort of calling would take him away from the people he loved most? James wiped the dust from his mouth as they reached the house. “Let us through . . . we’re his family!” James used his loudest voice. “We need a word with Jesus. Please get out of the way.”
They reached the front door and the master of the house was called in. “Yes,” He looked bewildered. “You want to talk to Jesus?”
“We do.” James took the lead. He stuck his chest out. “We are his family. Tell him that his mother and brothers have come.”
The man was gone for less than two minutes. When he returned, he shook his head. “Jesus says he cannot talk. He said his mother and brothers are those who . . . hear his word and obey it.”
James felt his face grow hot and the ground shift beneath his feet. All around them, people stared. A few even snickered. Jesus had completely and utterly rejected them, his very own family. James hesitated, but only for a minute. The man wasn’t going to let them through. Even if he did, Jesus had basically just disowned them.
They left in shame, the whispers and stares of half of Nazareth following them all the way back to James’s house. Not until Jesus left town again did James feel good about leaving his house. Even then there was talk. Rumor had it Jesus had gone so far as to say only in his hometown was a prophet without honor.
Of all the nerve.
For the most part James was angry, an anger that stayed and brewed within him through summer and into fall, that year and the next. But his anger was surpassed only by his sorrow. He never could’ve imagined Jesus—the one who loved him the most—doing this to him, to their family.
Not until Passover that year did James catch wind that things weren’t going so well for Jesus. It was their mother who convinced them that maybe it was time for reconciliation. “We’re going to Jerusalem,” she told them. “If we can see him, we should. I love him and I miss him. I know you all do, too.” She paused, her heart clearly heavy. “Besides, Jesus is in trouble. He needs us.”
It was a quiet trip to the city, and along the way James caught himself torn by his conflicting emotions. The anger and rejection, the sense of betrayal Jesus had brought by his actions. But also a simmering fear. Because the closer they got to Jerusalem, the more they heard the murmurings. The people of Israel wanted to kill Jesus.
Heated tension, mobs of angry Israelites, days of protests, and everything spun wildly out of control. Jesus was arrested and word on the street was that he’d been beaten—almost to death. James could hardly console their mother. “Please, James,” she told him. “I need to see Jesus . . . tell him I love him . . . just one more time.”
James took the matter personally, and he desperately wanted to help her. But it was Friday and the decision had been made. Jesus would be crucified—his crime, the one James had feared would eventually be Jesus’s undoing. His claim to be the king of the Jews. Jesus the Messiah. He had taken the whole act too far, and now he was going to die because of it.
“I’ll get you there,” James told his mother and brothers. “We’ll go to him, see if we can stop the soldiers.” Jesus might’ve been crazy, but he wasn’t dangerous. He’d done nothing worthy of the death penalty. They ran, pushing their way through the throng of people. As in Jesus’s life, the crowd was split—some people wailed, begging for the soldiers to have mercy. Others mocked Jesus, demanding his crucifixion.
Here in Jerusalem, no one recognized James and his brothers, no one pointed and stared at their mother. James wasn’t sure he would’ve cared if they had. The shock was wearing off, reality setting in.
His brother, his best friend, was about to be killed on a cross.
Finally, they jostled their way to a position where they could see him . . . they could see Jesus. They reached the spot just as the first nail was being driven into his wrist. Next to James, his mother cried out. “No . . . no, not Jesus!”
The wailing grew louder, but the soldiers carried on. His other wrist—his feet—nailed to the cross. James couldn’t talk, couldn’t draw a full breath. What was happening? Jesus might not be God, but he was still his brother. “Let me go to him,” he shouted at the soldier in his way. “He’s my brother!”
“Get back!” The soldier hit James, knocking him to the ground. “One step closer and I’ll lock you up!”
James scrambled to his feet, but before he could try once more to force his way past the soldier, his mother took his arm. Tears streamed down her face. “No, James. This is his choice . . . the reason he came to us.” She trembled, barely standing beneath her breaking heart. “He must finish his work.”
For a long moment James looked at her, understanding fully what he had always guessed to be true. His mother believed Jesus. She, too, was one of his followers. James slowly put his arm around her shoulders and for the next two hours he did the only thing he could do. He held his grieving mother and prayed to God for the soul of his brother Jesus.
Tears streamed down his face as Jesus gasped for breath, dying on the cross. Every wonderful time, every childhood memory played again in his mind and he wondered if he could take the pain. Jesus had always been there for him when they were growing up. Now James wanted to be there for Jesus, but he could do nothing. Nothing at all.
When at last Jesus drew his final breath, broken and battered, he cried out from the cross, “It is finished . . . Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
James turned to his mother and brothers and pulled them close, crying with them, holding them. Before he could say a single word, the ground began to shake . . . a menacing, terrifying earthquake. All around people began to scream, and as the ground split and opened up, there was a terrible sound.
Like everyone else, James turned to see what horrific thing might make such a noise. What he saw brought him to his knees. The curtain of the temple was being torn in two from the top down. But not a thing was touching it.
In a rush, like wind through a canyon in a sudden storm, the truth came upon James. Jesus had been right all along. The miracles, all of them had been true stories. Not fables. Jesus really had walked on water. In the distance James heard one of the soldiers call out, “Surely, this was the son of God.”
But it was too late to tell Jesus, too late to make things right. James buried his face in the dirt and cried out, “Forgive me . . . please, Jesus . . . forgive me!”
The days blurred together in a dark and painful montage of memories and regret, and finally it was Sunday, the first day of the week. James was at his home, wishing for one m
ore hour, one more chance, when he heard a sound behind him. With a start he turned, and though the door remained locked, there stood—
“Jesus! You’re alive!” Of course he was alive! He had risen from the dead, just like he had talked about doing while he was alive. James came to him. He fell to his knees and hung his head. “Forgive me, Jesus . . . please . . . I was wrong.”
“James . . .” Jesus touched his brother’s shoulder. “Look at me.”
James did as he was told. He lifted his head and for a long time he looked into the eyes of Jesus. Never in all his life had James felt such love, sensed such grace and mercy in a single heartbeat. “Stay, Jesus . . . live with me.” James brought his hands together, pleading. But even as he said the words, he knew the answer.
“I cannot stay.” Jesus helped James to his feet and for the most wonderful moment the two of them embraced. Brother to brother, like old times. “You will always be my brother, James.” Jesus stepped back. “But now you will be my disciple. And you will lead my church in Jerusalem.”
“Yes, my Lord.” James bowed again and their eyes met once more. “I will serve you all the days of my life.”
And with that . . . Jesus was gone. But as James stood there he vowed to make good on his promise. He would serve Jesus all the days of his life. He would tell the stories of Jesus and lead people to follow his teachings. He would do so every day, all the while remembering their times as children, and this, their final meeting. Because until the end of his earthly life, Jesus would be his brother . . . his best friend.
His God.
Number one New York Times bestselling author KAREN KINGSBURY is America’s favorite inspirational novelist with more than twenty million copies of her award-winning books in print. Karen has more than a dozen novels that have hit #1 on national lists. She lives in Tennessee with her husband, Don, and their five sons, three of whom are adopted from Haiti. Their actress daughter, Kelsey, is married to Christian artist Kyle Kupecky.
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