A Day with a Perfect Stranger

by David Gregory

  I looked him straight in the eye. “I couldn’t trust any God who would let that happen to her.”

  HE RESPONDED slowly and quietly. “What you and your sister have endured is horrible. God hates it, just as you do. But how much of the world’s evil would you like him to stop?”

  “All of it!” I felt tears welling up in my eyes. “All of it! Can’t he do that?”

  “Yes, he could.”

  “Then why doesn’t he?” I felt the first tears trickle down my cheeks. Oh, great. I’m starting to blubber. “I mean, look at my sister. Look at what that did to her. She starts sleeping around when she’s in junior high. She gets pregnant. She drops out of school. She never trusts men. She’s had two failed marriages with absolute jerks. She can’t hold a decent job, she drinks too much, and she keeps looking for I-don’t-know-what in these guys she takes home. Are you saying this was God’s plan for her?”

  I fumbled in my bag for a Kleenex, dabbed my eyes, then looked up at him. I saw something I never expected to see. His eyes were tearing up too.

  “No,” he said softly. “No. That is not God’s ultimate plan for her. And it breaks my heart that she has had to go through all that. It breaks the Father’s heart too.”

  Seeing his tears made mine return. “Then why didn’t God stop it?”

  “Mattie, there are no words I could say that would make sense, no reasons that would take away your pain. But I can tell you this. God is at work restoring people to their original design: to be connected to him, to be in a love relationship with him by their own choosing. One day the evil will be done away with, and all that will be left is good.”

  “But what about the people who do such evil in this world?”

  “All things will be accounted for. The victims will be avenged, the perpetrators punished, the evil eradicated, the good rewarded. It’s living during this not-yet time that’s the tough part—knowing how terrible things are sometimes and how good they ought to be.”

  “I just don’t understand why we have to wait.”

  “When humanity turned its back on God, it plunged itself into a world of great evil. Because of his love for people, God is at work making them into what he intended them to be. But he doesn’t force them. That’s the only way love can work. You have to choose to receive love, and you have to choose to give love. If you don’t choose freely, it’s not love.”

  “So is that it?” I asked, dabbing my eyes once more. “Are we just resigned to living with all this?”

  “Recovering what humanity lost is a slow, person-by-person process. The human heart, once distanced from God, is not easily won back to its source of life and goodness. It seems like it would be, but it isn’t.”

  “It just doesn’t seem fair. My sister didn’t ask to be abused.”

  “No, she didn’t. It wasn’t fair. It was horrible. God knows how horrible it was.”

  “I doubt that. I really doubt that. How could he know, sitting up there, or wherever, just watching?”

  An expression of genuine hurt came over his face. “Is that what you think God does? Distance himself from the pain of people?”

  “That’s what it seems like.”

  “Humanity’s rejection of God was incredibly painful for him. He had to watch his own children fall into darkness. Can you imagine what it would be like to watch Sara’s life spiral downward due to drugs?”

  That image made me cringe on the inside. “Okay. So it was hard for God to watch us. But he doesn’t do anything about it.”

  He shook his head. “No, you’re wrong. He did the most that could be done. That guy on the first plane, the one talking to you about God—remember him?”

  “How could I forget?”

  “He didn’t know you, so he didn’t have the most sensitive approach—”

  “You can say that again.”

  “But he did have some things right. He was right about the incredible suffering that God endured at the hands of humanity in his effort to win them back. You saw The Passion of the Christ.”

  “Which I regretted.”

  “The violence that Jesus endured only makes sense if you understand that here was God taking upon himself the punishment for the sins of humanity. He would do anything to be reconnected with those he loves—even die for them.”

  “Even if Jesus was God dying for humanity, what good did it do? Everything is still so screwed up on this planet. I mean, it’s been two thousand years.”

  “What Jesus did was open a way back to God. He provided forgiveness—a clean slate—and the opportunity for people to be connected with God.”

  “But then what do you do? Once someone has connected with God, do they just sit around saying, ‘Hey, now I’m connected to God!’?”

  He laughed. “No. Not at all. Once you and God are joined to each other, you do what you do in any relationship: converse with him, get to know him, learn to delight in him.”

  “You mean you pray?”

  “Yes. Although that word may not describe it well for you.”

  “But anyone can pray to God.”

  “Yes, but not everyone can hear him talk back. That’s what a true relationship is all about. It’s about deeply communing with another person. Once you establish a connection with God, he will teach you.”

  “Teach me what?”

  “To listen.”

  “Do you think that’s what Nick is doing?” I asked. “Learning to listen?”

  “It’s part of what he’s doing—a crucial part.”

  “But what exactly does that involve—other than reading the Bible, which Nick has been doing lately. Anyone can do that.”

  “Yes, but not everyone can hear God speaking to them through it like Nick now can.”

  I was taken aback by his statement. “What? What makes Nick so special?” He is my husband, and he is talented, but he doesn’t seem that extraordinary to me.

  “What makes Nick so special is that he is no longer the person he used to be. God has given him a new spirit.”

  “But what’s the difference between that and just becoming religious? It’s the same thing.”

  A baby was crying a number of rows back. I turned that direction. It might have been crying for a while; I’d been pretty wrapped up in our conversation. Three years before, the sound would have driven me crazy, but with a two-year-old of my own now, I had a lot more patience. The mother stood up and walked the baby toward the rear of the plane. I turned back to Jay.

  He resumed. “It’s not the same thing at all. Just the opposite. Becoming religious is about outward things mostly. Do this. Don’t do that. Go here. Avoid going there. I’m talking about someone becoming new from the inside out. When you put your trust in Jesus, God gives you a brand-new spirit, a clean one.”

  “You mean, like a new attitude?”

  “No, an actual new human spirit. The old one was dead to God. It couldn’t connect with him. You have to have a new one, one that’s alive to God. He then comes to live in you, and he connects with you on the deepest possible level—a level where you can hear him.”

  “So you’re saying Nick is experiencing this now?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does that mean exactly? Nick isn’t hearing an audible voice from God, is he?”

  “No, of course not. He doesn’t need to. God’s Spirit can communicate directly with Nick. Usually the Spirit does that through God’s written word.”

  “The Bible?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what if someone does establish this connection with God? What does God have to say to them?”

  “The things I wrote before, for one.”

  “The poetry? I thought you said your father wrote that.”

  “God is my father.”

  That sounded a little strange, but I let it pass. “Those things were from the
Bible?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But I’ve always thought of the Bible as mostly a rule book…how to be a good person, you know.”

  “Then you’ve missed its message entirely.”

  He reached for his pen and wrote some more as I watched. When he finished, he handed the pad to me. “Does this sound like a rule book?”

  I read what he had written.

  Therefore I am now going to allure you;

  I will lead you into the desert

  And speak tenderly to you.

  I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.

  As the bridegroom rejoices over his bride,

  So I rejoice over you.

  Therefore my heart yearns for you.

  One day, you will call me “my husband.”

  I will betroth you to me forever;

  I will betroth you to me in love.

  I have made myself one spirit with you.

  I nourish you; I cherish you.

  I give myself up for you.

  I lay down my life for you.

  I looked up at him. “The Bible says these things?”

  “Yes. God wants to say them to you. He wants to say them when you read his word. He wants to whisper them to you as you go through your day. When you stop to be quiet and listen, he wants to say these things, and so much more, to your heart. That’s the way Jesus lived on earth. He listened to his father’s voice.”

  “So are you saying that Christianity is just sitting around quietly and listening?”

  “No, hardly. Life with the God who loves you is many things. Loving God and loving others, when you boil it down. But no one can do that adequately. Only God can. That’s why he joins himself to people, to live his supernatural life through them. A life of love is simply the outflow of God through a person.”

  “And that comes through listening?”

  “In large part. Your heart is changed by deeply knowing God’s heart toward you. Hearing how you are loved. Hearing how you are forgiven. Hearing how you are accepted and delighted in and how you have a special place in God’s family. What if you lived in a place where these were the constant messages you received?”

  “That would be a nice place.”

  “And it’s available to you now. You can find that place in Jesus Christ, through faith in him.”

  I thought about the messages that I did consume—about needing to be the perfect mom, the perfect wife, the successful professional, the woman who could keep up with models who were always younger, prettier, skinnier. Who could measure up to all of it?

  He continued. “What God wants to say to you is something you need to hear from him every day, just as Sara needs to hear from you and be shown every day that you love her.”

  I thought about Sara. Then for some reason my sister popped back into my mind. “What about Julie?” I asked somberly. “She hasn’t experienced much of God’s love.”

  “That doesn’t mean God hasn’t loved her. I can tell you this: in the midst of all her pain, your sister will choose to be reconnected with God. She will know his love deeply. And there will come a day when God will personally wipe away every tear from her eyes. She’ll never hurt again. And the hurt she did experience here will seem as nothing to her then, for she will have God.”

  “But she’s having to go through so much now. And I hurt so much for her.”

  “You know what? She hurts for you, the things you are having to go through. The issue isn’t whether we’ve experienced pain. All people have, even those who seem to have it all together. God is bigger than people’s pain, and he can heal it. God’s love heals all.”

  I sat back, somewhat stunned. “This isn’t at all what I understood Christianity to be.”

  “It’s what you were designed for: to be joined to God, to know his love, to relate to him intimately.”

  I certainly didn’t want to commit myself to anything, but I couldn’t help but ask the logical question. “So what do I do with this?”

  “You have to answer this: do you want to be joined to perfect love?”

  A FLIGHT ATTENDANT came on the overhead speaker and announced that we were starting our descent into Tucson. Jay put his tray table up. I noticed that he hadn’t reclined his seat.

  I sat quietly in my thoughts for a moment. I can’t believe what I’m considering. I got on this plane, avoiding God and ready to divorce Nick, and now…But do I have to go down this path to…

  I waited for Jay to turn to me before I spoke. “Are you implying that I have to go down the same path as Nick to save my marriage?”

  “No.”

  “But it seems like it. Here Nick is going off in his own direction, and I just feel like he’s getting farther away from me.”

  “That depends on what you mean,” he said. “Nick is getting farther away from trying to find fulfillment in life without God. So if that is your common ground, you’re right.”

  That doesn’t sound particularly hopeful.

  He continued. “But in a very real sense, Nick is moving closer to you. He is growing in his ability to truly know you and truly love you. That’s what you want in your marriage, isn’t it—to be known and loved?”

  “Yeah. That would be nice.”

  “And Nick is learning to do that better. Of course, he won’t ever do it perfectly. He can’t fill the deepest parts of your soul. Only God can.”

  Maybe so. But I still wish I had more of that from Nick. “You say Nick is changing, learning to love better. How—” I don’t know any way not to make this sound self-centered. “How is that going to happen? Because I’m not going to feel all that loved if Nick just sits around all day reading his Bible and listening to God.”

  “Is he doing that now?”

  “Well, no.”

  Actually, despite my adverse reaction to Nick’s God thing, I couldn’t deny that he had been a better husband the last number of weeks. Not that I gave him much credit for it, but he had been more attentive, a little less selfish, and certainly more emotionally present. And he is taking some time off to take care of a two-year-old, which really is a miracle.

  “Learning to love well takes time,” Jay said, “because it means laying down our selfish interests and living for the sake of another. That’s a major shift. So you can’t put a timetable on it. It’s not like learning in a classroom.”

  “But…” This is going to sound petty. “It annoys me when Nick gets up at six o’clock now on Wednesdays. He has this men’s group that he’s started to go to. It’s kind of a Bible study, I guess. I don’t know. It’s just so unlike Nick.”

  He laughed. “You don’t expect Nick to teach himself, do you? Has it occurred to you that maybe these guys will actually help Nick learn to experience God deeply and so love you better?”

  “That’s the last thing that would have occurred to me.”

  “You know, you haven’t realized it, but Nick’s side of this marriage is taking care of itself. He will end up being a better husband than you ever thought he could be. The question now is, will you start growing into the kind of wife you could be? The only way you can do that is to have God himself living in you and to learn to hear his voice.”

  I hadn’t been paying attention to our flight, and I was startled when the plane landed with a jolt. We taxied briefly. I sat, thinking.

  We stopped at the gate. As usual, everyone rose. A Hispanic couple with a child and an infant stood up across the aisle from us. The mother looked toward the bin above us.

  Jay stood up and said something to her in fluent Spanish. She smiled, pointed at the bin, and said something in reply. Jay reached overhead and pulled out two small suitcases and set them in the aisle.

  He turned back toward me.

  I stood as well. “How many languages do you speak?”

  “All of them.�
�

  “What do you mean, all of them?”

  “I mean all of them.”

  “All the languages there are?”

  “Yes.”

  “Say something in Mandarin for me.”

  He spoke in what sounded like Chinese. I wasn’t sure what to say. “No one can know every language. There are thousands of them.”

  “I can.”

  I just stared at him.

  “I’ve had a lot of time to practice, so to speak.”

  The aisle had cleared almost to our row. Jay leaned toward me. “We were talking about listening to God.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Would you like to practice a little?”

  “Sure, I suppose.” I had no idea where this was going.

  He half whispered just above the noise of the passengers. “When your sister, Julie, has a baby boy one day, tell her not to worry about clothing. She can borrow yours.”

  “But I have a girl.”

  “I know. But starting in January, you’ll have plenty of boy clothes. Congratulations, by the way.” He smiled broadly, turned into the aisle, and walked off the plane.

  I stood, motionless and speechless. I haven’t told anyone that—not even Nick.

  After a few seconds I snapped out of my daze. I gathered my things as quickly as I could. Three people went by in the aisle before I finally cut in front of someone, virtually knocking her out of the way. Sorry. I have someone to catch. I rushed down the aisle, pulling my suitcase behind me, then darted past a group of people in the jet bridge leading into the terminal.

  “Sorry. Sorry!”

  I burst into the terminal and looked to the right, then to the left, then straight ahead. No one. I looked in every direction again. Nothing.

  I glanced at the signs above me. Ground transportation was to the right. I ran past the gates and the shops and all the people waiting for their next destination. My eyes scanned to and fro while my brain processed clues from the last few hours.

  And then it hit me—what had been right before my eyes the whole time.

  I bolted toward the end of the terminal. Seeing an information counter, I veered over.