“I want a hundred percent. I’m not getting it.”
“Trust God that He has something better for you than the Flight of the Bumblebee. File that under ‘been there, done that,’ and move on to better things.”
“Might be easy for you to say.”
“You know as well as I do that violin is not your life, Ivan.”
“Jesus Christ is.” He knew, and yet in the fog of pain, he had forgotten.
“You got it. Take away the violin and you haven’t lost everything. Take away Christ and you have absolutely nothing.”
“I can’t believe my little sister is reminding me of things I should know already.”
“You know how it goes. The fog of war and all that. Cheer up. Remember how God saved you?”
Ivan could see Grandma Yun ushering him and Quincy down the church aisle, past the pews, to stand among all the other little kids as they belted out a medley of hymns in front of the congregation, hymns sung out of tune as every little pair of preschooler eyes were on Grandma Yun directing the kids, who could barely stand still let along focus on singing. Ivan and Quincy had always stood in the back, straight and tall, singing to the best of their vocal abilities and meaning every word of that one hymn.
Jesus loves me, this I know…
That afternoon twenty-four years ago he had given his little heart to Jesus, desiring to love God and trust Him for the rest of his life. And now why did he find it hard to trust God? Why did he doubt God? Why did he forget God?
You have some sort of trust issue.
Willow hadn’t minced her words.
She was right. Ivan had questioned everything God had provided for him the last four months.
God had sustained him since Grandma Yun’s passing, but he wondered what his future would be.
God had been healing his wrist inside out, but he complained it wasn’t healing fast enough. God had kept his hands intact, but he complained about not being able to get back to violin.
God had given him a place to stay at Willow’s house, but he wondered when he would overstay her welcome.
God had brought him to Willow’s studio to show him the possibility of teaching piano, but he had balked at it even if it were only for a short season in his life.
Questioning God showed his lack of trust in perfect God.
Ivan admitted now that he had been putting stock in his own abilities, his talents, his gifts, his hands, his fingers, his violin. If Grandma Yun were alive today, she’d be sad. Perhaps she had been and it had killed her.
Quietly in his heart, Ivan began to pray.
Forgive me, Lord, for not trusting you.
Ivan knew then what he had to do.
Chapter Sixty
Ivan knew he was right. There would be food here. At 6:30 a.m. every Friday morning at the Seaside Chapel Men’s Bible Study Group meeting house at the Scrolls bookstore, the bagels and cream cheese spread appeared, looking like a million dollars right now to his empty stomach.
Oh boy, was he ever glad for free food. He hadn’t eaten on the five-hour Greyhound bus ride from Atlanta to St. Simon’s Island because he had slept on the trip, but he also hadn’t eaten the night before, skipping dinner to avoid imposing on Willow.
Rock bottom.
His one-month sojourn at Willow’s house had been good for his soul. He’d had lots of time to think about his life and what to do next. He still wasn’t sure about everything, but one thing he knew to do. He had to get back to St. Simon’s Island and ask Brinley to forgive him before he could move on to the rest of his life.
With the money he’d saved from the sale of his last violin—he had refused any payment for teaching Willow’s students—Ivan knew that he could buy a one-way bus ticket to St. Simon’s and have enough leftover to get food and a job.
Maybe Matt had another job available for him at the thrift shop. Matt, his most patient friend. A true brother in Christ.
For a place to stay, he could camp out at a campground somewhere.
“Don’t eat it all!” Sebastian Langston slapped Ivan’s back. “Good to see you, man. Has it been a month since you’ve been gone?”
“Yeah.”
“How’s that wrist?”
“It’s healing.” Somewhat. He needed to get back into therapy quickly.
“We’ve been praying for you, Ivan. Every week. Matt reminds us if we forget.”
Ivan glanced over at his old friend. “He’s a good friend.”
“We all are. If you need anything, holler. Do you need a place to stay?”
“Well, I do, but…” Ivan was trying to figure out how to say it without appearing needy or desperate, which he was, when Matt yelled at them.
“Take a number, Seb. Ivan’s staying at my house.”
“I guess I do have a place to stay,” Ivan said to Sebastian. He’d have to save the campground for later.
Sebastian wiped cream cheese off his chin. “When can you play in SISO again?”
“I don’t know.”
“Surely they want you back. You’re their star.” Sebastian motioned for him to sit down next to him in the circle of folding chairs. Sometimes Ivan wondered if Matt purposefully let them sit on these uncomfortable chairs to keep the Bible Study down to an hour flat.
“They have a new concertmaster.” Ivan settled down and wondered if it would look bad if he went back for a third bagel.
Sebastian shrugged. “I’ve heard that Warren guy play. I like you better.”
“Thanks, Seb.”
“We’ll keep praying for you until you can get back in shape.”
The door chime jiggled. Ivan looked up. Tristan Rao from Rao Family Physicians.
“Tristan.” Ivan shook Tristan’s hands. “Didn’t know you’re attending this Bible Study now.”
“Matt here is very persuasive,” Tristan said. “I’m sorry about your grandmother. She was a wonderful woman.”
“In heaven now with Grandpa.”
“Our consolation and comfort.” Tristan pointed to Ivan’s wrist. “How’s your therapy coming along?”
“Really tough.” Painful.
“I bet. Getting full mobility is going to take a lot of time. How long have you been at it?”
“Roughly two months.”
“You have four to six months to go. Take it easy.”
Ivan nodded, sipping coffee. It was hot and delicious. He downed it, then placed the empty cup on the floor. When he lifted his head, Tristan was opening his Bible and a bookmark fell out. It looked exactly like the bookmark that Brinley had given Ivan—
Why does everything have to remind me of her!
“Who’s teaching today?” Ivan asked, breaking his own muse.
“I am.” Sebastian raised his hand. “We’re going to go over what Pastor Gonzalez preached on Sunday and discuss how we’ve applied it to our lives this week. First, let’s pray to ask God to help us understand His Word.”
Ivan thought that Sebastian’s prayer was short and succinct. Then Sebastian handed Ivan an extra printout of the sermon notes from Sunday. Ivan was at Willow’s church in Atlanta the Sunday before, but he couldn’t remember what was preached.
All he knew was that he missed Seaside Chapel and wished there was something like that near Willow. She didn’t want to drive more than five or ten minutes, so Midtown Chapel was out of the question, since he had to carpool with her. Willow’s church was around the corner from her house. The congregational singing was passable, but the pastor’s sermons had put him to sleep every Sunday.
Yeah, I miss Seaside Chapel.
Sebastian swiped his iPad and found the Bible verse. He read Mark 8:36 aloud. “‘For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’”
Ivan had since sold his iPad. He held his three-dollar paperback Bible open as he scanned the sermon outline in his hands. Pastor Gonzalez had taken apart the verse, but it all boiled down to the last point on the printout.
Nothing in this world cou
ld compare to what a Christian had in Christ.
Yes, Ivan had the basic intangibles in Christ—salvation, eternal life—but he didn’t have the peace and joy that he should have.
“It’s funny how we sometimes think of the verse as it pertains to an unsaved person losing a soul while gaining the world, and while that is true, for a saved person, our souls are secure in heaven forever and we can never lose them.”
“No one can pluck us out of God’s hand.” Tristan flicked that bookmark in his fingers and for some reason it annoyed Ivan. It fell on the floor.
Ivan quickly reached it, and flipped it over, but there were no writing there.
What am I thinking?
He gave the bookmark back to Tristan, who muttered thanks.
“I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not have anything in this world and have my soul be right with God.” Sebastian looked around the room. “Truth is, that’s a struggle for me. My girlfriend wants things. Things, you know.”
“Mine’s the opposite.” Tristan shrugged. “She keeps giving things away. I mean—huh?”
Sebastian was clearing his throat and mumbling something.
“Pardon?” Tristan turned an ear toward Sebastian. “You said something?”
Sebastian cleared his throat again. “Let’s see if we can memorize this verse and we’ll take it through another week. It’s important for us to think about this long and hard.”
Whassup? Ivan looked from Tristan to Sebastian.
“Okay. Thanks, Seb.” Matt uncapped his pen, ready to write on a clipboard. “So any prayer requests?”
“I need a job,” Ivan admitted.
“Got a few new positions you can apply for,” Matt said. “My cashier had her baby, but she’s not coming back. There’s that and a few backroom jobs.”
“I’ll do it. Do you need me to reapply?”
“Nope.” Matt gave Ivan two thumbs up.
They went around the room adding prayer requests to the lists. Only four guys here today. Sparse. Everyone jotted down the prayer request. They moved on to the next. And the next.
It’s good to be home.
Ivan finished his coffee as he listened. Sick people needed healing. Career people needed directions.
“You know, that’s what I like about our group,” Ivan said before they began praying. “We pray for one another, care for one another, help one another.”
“Brothers in Christ, Ivan.” Matt slapped Ivan on his shoulder. “Brothers in Christ.”
Chapter Sixty-One
“Man, you still have pictures of your ex-wife all over the place.” Ivan put down his duffle bag on the floor and picked up an antique silver frame off an old console table near the door to the balcony overlooking the playground and pier.
Matt Garnett didn’t answer.
“That was a beautiful wedding, Matt.” Ivan remembered because he was Matt’s best man.
“Yeah. The most important day of my life before I got saved.”
Ivan stood at the window. Outside was cloudy. Beyond the live oaks and the playground, he could see the lighthouse where he and Brinley had—
He turned away. “Hey, Matt. Just want to thank you again for letting me stay here for a bit.”
“It’s not all freebie. You know you need to put in some good hours at my shop.”
“For sure.”
“Where’s your violin?”
“My what?”
Matt was standing there at Ivan’s duffle. “Violin, dude. Where is your violin?”
“I’m not playing it anymore.” Ivan didn’t want to tell him that he sold his last violin to pay for food and to keep up with the minimum payments on his bills. He’d have to declare bankruptcy soon, but he wanted to hold out as long as he could. No need to disgrace the memories of his grandparents, who had raised him better than this.
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, Ivan.”
Ivan lifted up his braced left wrist as if to prove his point.
“You’re such a whiner, Ivan. Remember when I beat you at track in tenth grade and you cried?”
“I did not!”
“Yeah. Sure. You said a bug flew into your eye. Like anyone’s going to believe it.”
“It did! A gnat of some sort!”
“Your ego flew into your eye, Ivan.” Matt elbowed him on the way to the small galley kitchen. “Want a sandwich?”
“What you got?”
“PBJ. Not grape, though. Ran out. Apricot is what I have. On sale.”
“Anything. I don’t care.” Ivan glanced at the distant lighthouse one more time.
He wondered how Brinley was doing. Where she was, who she was going out with. But he told himself it was a passing interest, these thoughts of his. Brinley and Christmas were over.
The month or so he had spent at Willow’s house in Atlanta had been therapeutic. He didn’t know anybody at her church, so they didn’t ask him questions he didn’t want to answer. For the most part, he kept to himself and was even able to sub for Willow a couple of times in her piano studio in exchange for room and board. Teaching little kids piano was easy and he didn’t have to turn his wrist, so it all worked out. He did his own physical therapy since he had no health insurance, and he could flex his wrist more now.
All in all, he was getting better.
Thank You, God. And I’m sorry I was such a pain in the neck.
Willow’s piano studio in Atlanta was smaller than his violin studio. He wondered if they might come together to expand their music studios, but he really didn’t want to move to Atlanta. He didn’t care for the traffic and people and noise and city life and all. If he went further and further out into Atlanta’s suburbia, the number of students would be fewer.
Yet somehow on St. Simon’s Island he managed to end up with forty students before his violin studio shut down due to his injury. He didn’t want to open a piano studio even though he could play it. He wasn’t as interested in piano as he was in violin. But now that his violin career was over, perhaps piano was as good a Plan B as any other.
Meanwhile, Matt had offered him a job at his thrift shop. Maybe he could get some discounts on summer clothes. He should replace his faded cargo shorts.
Matt handed him a triple-decker peanut butter and apricot jam sandwich.
They bowed to say grace. Ivan dug in. He hadn’t realized he was hungry again. Well, the bagels this morning only lasted so long.
“So what made you come back here, Ivan?”
“St. Simon’s is home.” And yet he wondered. With Grandma Yun gone and the house lost, was the island still home?
“You know that girl of yours—”
“Emmeline?”
“No, stupid.”
“Stop calling me stupid.”
“Anybody who dumped Brinley is stupid.” Matt laughed. “Anyway are you coming to church Sunday?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Just wondering. Brinley has joined our church.”
“So?” Ivan took a deep breath. “I don’t care, Matt.”
“Really, dude?” Matt closed the peanut butter jar and put it away in the refrigerator. “Funny. Brinley got saved. Her spiritual life is going way up. You’ve been saved a long time. Your spiritual life is going way down. Who is learning more about God and life and such?”
“And why does it matter to you?”
“Because I’m your friend. And a brother in Christ.”
Ivan didn’t reply. Didn’t want to continue talking. He had to sort it out.
With God.
And with Brinley.
“I need to get back to the shops,” Matt said. “You can come with me if you want, or hang out here. I’m waiting for a new shipment of music manuscripts. Nineteenth century. You might be interested.”
“Not anymore. But I’m sure someone will buy them from you.”
“Yes. Someone is. You know, the one who likes old things.”
Only one person he knew liked old things. “Brinley?”
“She bought all your violin music, you know. Said someday you’ll want them back.”
“She did?”
“No. I made that up. Of course, she did. That woman’s in love with you.”
I don’t want to hear that.
“You don’t want to hear that.”
“You know me too well.”
“Bro, I can hear you when you think aloud.” Matt shook his head as he unhooked a key from a nail on the wall. “Here’s the extra key to the house. Come and go as you please, but no pets. And I expect you to start paying rent soon.”
“Not to worry, Matt. I won’t be here long. I appreciate the work at your thrift shop, but sooner or later I’m going to have to get back to music.”
“You can always teach violin. Oh wait, the wrist. Bummer.” Matt shook his head. “I think that’s a cop-out, Ivan. You can teach. You just won’t find a way. Violin is not the only instrument you play.”
True, but I don’t want to hear that either.
“I can hear you.” Matt was at the door and Ivan was right behind him.
Ivan was going with him to the shops after all. He decided he didn’t want to mope about in Matt’s apartment for the next four or five hours. Better do something to take his mind off his jobless life.
“You can teach piano, right? You said you subbed for your sister.”
“Only for about a month.”
“Music is music, right?”
“There’s a big difference between violin and piano.”
“Really? All I know is that if you can’t play violin, find another instrument or do something else altogether. Life goes on. You know that, but you won’t humble yourself before God to ask for his help to enable you to move on.”
“I’ve asked for His help countless times. Silence is all I get.”
“Could it be because you don’t want answers that don’t match up with your preconceived plans?”
“My plans? Not working so far.”
“Exactly! You forgot Proverbs 3:5-6, the verse Pastor Gonzalez had everyone at church memorize last year, and which you expanded on in our Bible Study back in December. So how about an action plan, dude? Like, maybe: surrender all your plans to God and let Him clean up your mess?”
Share with Me: Seaside Chapel Book 1 Page 35
