A Home for the Heart

by Michael Phillips

  A ready example springs to mind. Even though I had been thinking and praying about it for years, it was not really until I sat down to write you concerning my thoughts on a parentally supervised premarital apprenticeship that the whole plan fit together into a harmonious and scriptural order. That accounts for the length of that letter. (I hope you did not fall asleep reading it!) I was really doing two things at once—yes, I was writing to you, but at the same time I was sifting the ideas and getting them settled within myself.

  I have to do that with everything—to think through my ideas on many different levels and from many different angles . . . so that I will know my conclusions are valid. Writing about it—thinking on paper, as it were—helps toward that end.

  Do you see what I mean, Corrie? You are a journal keeper and writer too. Is it anything like this for you?

  It has caused me no little grief in the past when people have taken my confidence in discussing some disputed spiritual point as evidence of arrogance or pride. Although I must confess to a certain share of human pride, I fail to see the arrogance in my having thought through and prayed about some matter in more depth than another and then expressing my emerging conclusions with boldness. It seems to me that people like to see confidence in those who agree with them but are put off by confidence in a man whose well-constructed views differ from their own half-baked opinions.

  I think my assertions have especially confused people because I am not the sort they expect boldness from. I am really more of a timid man than you might realize—often embarrassed and without words when I first meet people, and I have often wondered what they think of me at first meeting.

  I am wandering dreadfully from the point at hand—and yet I sense your forgiveness. Oh, but I love writing to you, Corrie. Knowing that you care and are interested in what I think makes more difference than you can possibly realize.

  Even what I have been attempting to explain is something I do not recall thinking or writing about in quite this depth before. The process is happening right before your very eyes! It seems I cannot begin to write without ideas emerging onto the page before me that I hadn’t previously considered.

  And now my time is gone, and I must post this letter.

  With anticipation for the journey that will be so soon upon me, I am, as always,

  Yours,

  Christopher

  Dear Corrie,

  Now I am on my way to California!

  I left Richmond yesterday, traveled north on the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac, and then east, no doubt on the very line you took. I am sitting in a relatively quiet coach on the afternoon of my second day, ready at last to set pen to paper again to you.

  The many feelings that swept over me as the train pulled out of the Richmond station are impossible to describe.

  Mr. McKittrick, the young man who took my place at the farm, drove me into the city with the two cases that contain my few worldly possessions. Mrs. Timms shed a few tears when I left the farm—the poor stoic woman!—and a lump rose in my throat as well. We had become more attached to one another, each in our own way, than perhaps we realized.

  But once on my way, with every clack of the great iron wheels along the thick iron rails beneath us, I could feel my past life fading into the distance and new vistas opening before me. I could literally feel former weights and concerns slipping off my shoulders with each mile.

  Please do not misunderstand me, I have no regrets for the path in life I have chosen and where it has led me. Although there were heartaches and times of great loneliness, I would trade none of them for what the Father has shown me of himself through them. Yet how could I not feel a great exhilaration to anticipate walking through these new doors he has opened for us, especially when you will be walking through them with me? How could I not feel a bursting exuberance at the thought of seeing you again?

  With all these things on my mind, sifting through the past five years to find meaning in it, at the same time as I was looking excitedly ahead, the miles went by rapidly. . . .

  As I read the several pages of rambling thoughts from Christopher’s hand, I could sense what he’d written to me about earlier—that he was struggling, even as he wrote to me, to find what he called “perspective” and “order” in this great change that was coming to his life.

  I could not help remembering all the thoughts that had filled my own mind both when I’d left Miracle Springs to go east and then when I’d boarded the train in Pennsylvania to begin my journey home. Of course, on that last journey I’d had Christopher’s wonderful surprise letter to keep me company, and he had occupied most of my thoughts for several days!

  For an introspective person, travel is always such a thought-producing thing. Going someplace new has always sent my brain off in a dozen new directions. I could tell Christopher’s journey was doing the same for him. He was thinking about me, and about what it meant that he was crossing the entire country. Every mile he described new things he saw and what they made him think about. But traveling also made him look back (as it always did for me) and reflect upon what he was leaving behind. He was wondering if he would see people and places again . . . wondering what the future held. He was excited and expectant, yet thoughtfully and reflectively so.

  I received a stack of letters that he’d written three days in a row—pages and pages. How wonderful to get to know someone you love so well! I did nothing but read his letters all afternoon—all of them completely through twice from start to finish.

  Chapter 19

  A Sad Letter from Chicago

  After Christopher’s happy letters of beginning, I hurt for him so when the following one came.

  Dear Corrie,

  I am sitting in a lonely hotel room in the great city of Chicago, feeling lonelier and more despondent than I think I have ever felt in my life.

  Oh, that my Corrie were here! Just to talk to her would comfort me in my hour of desolation.

  Traveling far from home can be so sad and lonely. Did you ever feel such things? Some persons are more prone to depression and melancholy than others, and I must confess that I am such a one. Though I love solitude and do not need constant involvement with people, yet there is a sense of loneliness that comes upon me at times and renders me quite disconsolate.

  All around are people. The city bustles with activity. But there is no place where one such as myself can feel at home. That the Savior had no place to lay his head takes on a deeper, more poignant meaning.

  That is how I feel this morning, Corrie. I have this room where I can lay my head, but it provides no home for my journeying and discouraged soul.

  You are far away. God himself is far away. I feel so alone, and all I can do to reach out to you across the miles is put these scratchy marks we call words onto this piece of paper. It seems it will not satisfy. Alas, it is the only consolation I have.

  Early yesterday morning, on the train, I chanced to meet a dear but needy woman with two lovely children. They boarded the eastbound train in Toledo, and immediately my heart went out to them. They were nice looking all three, well dressed, and bore none of the signs a first glance would associate with poverty. The mother could just as well have been a woman of means and gentility. Indeed, she carried herself with a poise and confidence to indicate such.

  Somehow—I cannot actually recall how it came about—we engaged each other in conversation. She was a fellow believer, and we began to converse about many subjects of mutual interest about the Christian life—church experiences, favorite passages of scripture, and even a common passion for the world’s lost, which drove her, I must say, even more deeply than it does me.

  If I did not know better, I would have thought the woman an evangelist herself, even a prophetess. She was astonishingly articulate considering, as she freely shared without the least shame, her lack of formal education. I asked her how she came to be so knowledgeable in the ways of God. She answered that she had sought him in his Word and that he had revealed truth to her
in her own spirit.

  We had such fellowship, Corrie! It was almost like talking with you. Many of the same bonds seemed to spring up between us. Only later did she begin to share about her personal life. She seemed to trust me entirely, and I felt no awkwardness in it, only joy at the opportunity to help, to be of service to another dear one of my kind. Here was ministry indeed—the chance to bring kindness and acceptance to one who was struggling to walk in her new life, free from bonds still attempting to entrap her from out of her past.

  As it turned out, the poor woman—she gave her name as Annie Bowers—was virtually penniless. She had been married, she said, but was not at the moment, though she still spoke of her husband. The circumstances were quite vague, and I did not want to pry too deeply. The two children had different fathers, and once she told me, the fact became clear enough from looking at them. She was attempting to reestablish links with her own relations, from whom she had been estranged for many years, and thus was bound for Chicago. She had spent her last penny for the train passage.

  During one of our stops, I bought a meal for Mrs. Bowers and the two youngsters. She was so appreciative that she wept, saying she wished there was something she could do to repay my kindness. I replied that seeing smiles of happiness on each of their faces was compensation enough.

  We boarded the train and resumed our journey.

  During the afternoon Mrs. Bowers became more and more emotional and began to share more and more personally about her past life. She cried and asked for my help, asked me what she should do about many circumstances, asked for the insight of my spiritual eyes. The woman’s earlier poise gave way to the pain of a deeply confused and seeking heart, tormented by a past that had been agonizing and painful. I began to see that there were two women present—the radiant and peaceful Christian who lived confidently in the newness of faith, and the mistreated woman who still suffered from a past she could not entirely escape.

  I asked what she planned to do once reaching Chicago. She did not know, she said. The Lord would provide for their needs. Did she have lodgings? I asked. She shook her head. What were her plans? Again she was vague, repeating her conviction that the Lord would take care of them.

  We arrived in Chicago midafternoon, and it was there I made a decision I will always wonder about. Though the train was due to continue on, I decided to get off with my new friend. I felt that the meeting had been far from accidental, and that the Lord had certainly brought her my way in order that I might do what I could to help. I spoke with the ticket agent and was able to exchange what remained of my ticket for passage on the next train west, though it would not be for several days. I knew my decision would delay my seeing you, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make because the need in this young family, without a man to guide them, was so great.

  Again, when I explained what was in my heart to do, Mrs. Bowers wept and expressed the profoundest and humblest gratitude.

  Retrieving my own bags and hers, I hired a cab, which took us to a hotel in town. I booked a room for her and her son and daughter, paying for a week in advance, and procured a room for myself on the next floor up, paying only for the days necessary until the next train. Then we all ate dinner at the hotel’s restaurant and enjoyed the evening together before retiring. I assured her that I would do everything I could to see her reunited with her family before my departure and that she need have no anxiety about anything.

  I slept soundly that night, which was last night as I write it now to you, content in the opportunity the Father had given me. I was disturbed in the middle of the night by a faint sound. But I rolled over, sleepily thinking it was a noise from the street outside or perhaps the remnant from some dream. When I awoke it was morning.

  I arose and proceeded to dress, noticing nothing amiss other than that it seemed my trousers and coat were thrown upon the back of a chair when I thought I had placed them in the wardrobe. I thought nothing of it, however, but put them on, then went to the room of my friends.

  There was no answer to my knock. This I thought strange, for it was still somewhat early. But I descended to the restaurant, thinking perhaps the little family would already be there, for we had agreed to meet for breakfast. There was no sign of them.

  I ordered a cup of coffee and sat down to wait. When after some time they still didn’t come, I rose from the table and went to pay for my coffee before trying the room once more.

  Can you imagine my shock when I pulled out my wallet and found it empty!

  I flew back up to my room and searched everywhere, but not a single bill was to be found. It appeared that now I was the one who was penniless!

  I raced down again to Mrs. Bowers’ room and knocked, I will admit, with a growing feeling of desperation, futility, and a great sense of my own foolhardiness. There was, of course, no answer.

  I raced down to the desk clerk and inquired about the woman and two children in room 217. They had checked out hours ago, he said, while it was still dark.

  Oh, Corrie . . . Corrie! I cannot tell you what a miserable day I have spent trying to make sense—which I cannot!—of this unexpected turn of events.

  Try as I might, I cannot lay deceit to the poor woman’s charge as I recall—even now with fondness—our hours of sharing and talking together on the train. There was a sincerity in her being that I cannot take from her.

  What happened, then, to cause her to turn against me? What gave her old ways the upper hand over the new life in God she wanted so badly to live?

  I have no answers. I have spent the whole day seeking to sort through the entire episode, and I can find no rational cause to explain how she could have done such a thing to one who had helped her and to whom she had expressed such gratitude. I would have given her whatever would have been in my limited power to give. Why then did she resort to duplicity?

  I do not want to grow cynical, but the demons of doubt and mistrust and judgment bark loudly in my ears. Just when I thought I was at last putting to rest difficult attitudes I had wrestled with from my experience in the church, now again I find the hand of help bitten by the very ones I have been trying to feed.

  I recall your question of such a short time ago—in fact, I have read that letter of yours over several times today! “What if God puts things in our path that seem like they are from him, but that he doesn’t want us to do?”

  Are there times he wants us to withhold help from another? I cannot believe it could be so. It goes against everything I have always believed. Yet how did I help this woman? Did I really help her at all? Did my presence only put temptation in her path that eventually caused her to forsake the new life trying to blossom, and revert instead to life in the old wineskin of her past?

  Hence I cannot escape the question—did I err in what I attempted to do for her and her children?

  I do not know, Corrie, and it torments me. Not that I am unwilling to face having done wrong. Nothing could be easier for me than to admit my own sin. That is not the torment.

  The agony is rather the blow this experience deals to my heart, which wants to love and give and serve others, and especially my brothers and sisters of faith, but now finds thoughts of self-protection and wariness rising up to guard the flanks of my being lest I be so ill-used again.

  I do not want to think such things! I do not want to become self-protective and wary. Yet the pain of being taken advantage of is sometimes too great to keep such motives of self from crying out to be heeded.

  What is ministry, Corrie? Is this the price that must be paid to be Christ’s servant in the lives of others?

  Oh, but it is a high price! And sometimes I wonder whether I am willing to pay it!

  Do I complain at the cost? Am I yet so lowly and immature? Scarce wonder that I do not yet come anywhere near reflecting the image of him whom it is my prayer to emulate!

  Me . . . like Christ! Ha! I am no more like him than those who spat upon him as he carried the cross up the hill to Golgotha.

  I pray to be like
him. I pray to have my flesh crucified with him. I pray that my life might count for something in his kingdom. And yet at the first opportunity for me to demonstrate my sincerity in all these ways, my flesh rises up with complaint after complaint that I have been ill-treated by those I attempted to serve.

  What else is the Christlike life? My Lord gave and gave and gave, only to be rejected by the very recipients of his love. I pray to be like Jesus. But what is it I think such a life might be if not to be rejected and treated as he was?

  I should rejoice in what has befallen me. But instead I complain and feel sorry for myself! How little do I deserve to be called by my name, which is so like his!

  I am sorry for all those acrid words, Corrie. Were it not that I want you to know every fiber of my being, good and ugly, I would tear up this letter immediately. But you must know me as I am.

  After writing the above, I was so distraught that I went out for a long walk. I was gone from my room three or four hours.

  I wept. I prayed. I thought. And I searched high and low throughout the city where I thought perhaps I might by chance set eyes again upon the woman who was so in my thoughts. My heart was so sore to see her again, and to look into her eyes and simply ask, “Why?” But nowhere was she to be found.

  Gradually my spirit calmed, and I began to pray for her, though I must confess it was with difficulty, for I did not know what to pray. Mostly I knew I had to pray that God would bring forgiveness into my own heart. For did not Jesus himself pray, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”? How could I not pray the same toward her?