A Home for the Heart

by Michael Phillips

  But there comes a point, it seems to me, that having things in common—even if they are common interests and common attitudes and even common spiritual perspectives—is not in itself enough to keep two people close and moving the same direction in life.

  You see, living always involves movement. When we talk about “life’s road” and “paths” diverging or coming together, we talk about walking down those roads and paths. It’s a step-by-step process. We are constantly taking steps, moving farther along whatever road or path we happen to be on.

  Those steps we take are our choices. Every step represents a choice or a decision we make—ten, twenty, fifty a day. Some are large steps, some are so tiny we don’t even realize we’ve made a choice at all. But each one represents a movement, a direction.

  And having things “in common” with another person doesn’t necessarily mean you are going in the same direction. The roads may have crossed one another briefly, or they may twist and turn in such a way that for a while they appear to be similar. But after both people continue to make dissimilar choices—in behavior and attitude and how they relate to people and how they respond to God’s leading—eventually the disparity in direction begins to show itself.

  In other words, as you and another person keep walking along and continue to develop the spiritual personalities that choices naturally develop, pretty soon you realize that, though you crossed paths for a while, you never were really on the same road at all!

  At the same time, people whose motivations and choices are similarly directed will, in time, nearly always find themselves drawn closer together. If they are heading toward a common goal, how can it be otherwise? No matter how far apart they may be, the distance between them will continue to shrink as they each approach that destination toward which their inner choices lead them. Two individuals whose sole motive is to make choices that, as the old book says, are an “imitation of Christ,” cannot help but draw closer together in spirit.

  Choice and life direction “in-common-ness” is the thing that draws individuals together, be they men or women, not the lesser kinds of in-common-ness that cannot help but fade away in time if the paths are differently pointed.

  So many people marry because for a short and temporary season of life their pathways cross and they seem, to their star-crossed eyes, to have everything in common. Alas, when the further passage of time reveals, by the ongoing direction of their character-producing choices, that their life’s roads could not have been more different. Then does marriage become a burdensome thing indeed!

  Such, I fear, is the sad case with Patrick Shaw’s daughter.

  For us, it is exactly such a scenario that my apprenticeship plan is designed to prevent. If, after a year of being around each other and working together and seeing one another at our worst, we do not know beyond doubt whether our choices are leading us in a common direction, then perhaps we deserve to be miserable together!

  I do not think that will happen, however. Your father is too wise a man—and he listens to One far wiser.

  Bless you!

  Christopher

  Dear Christopher,

  Everything you say makes so much sense.

  Though it is difficult to feel I no longer have much in common with people like Jennie and Laura, discovering “a commonality of choice and life direction,” like you call it, is so much greater a thing to be treasured.

  I am feeling so wonderfully content!

  Of course I desire with all my heart to be Mrs. Christopher Braxton someday. Yet I sometimes think I could go on this way forever. I am so happy. We are learning and growing and finding out so much about ourselves and each other, learning what it means to grow together and to live as Christians together. Why would we want to hasten an end to such a rich time? I know—don’t you?—that we will look back on this year as one of the most wonderful years of all our life together!

  Oh, I am content, Christopher.

  I know that, as you say, our inner choices are moving toward a common goal. The rest of this year will only make that direction all the clearer. If that is true, then why must we be in a hurry about anything? We are going where we are going together—so what difference does it make how soon we marry? If Pa should say, “Braxton, you’ve got to work another year—”

  I’m laughing to myself as I write, imagining Pa with a stern face saying it like that.

  But even if he should say that, what is that to us? We are still walking alongside each other—our roads still lead in the same direction.

  To see you every day is a delight. I do not need to have you all to myself. You cannot imagine how it stirs my heart and warms me inside to see you working and laughing and talking with Pa and Zack and Tad! How many young women enjoy the privilege of having their family truly love their husbands? And what a richness it adds to my sense of your love to know it extends to my family as well. I cannot imagine anyone marrying against their parents’ wishes. What an incomplete marriage it would be!

  Oh, Christopher, Christopher! You have made me so happy—not because you have swept me off my feet, but because you have always wanted the best for me . . . whether that best is you or not! How can you be so giving and unselfish?

  But I love you all the more for it!

  Corrie

  Dear Corrie,

  I don’t know if I will have the courage to give you this letter! I am writing it late, just before retiring. As always at such times, my thoughts are filled to overflowing with you.

  All this talk about it being “good” what we are doing and our being “content” to wait until the right time for marriage has caused me to think about the opposite side as well.

  So here I will balance the scales—and perhaps confuse you altogether!—by saying that I am eager to make you my wife as soon as possible.

  Do you ever find yourself thinking about what it will be like?

  I’m sure you do, just as I do. Right this minute you are probably lying in bed dreaming of me and Jesus and his great work within us and of your love for me. In the same way I will soon be lying in bed dreaming about you and the abundance of my life with you in the Spirit of Jesus.

  I am also dreaming—and here is the part where I don’t know if I will have the courage to give the letter to you!—of the day when we won’t have to say “good-night” and separate, but will just lie there together quietly and peacefully, praising our Father for his love and supreme goodness to us until we fall asleep in each other’s arms.

  Oh, Corrie, I do love you and long for you so much! We are already one, so I know I needn’t explain my feelings every time they rise up within me.

  I appreciate you so much, on so many levels. I appreciate your willingness to go through this year of waiting when so many young women would have objected. Thank you for your patience. It won’t be long before God has made of us a man and woman who are ready for marriage, not merely eager for it. He is now preparing me for you and you for me.

  Why would we desire to choose something less by rushing God’s plan for us? His plan is perfect, but it almost always takes more time than people are willing to give him.

  Do you remember when I saw you washing your hair the other day? I cherish that look on your face when you looked up from the basin, water and soap dripping off you, and saw me standing there.

  At first you were shocked. Then we both laughed.

  I’m sure your friend Jennie made sure she was always perfectly presentable whenever she saw her beau. Most young couples only see each other at their best. But that’s no preparation for a life together!

  I want you to see me at my worst—when I’m dirty and my hair’s not combed, when I’m grumpy, when I’m sweating from hard work, even when I’m impatient or frustrated or moody. I want you to know all of me—especially the bad side—so that you will know if you want to spend the rest of your life with it!

  My dreams of you are becoming more and more God-centered. Perhaps that is an aspect of this year that I did not anticipate—th
e changes that would take place within our mutual loves. The more time we give him, the more he can shake from us the fleshly attributes that typically draw men and women together. Thus he can perfect our love on all levels, even that of the flesh, because it is rooted and founded on something more lasting and eternal—that is, the spirit.

  Christopher

  Chapter 39

  Into a Brand-New Tizzy

  At the end of the summer, a letter came in the mail that took me by surprise—not so much the letter itself, but my reaction to it.

  Ever since I’d written back to Mr. Kemble, telling him that I couldn’t accept his offer to become a permanent writer for the Alta, I hadn’t thought nearly as much about writing as I always had before—professional writing, I mean. Of course I kept writing in my journal and to Christopher.

  I had continued to get invitations and offers from time to time, but they were not something I paid much attention to. Other newspapers from San Francisco and Sacramento inquired about my writing for them. And there were more invitations for me to speak, especially as people began thinking more about the 1866 elections. Several Republican candidates contacted me, wanting to know if I would speak on their behalf or even campaign for them. I didn’t pay them much mind either.

  Then I had a letter from the governor of California:

  Dear Miss Hollister,

  I hear from the inevitable political grapevine that circulates through this city that you are now back in California after two years in the East. I want to take this opportunity to welcome you back to the Golden State and offer my congratulations for all your effective efforts on behalf of the Union and its cause. Your byline became rather widely known here during your absence, and I took particular pride in my association with you, even flattering myself that I might have helped in some small way to propel you onto the national stage.

  I know that President Lincoln and many others in the East thought highly of you, and I want you to know that you had many admirers back home here in California as well, myself included. I read as many of your articles as came across my desk. I always felt you focused important perspectives as you viewed events, giving your readership more to ponder than the mere events about which you wrote. I certainly hope that we in California will be favored by more of your insightful journalism now that you are back home with us.

  Remembering your help in previous campaigns, I hope it would not be presumptuous of me to ask whether you would help us out again in the upcoming elections. A number of our Republican candidates on the ballot this fall face stiff fights, and I know they would welcome any words that you could write or speak publicly on their behalf. There would be occasions where I would, no doubt, be joining you at the podium.

  Finally, I am hoping you might be able to use your influence to convince your father to reconsider his decision not to seek reelection. He is a fine man, one of the most honest, humble, and straightforward legislators in all of Sacramento, and I consider it an honor to have served with him these past five years since I became governor. The Assembly will be poorer without him, and many of my colleagues join me in hoping that he will change his mind.

  I look forward to seeing you one day soon. When you are next in Sacramento, please call at my office. I would enjoy talking with you again.

  I remain, Miss Hollister,

  sincerely yours,

  Leland Stanford, Governer

  I showed the letter to Christopher. He read it very quietly.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked with a serious look on his face.

  “Nothing,” I answered. “I have no desire to involve myself in politics again, at least right now. My life is here in Miracle Springs . . . and with you.”

  “But . . . but aren’t you . . . don’t you think perhaps you should think about what he has said?”

  “You mean as my duty to my state and my country?”

  “Maybe something like that.”

  I thought a moment.

  “My first duty is to you, Christopher, and then to my family, and then perhaps to myself and to my community. There was a time in my life when political involvement and writing for newspapers seemed a good thing and was what I felt was right to do. But everything changed when I met you. No, I’ll write Mr. Stanford back and tell him how things stand. And I’ll also have to tell him that Pa’s decision is his own to make, that I’ll convey his message but that I won’t try to sway Pa’s mind on the matter.”

  Despite my confident-sounding words to Christopher, however, I didn’t sleep very well that night. I have to admit I was kind of proud to get the letter from the governor. And just when I thought I’d put to rest all the decisions of what to do about my writing and my speaking, suddenly I found myself right back in a tizzy.

  What thoughts and confusing questions Mr. Stanford’s letter stirred up! All at once I began questioning all my resolutions of the previous autumn.

  I discovered that the desire to write and be involved in all the exciting things that go along with it—especially politics!—wasn’t as dead as I’d thought. There was a part of me that wanted to rush off to Sacramento the very next day and jump into that whole world again with both feet.

  I couldn’t believe the things I found myself thinking as I lay there tossing and turning. I wasn’t thinking about Christopher at all, but about writing and speaking and all the flattering things Mr. Stanford had said in his letter. I was ashamed of myself . . . but I couldn’t help it!

  The worst part was that I couldn’t tell Christopher what I was thinking. He would think I was having doubts about getting married—which I wasn’t.

  Or was I?

  If I did accept Mr. Stanford’s offer, what would that mean between Christopher and me? Christopher’s plan included us being around each other every day—that was just as important as it was for him and Pa to work together. Could I just leave and go to Sacramento and then around to other places as I got involved in the election?

  What if Christopher told me he didn’t want me to . . . and I wanted to anyway? What if I did it against his wishes? Surely he would take that as a sign that his plan had worked and that I’d found out that I didn’t want to be married as much as I wanted to do other things. He would say our arrangement had kept us from making a mistake and that it was better we discovered it now than later.

  Knowing Christopher, he would probably be very gracious and loving about the whole thing. But then he would probably go back to Virginia . . . and I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him!

  Oh, I didn’t know what to do!

  I got up the next morning bleary-eyed and miserable, and I was sleepy and depressed all day. I was sure Christopher would know something was wrong and try to talk to me and find out what it was. But I couldn’t say anything to him! So I tried to stay out of his way.

  It was a horrible day. I hated myself for trying to avoid Christopher and for keeping something from him. We had always talked about everything, and now suddenly here I was hiding my innermost thoughts from him.

  I know Christopher noticed. He was quiet all day too, and by the next day he seemed to be avoiding me. We hardly talked once, and both of us felt the strain in the air between us.

  Once you’re into a time of awkward silence like that, it’s so hard to break out of it. One of you has to be the first to go to the other and say something, but you’re both feeling so hesitant and nervous that you can’t summon the courage to do it. Then feelings get hurt, and talking becomes all the harder.

  After three days of avoiding each other’s eyes and not talking at all, a big black cloud had come between us. I know Almeda and Becky felt it. It kind of quieted everything down around the place.

  But still no one said anything. I didn’t like that!

  Chapter 40

  The Invitation

  Early the next week another letter came. It was just as surprising, yet it was almost a relief too, because it gave me something to talk to Christopher about. However, I didn’t expect his reaction.


  It was another invitation to speak, but this time not directly having to do with politics or the upcoming elections:

  Dear Miss Hollister,

  Some of us in the Marysville auxiliary of what was the Sanitary Commission during the war have continued to meet together to promote public awareness of social issues vital to our state. We have recently begun an organization called Concerned Women of Northern California.

  Many of us are familiar with your writing and followed it while you were in the East, especially as you were working so closely with the Sanitary Commission itself. It has been women such as you and Clara Barton who have raised the stature of women all over this nation, and we are proud that a woman as important as you are lives right here in our own area.

  We would be honored if you would visit us. The purpose of this letter is to invite you to be the speaker at our meeting next month. We would like to hear firsthand about your time in the East and would be eager for your perspectives on the war and how you view the future of our country as a result.

  We can insure a large turnout to hear you, for your name is widely known among the women of our region. Many of us heard you speak during the election of 1860 and later when you were helping to raise money for the Sanitary Fund.

  If you can join us, a twenty-five dollar honorarium will be paid.

  Thank you very much for your consideration of this request.

  Sincerely yours,

  Cynthia Duff, President,

  Concerned Women of Northern California

  I put the letter down and shook my head. What was the Lord trying to do—confuse me all the more!