A Home for the Heart

by Michael Phillips

  Chapter 43

  A Ride, Reflections, and More Letters

  In mid-September I took Christopher on a long ride into the mountains east of Miracle Springs. We got up at dawn, packed two meals, and were gone the whole day. We didn’t get back until dusk was closing in over the foothills.

  We were sore for three days afterward! But what a time!

  As we climbed up and began to gain a view of the higher Sierras east of us and the valleys below to the west, I couldn’t help thinking about the ride I had taken with Cal Burton at the Stanford ranch. Could that have been only six years before? It seemed like a lifetime!

  That had been a time when my outlook was expanding in many directions and I was eager for all life had to offer. Cal had fed my dreams too, with all his talk about having power and impact and about how I could be important and famous and sway people with my writing.

  Yes, Cal’s “road” had shot across mine right then and had nearly knocked me over—I suppose in a way he’d almost knocked me off my own road altogether. It wasn’t just Cal, of course. All those years I’d been involved in writing and politics had shown me so much that was possible for me—and some of those possibilities had become reality. For a while, I suppose, I had tasted what it was like to be successful and important and to have an impact on the world.

  But so much was different now.

  Everything had changed for me the day I woke up and saw the face of Christopher Braxton staring down at me.

  Well, maybe it didn’t really change all that much. Maybe the direction of my life was already pointed similarly to his. I’m sure that’s what he would say. And it did not take me long, after realizing Cal’s deceit, to see how different we had really been all along. But knowing Christopher helped me begin seeing it all more clearly.

  For so long my focus had been on all that I might do. That was all Cal looked at too. But what a different kind of man was Christopher Braxton! Because of his own perspective on life, he helped me focus instead on what I might be.

  Riding up to the summit with Cal and looking out over the Pacific had filled my thoughts with all that the world could offer me. The desires he awakened all had me at the center of it. They were all about fame and fortune . . . and Cal’s favorite word—opportunity.

  Riding up into the Sierras on this day with Christopher made me realize my desires had changed. The opportunities that excited Christopher and me now were spiritual ones—opportunities to grow as God’s children and to do his will and to put him at the center of our life together.

  Governor Stanford’s letter and the speech at Marysville had caused Christopher to think for the first time about where my speaking and my writing might lead me. But I had thought about all that at an earlier time in my life. Cal had confronted me with those same issues, as had my time in the East and even the decision to come back to California. And it was becoming clear that those kinds of opportunities didn’t matter much to me anymore.

  Even the difficult month of misunderstanding with Christopher had forced me to think and pray about it all over again.

  Yes, I wanted to become something . . . but not in the way of what the world counted important. The question that now occupied my thoughts and prayers was: What kind of woman do I want to be?

  Who cared what I did or whether anyone knew my name or whether my life was “filled with opportunity,” as Cal would have said?

  Life is filled with opportunity. Every moment is filled with opportunity . . . the opportunity to become more like Jesus.

  How could Cal ever understand something like that? He would laugh at the very words.

  I suppose a lot of people would scoff at someone like me, who had done what I had done and been to the White House and Gettysburg and all the rest, and who now said all she wanted was to be an obedient daughter of her heavenly Father.

  Let them laugh, I thought. The people that mattered most to me wouldn’t laugh. Christopher wouldn’t laugh. Almeda and Pa wouldn’t laugh. Zack wouldn’t laugh. Neither would Rev. Rutledge or Harriet or Uncle Nick or Aunt Katie.

  That is what I wanted to be. Sure, I wanted to live and have fun and do things . . . and maybe even write again. I wanted to laugh and ride horses and learn to sew better and have a home and raise a family. I wanted the same things other young women thinking about marriage would want.

  But what I wanted most, deep down, was to be what God wanted me to be, because that mattered most of all. If people thought Christopher and I sounded too spiritual and introspective because we were always talking about trying to deepen our lives as Christians, then I would be sorry. But I still couldn’t see that anything else mattered as much as that.

  When we got back from our ride, I was too tired even to write about what I’d been thinking. I tried to tell Christopher about it the next afternoon, when he and I went on a short walk. The following morning he gave me this letter:

  Dear Corrie,

  It’s late. Zack and Tad are asleep. I have my kerosene lantern turned down low so I can see the paper in front of me. After our walk and talk today, I must write you.

  What is happening between us is so marvelous, so beyond my expectations for such a relationship, that I find myself wanting to talk and talk and talk about it. Every chance I get, whether in your presence or when I sit down to write, I want to describe in endless detail how I feel, just to let you know more and more how complete is my love for you. Everywhere I turn are new ideas, new thoughts, new realizations that I want to express to you. I am very excited about our life together.

  Remembering last month—which suddenly seems like a year ago!—is so embarrassing. How could we have gone on so long without talking and writing to one another!

  I for one have learned my lesson . . . I hope. I promise that I will talk to you next time doubts assail me. If I want to know what you are thinking—I will ask you face-to-face!

  It seems like we are getting to know one another all over again on a deeper and more spiritual plane. Perhaps this is a result of my living around and among your family, of my working in such proximity to you while yet unmarried . . . even of going through what we did recently. It may even be the most important fruit of this grand experiment we have undertaken—our Jacob and Rachel arrangement.

  I don’t pretend to understand how it is happening, but I find my love for you increases every day. Oh, how I thank God for that love, and how I long for that moment when I can take you in my arms and hold you as my wife.

  And yet this time is good! I see nothing but infinite worth in prolonging it in this manner, because in every minute of our present “separation,” God is deepening and strengthening the bonds that are forming between our spirits. One of the most beautiful aspects of this is how God continues to show us truths that are practically identical. I see the whole foundation for our future together being molded and shaped by the blinding light of God’s love for us and his plan for us.

  Do you agree, Corrie, that being married is going to be one of the most highly spiritual experiences of each of our lives? In so many ways we are already “one,” and our Father is taking us someplace beautiful together. So when the day comes when we are fully united, it will be such an experience of the Father’s love and care that I hardly think I will be able to contain the joy.

  I have experienced much in my life, some of it neither happy nor pleasant. But God’s grace is sufficient, and I continue to discover that there really is a full and completely abundant joy waiting for those who are totally willing and obedient to follow him.

  I thank God he has called us to such a life . . . and called us to share it together!

  Christopher

  Then I wrote him back that evening.

  Dear Christopher,

  You wrote about us getting to know each other all over again, on a deeper plane. That’s exactly it—just like you said that day when we were walking around Miracle Springs. Do you remember? It was the day after you arrived. You asked me if I was disappointed, and I misunderstood
you. Then you talked about that very thing, about how we would have to get to know each other again at deeper levels.

  It has happened just like you said it would!

  Those first few days, I admit, were anxious for me. I wondered what you would think of me. It had been so long since we’d seen each other, I had wondered if you’d be disappointed once you saw me. Whatever you say, you dear, kindhearted, gentle, and gracious Christopher Braxton, I am not beautiful. What if you saw me, I feared, and said to yourself, “Ugh . . . what have I done? I don’t want to marry that!”

  And then last month I thought all those same things again—I say it again. You are right, it is embarrassing to remember how uncommunicative we allowed ourselves to become. I join in your promise!

  All those doubts are now past, and now that I am learning—sometimes it is still a struggle!—that you really truly do love me just as I am, love me for the person I am inside and not what my features look like on the outside.

  I am sure we will have more doubt, and more struggles, and more misunderstandings, but I hope they will be progressive struggles. Do you like the term progressive struggles? I just made it up! It refers to struggles that help us to progress in our knowing of each other.

  I am finding the “getting to know” process so wonderful. Every day we get to discover more of those deeper levels with each other, just like you say. And just as I am getting to know you, I am getting to know myself at deeper levels too!

  For so many years I have been learning and growing as a Christian. At first Almeda helped me so much. I talked to her about everything, and she would explain things I didn’t know or understand. Then gradually I began to feel my own spiritual feet under me and take steps of growth on my own. I began to feel the Lord himself speaking to me and guiding me and helping me along.

  Pa also helped me, but in different ways. Watching him grow and make choices that set his life going in a new direction was such an example to me. Though we didn’t talk about it as readily as I did with Almeda, he was what I’d call a “living lesson book.”

  Now you have come along and we are able to help one another. It is difficult for me to believe that I really help you spiritually, though you are kind to say it, but I know you are helping me know myself and our Father better in so many ways. Much of this comes, I suppose, from having someone to share everything with—someone who is moving in exactly the same direction.

  So besides the fact that I love you, Christopher, I am thankful for you too.

  I will always thank God for giving you to me . . . as long as I live.

  Corrie

  Another letter came from Christopher a couple of days later. He handed it to me at breakfast with a wink.

  “I couldn’t help myself,” he said. “Writing letters is habit forming. It’s getting to be that I can’t go to sleep unless I have written you!”

  Dear Corrie,

  Whether or not you believe it, it remains just as true—you have helped me spiritually just as much as I have helped you. I cannot define exactly how. Like everything else it is a process . . . a process of growth.

  Surely you remember how confused and frustrated I was when you first met me? Can you think the changes in me—the smiles, the happiness that is now part of my countenance—have nothing to do with you?

  Corrie, Corrie, they have everything to do with you!

  I am confident, too, that I have grown from the misunderstanding of last month. Though I am older than you, and though I was once minister of a church, I am still very much a learner in some of the most difficult areas of life—especially those that involve learning to know oneself. That is where you are helping me most.

  I am not merely happy because a beautiful young woman loves me. (Yes, I will say it, and I will staunchly defend my right to proclaim the truth—a beautiful young woman! Beautiful, do you hear! And I thought you put all that behind you in Bridgeville—your mother wasn’t saying that you weren’t pretty, but that she wanted you to be strong. You are a pretty girl, Corrie.) I am equally happy because this young woman is of godly fiber and has helped me see many spiritual truths through all that we communicate together.

  So I too am deeply grateful to God for you . . . and likewise shall remain all my earthly days.

  I spoke in my last letter about us being “separated.”

  We are hardly “separated”—we are able to see one another almost at will—although I trust you understand what I mean. Since I wrote that, however, I have been reminded of an earlier time when there truly was a separation between us. I mean last April, just after the President’s assassination, when you left Richmond. I was so afraid I might never see you again.

  Letting you go back north and saying nothing to you that might persuade you to stay was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. I wanted to ask you to marry me right then! But I sensed that the timing was not right and that many things had to be resolved within each of us before God could fully make us one as he intended.

  I know that my decision to let you go, without saying anything encouraging to you with regard to the future of our relationship, made things difficult for you too. I am sorry to have had to put you through it, although I still feel that awaiting the Lord’s timing was the best choice.

  I was prompted to think about this again when flipping through my journal. My eyes fell upon the following entry, written, from the sound of it, as a prayer. It is dated the evening of the very day you left. I thought you might be interested in what I wrote:

  “Henceforth, it is almost going to be like it was when I was asked to leave the church, so drastically has my situation changed. I’ve known it had to come, but suddenly Corrie is gone. I’ve already found myself just sitting, not knowing what to do with myself. Though I am ‘at home’ amid all the same familiar surroundings, I am lonely.

  “What will God do in these coming months? I feel that he will do something great. But tonight I am so lonely for Corrie. I’ve gone this long without her before these past months. But this time I know she is not here . . . and is not coming back. I want her back! But, God, you have to accomplish that—I know it.

  “I must wait. If there is love between us, it must be able to endure this time. So, Father, accomplish your will in me. Help me to trust (always trust) you and thank you. I want so much to walk with the humility of your Son!”

  I don’t know what you will think of that, Corrie, but I found it interesting. God did honor our willingness to wait—and will honor our willingness to wait still further this year.

  Good things come much more often from patience than from haste.

  I do love you, Corrie! And I thank God for you!

  Christopher

  Chapter 44

  Quartz!

  Pa and Christopher and the boys had been working hard on the new mine shaft all spring and summer. They had burrowed a long way into the mountain from the other side, but they still found only dust and some nuggets—no new rich vein.

  By October it was obvious to everyone, including the miners, that they were beginning to get discouraged.

  Now too that election time was getting closer, I wondered if Pa was having second thoughts about his decision. If he was, his friends in Sacramento didn’t make it any easier. They still kept pestering him to reconsider, even though by now someone else was running for his seat. Pa held firm, but I know it would have been a lot easier if there’d been more gold coming out of that hill.

  Then one day, only about an hour after breakfast, Tad came rushing into the house.

  “Hey, everyone!” he cried out. “Come see what we found!” Before we even had the chance to ask him what he meant, he was gone again, sprinting back up toward the new mine.

  The house emptied and we all hurried after him, sure that they must have struck gold. I imagined a big, wide vein of pure yellow glistening from the wall of rock.

  When we reached the mine, no one was to be seen, but shouts and the clanking sounds of picks were coming from inside. The voic
es sounded excited!

  We crept inside, calling out greetings as we entered the dim darkness.

  “Here they are!” shouted Tad.

  The picks stopped.

  “Over here!” called Pa, coming toward us with a lantern and leading the way up to the end where Tad, Zack, Christopher, and Mr. Jones were all clustered around their most recent discovery. They parted to let us look.

  Pa pointed to a white stripe about three inches wide and about six inches long, right at the farthest end of the cave wall.

  “It’s white,” said Ruth. “I don’t see any gold.”

  Pa laughed.

  “There’s an old expression, Ruthie,” he said: “‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire’—you ever hear that?”

  “No, Pa,” she answered.

  “Well then, I’ll give you another one to remember: Where there’s quartz . . . there’s gold!”

  Behind him, all the men raised a cheer. To listen to them, you’d think they had found a vein of gold itself, not just a trail they hoped would lead to it.

  “Tad found it about an hour ago,” Pa said, now speaking to Almeda. “Since then we’ve been picking away at it, and sure enough, it looks like it’s going to lead deeper into the hill. If this quartz vein keeps widening, then it’ll lead us to gold eventually.”

  “Congratulations!” she said. “Congratulations to you all. It appears your hard work is not going to be in vain after all.”

  “Not in vain at all . . . because we are going to find that vein!”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Then we shall let you get back to work in pursuit of your dream,” said Almeda.

  We turned and left the cave. Before we were even back out into the sunlight again, the sounds of picks had resumed behind us.

  The next day Christopher gave me a letter.

  Dear Corrie,

  I am exhausted after the day’s work, yet full of thoughts.