A Home for the Heart

by Michael Phillips

  He put the letters back, then withdrew a small white Bible, the last item of all.

  “Do you remember your ma’s Bible,” said Pa.

  “Yes!” I exclaimed. “I knew something was missing from the mantel when I came home from the East.”

  “I took it down after you left and put it away with these other things. I figured it might be needed one day for just such an occasion as this one. It’s getting a mite old and ragged by now—ragged not just from age, but because she read it cover to cover several times in her life that I knew her. Maybe part of why I put it away, too, was because it was just too precious to have out with the other books. I always figured on giving it to you when you was grown, and I reckon now that day’s come.”

  He handed me the small book. What a treasure it was.

  “Thank you, Pa,” I said, my voice thick with tears.

  “Actually,” he said, “I want you to have everything here—well, except for two things.”

  He reached inside and took out the ring and the personal letters. Then he handed me the box and all the rest of the contents.

  “You’re the lady of the Hollister-Belle family now,” he said. “You’re about to start your own branch of the family. From now on we’ll have to call it the Hollister-Belle-Braxton clan! So I reckon it’s time for you to have what few heirlooms this poor family’s got, to keep as a memory of the people that came before you. You can pass them on to your own daughter when her time comes, God willing, and tell her about the strong roots she came from.”

  “Thank you, Pa,” I said shakily. “This means so much to me.”

  We hugged one another, both tearful now, then rose to go.

  “I gave Christopher his answer, and the right to your hand,” Pa said as we stood and faced each other. “But there’s something I need to say only to you. It’s just this—I think you’re doing the right thing, I think you picked as fine a man as I could have chosen for you, and you’re as fine and godly a daughter as ever a father would wish to have. You’ve been a good friend to me, Corrie Belle, as well as a fine daughter. A friend, do you hear me. I’m gonna—”

  Pa’s voice choked, and he looked away. I knew he was struggling to keep from breaking into tears as he spoke.

  I could hardly stand it! Now the tears were streaming down my face.

  “I’m gonna miss you, Corrie,” Pa went on hesitantly, trying to clear his throat of the lump that kept trying to get up into his mouth. “That’s the one thing wrong . . . with all this—that I’m gonna miss having . . . having you around so close by all the time, ‘cause you made life rich and fun wherever you was.”

  “Pa . . . please,” I said.

  “No, let me have my say, Corrie,” he said, wiping one of his eyes with the back of his hand. “I won’t ever have this chance again, at least not while you’re still a Hollister. So you listen while I tell you that I have loved you ever since the day you were born thirty years ago, and I love you still. I’ll . . . I’ll miss you . . . but you got my blessing, girl of mine. I . . . I want you to know—”

  His voice finally broke.

  The next moment we were in each other’s arms, holding each other tight. It felt so good to have Pa’s arms wrapped around me. Nothing more was said. I did know. And Pa knew it.

  We stood like that for several minutes.

  I’ll never understand why happiness always seems to have a certain kind of pain attached to the other side of it. As happy as my coming marriage made me, it was hard to know that at the same time I was leaving behind a part of myself, a part of life I loved.

  We rode down the hill slowly, neither of us in a hurry to see these special moments together end. As we neared the cabin, I knew that at last I was ready to become Mrs. Christopher Braxton.

  Chapter 51

  A Quiet Kind of Love

  April 3 would be a Saturday, and by Friday, the day before the wedding, everything was ready. At least everything seemed ready . . . until that evening. Then suddenly a whole new onslaught of doubts and worries flooded over me.

  All that day an anxiety had been slowly growing inside me. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but the happiness and joy that should have been there seemed to be slipping away.

  I don’t know if it was caused by an incident between Christopher and me just after lunch. But that’s when I first started to notice the anxious feeling, and then it grew worse and worse as the day wore on.

  We were walking out of the house together and Christopher made some comment. I can’t even remember now what he said! In all the commotion and emotion of the next few days, so much time passed before I wrote about the day in my journal that I had forgotten what his words were. I think it had something to do with the lunch we had just finished, for which I’d fixed most of the food.

  It was just an innocent comment, and Christopher had no way of knowing I’d take it wrong or even that I’d fixed the lunch myself. But his words went into my brain crooked. Even though I know Christopher hadn’t meant it that way, I took his comment as criticism directed at me.

  But the real problem wasn’t Christopher’s comment, but what happened next. His words irritated me, and I found myself annoyed at Christopher.

  Then I got quiet. We walked on a bit. Christopher detected the change in my mood.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked finally.

  “Oh . . . nothing,” I said.

  The minute the words were out of my mouth I felt awful. I had intentionally not told Christopher the truth!

  We had promised not to get quiet, to always to tell each other what we were thinking and feeling, and never to let awkwardness or misunderstanding creep in between us again. Now I had done that very thing . . . and just the day before our wedding!

  But even knowing all that, I couldn’t make myself undo what I had done. I couldn’t bring myself to apologize or say what I’d really been thinking . . . because another side of me was still irritated with Christopher and was still blaming him for what had happened.

  How can such a little thing cause such a big rift between two people? I don’t know . . . but it did.

  Within an hour I was miserable, and my misery grew as the day went on.

  Then about halfway through the afternoon, I realized something that nearly shattered me. It had crept up so slowly throughout the day that I hadn’t even seen it coming. When suddenly I saw it for what it was, I could hardly stand the thought.

  I realized that right then I wasn’t feeling “in love” with Christopher at all. When I thought of him, my heart didn’t flutter like it had a year earlier. When his face came to my mind, it wasn’t with thoughts of how handsome it was. I had become so accustomed to his face that it just looked ordinary to me now. When he came back from working at the mine, I now noticed that he smelled just as bad as Pa and Zack sometimes did. Some of his mannerisms, which I’d never noticed at first, had begun to grate on me.

  And I still couldn’t help being irritated at him for what he’d said right after lunch.

  I hated myself for thinking these things . . . but I couldn’t help them. It was just like Christopher had warned me about—the emotional feelings of “love” had lost some of their luster. I’d been around Christopher for so long, day after day, that I guess I’d grown used to him.

  Oh, I thought to myself, why couldn’t this all have happened a month ago . . . or even waited another month! Why now—the very day before our wedding? I didn’t want to get married when I was keeping something from Christopher—and was annoyed with him besides!

  Evening approached. Everybody noticed how quiet and withdrawn I was. I think my family just thought I had come down with a case of pre-wedding jitters. But Christopher knew me too well. He knew something was wrong.

  Supper was awkward. In the midst of all the excited talk about the following day, I had pulled into my own introspective turtle shell, silently wondering what I should do.

  Should I call off the wedding . . . or postpone it a few days until Christopher and
I could work through this latest problem? Was all this a sign that we weren’t supposed to go ahead with our marriage?

  How dreadfully awkward and embarrassing it would be to do something like that! We had already met one final time with Rev. Rutledge to plan out the whole ceremony. All the food was cooked. The whole town would be there. Emily and Mike had come all this way.

  How could I possibly cancel or postpone our wedding! Yet how could I go through with it feeling like I did! Both options seemed impossible.

  Oh, I didn’t know what to do! This wasn’t how I had thought it was going to be!

  It was after dark when Christopher and I met outside the barn. We both knew we had to talk. This time it couldn’t wait.

  “Feel like going for a ride?” Christopher asked me.

  “Now?” I said.

  “There’s a good moon, and the two-seater’s all hitched up.”

  I nodded my consent.

  He brought the buggy around from where he’d had it ready to ride up to Uncle Nick’s with his things. He’d made plans to spend the night with them so as not to be around when I was getting ready in the morning. He helped me up, then got in beside me and flicked the reins. We started off in the moonlight toward town.

  It was a quiet ride. We talked some, just trying to get the feeling of communication back after the awkward day. We rode into town but didn’t even stop, turned around at the church, both of us thinking about what was scheduled to take place there the next morning, and then headed back out toward home.

  At last, as hard as it was, we began to share what we had been feeling. Unknown to me, Christopher had been thinking many of the same things. We didn’t talk specifically about what had happened after lunch. By then I think I’d already forgotten what it was anyway. Instead, we each confessed our anxieties and reservations and even admitted that we were not feeling nearly so “in love” as we had earlier. Christopher apologized for whatever he’d said that had been insensitive to me. I apologized for getting quiet and for not being honest with him and telling him how I felt.

  We arrived back at home about ten o’clock. The house and the bunkhouse were both quiet. Everyone else, I think, was already in bed.

  Christopher pulled up in front of the barn and stopped. We sat there beside each other in the darkness, neither saying a word. Nothing had been resolved by the ride, but at least we were talking. The mood between us was still subdued.

  “What are we going to do?” I said finally.

  “What do you mean?” Christopher asked.

  “How can we go ahead with it when we feel this way?”

  “Are you suggesting we don’t go ahead with it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  It got quiet a minute.

  “I know what you have always said,” I said after a bit, “about us needing to rely on commitment instead of feelings, but I didn’t know it was going to be like this!”

  “I know,” sighed Christopher. “It’s been a low day for me too.”

  “Have you had second thoughts?”

  “Of course. I’ve been plagued with them all day.”

  “But you still think going ahead’s the right thing to do?”

  Christopher didn’t answer immediately.

  “Do you still love me?” he asked finally.

  “I, uh . . . of course,” I said.

  “Though it doesn’t feel like it did before?”

  “I guess that’s it.”

  “Well, I still love you too.”

  Again he hesitated.

  “When we began this adventure,” he went on, “I said to myself, and I told you later, that I thought it would be good for some of the feelings to fade so that we would have to rely on something deeper. Now that exact thing has happened, so why are we doubting that it is good? We ought to be rejoicing instead of moping around.”

  “Rejoicing that we’re not as happy as before?” I said with a half laugh.

  “Maybe in a way,” laughed Christopher gently. I must admit it felt good to hear humor in his tone again. “And if we can’t quite rejoice in it, at least we ought to thank God for it. I’ve always said that a marriage is stronger if it is established in solid commitment instead of more superficial feelings. Now God is giving us the opportunity to see if we really mean what we’ve been saying and writing to each other all this year.”

  “It’s easier to talk about it when you don’t really think the feelings will fade than to be thankful for it when it does happen, after all,” I said.

  “You didn’t think they would?”

  “Maybe intellectually I knew it was bound to happen,” I answered. “But now that I think about it, I realize another part of me did think I would keep loving you the same way forever. I certainly didn’t think anything would come between us so soon.”

  We thought quietly to ourselves a while.

  “The most important thing of all,” said Christopher finally, “is this: How can we ignore all God has done between us—how he brought us together, how we have grown, how he has knit our hearts and lives together on so many levels? How can we doubt him after all he has done?”

  “God has led us to this moment,” I said. “I guess down deep I do know that and nothing can change it. Whatever happens must be based on that fact, not the feelings that come and go.”

  “He has been preparing us this whole year, knitting and bonding us together in so many ways. It seems to me that we simply have to trust him.”

  “Even in the midst of these doubts.”

  “That’s the only time it can really be called trust. If there are no doubts, then there’s nothing to trust.”

  “So you’re saying that you think we should go ahead?”

  “I don’t see that we have any choice . . . that is, unless you really have changed your mind.”

  “No . . . it’s not that,” I said. “It’s just that it seems that on a girl’s wedding day . . . oh, you know.”

  “Do we trust God even more than our own feelings? That’s the question.”

  “I’m willing to, if you are.”

  “That’s how I feel about it too. As long as you’re with me, I want to go ahead . . . in faith.”

  “Are you sure it’s the right thing?” I asked.

  “Right now . . . no, I can’t say I’m sure,” replied Christopher. “But those are my feelings talking. My brain and my heart are sure, because I do trust in what God has done between us. I believe with all my mind that he brought us together and that we are to be married. So maybe in another way, I am sure.”

  “That’s exactly how I feel. You’ve said it perfectly.”

  “Then let’s agree—in faith—to stop doubting God’s work.”

  I laughed, and the laughter felt good after this difficult day.

  “Agreed!” I said.

  We were quiet again. Our mood was still subdued, but the melancholy cloud that had been hanging over us all day seemed to have lifted somewhat. We knew that we loved one another, but on this night it was a very deep and quiet love. And I sensed that we had moved one more step down into yet a deeper, unseen level where love must dwell—a love based on faith.

  Christopher reached over, took my hand in his, and began to pray.

  “Heavenly Father,” he said, “we need your help so much right now. Our limited eyes have grown weak, and the frailty of our human feelings have betrayed us. We lost sight of you today, and we join in asking you to restore our sight to see this union as something you have ordained.

  “Oh, Lord, found this marriage in the deep commitment that Corrie and I have made to one another. If we doubt again, let us remember that we may trust you, and that we can believe beyond any doubt that you brought us together for your purposes.”

  He stopped.

  “God,” I prayed, “I am sorry for doubting you today, and sorry for doubting Christopher. Please forgive me. Help me be a trusting wife to him and a trusting daughter to you. Help me remember that Christopher loves me and that I love him, even when th
ings may come up that make me apt to forget or to think something has changed between us. Help me remember that as long as our marriage is rooted in our mutual commitment to you, nothing will ever change.”

  Then Christopher prayed again.

  “Lord, we want to join right now and—one more time, as we have already done in the past—give you our whole selves. We give you our pasts . . . and our future together. We give you all of our hearts, our thoughts, our feelings—our whole beings. We place ourselves, our marriage, and all you want to accomplish in us and through us—we place it in your hands, Lord, our Father.”

  “Yes, I agree, Lord,” I said. “Accomplish your will and your purposes in us.”

  We were silent. After giving everything to the Lord once more, there was nothing else to pray. Now it was time to simply go forward . . . trusting him.

  We sat there a long time, my hand resting in Christopher’s.

  “It’s getting late,” he said finally.

  I smiled. “Pa is probably sitting inside waiting for me. This is my last night as his little girl, and he’s probably feeling very protective.”

  “Then we’d better get you inside without delay.”

  Christopher jumped down, then helped me to the ground.

  “Well,” he said, looking me in the eye, “every day is certainly a new and unexpected adventure in getting to know each other, isn’t it?”

  “Unexpected it is indeed!” I laughed.

  “I, uh . . . guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “At the altar, but not before.”

  “I promise you won’t set eyes on me until you and your father walk through the door.”

  “I’d better not,” I said joking.

  “I’ll be waiting for you in the front of the church.”

  Christopher walked me to the door, squeezed my hand, then turned and ran back to the buggy, jumped in, and bounded off up the road.

  I went inside.

  If Pa was waiting up for me, I didn’t see him.

  Chapter 52

  The Big Day

  April 3, 1867, fell just a week and a half after my thirtieth birthday. A perfect age to be married, I thought. I wouldn’t have had it come a single day sooner!