A New Beginning

by Michael Phillips

  Christopher glanced down at the book, then began. “‘Dear friend,’” he read,

  What can I say to you, for the hand of the Lord is heavy upon you. But it is his hand, and the very heaviness of it is good. There is but one thought that can comfort, and that is that God is immeasurably more the father of our children than we are. It is all because he is our Father that we are fathers. It is well to say, “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away,” but it is not enough. We must add, “And the Lord will give again.” He takes that he may give more closely—make more ours. Let me say, then, that I believe the bond is henceforth closer between you and your son.

  He paused again, closed the book, then picked up another slender volume he had brought.

  “Let me close,” he said, “by reading a few lines from a Scottish poet.” Again he found his place and began:

  To give a thing and take again

  Is counted meanness among men;

  Still less to take what once is given

  Can be the royal way of heaven.

  But human hearts are crumbly stuff,

  And never, never love enough;

  And so God takes and, with a smile,

  Puts our best things away awhile.

  Some therefore weep, some rave, some scorn;

  Some wish they never had been born;

  Some humble grow at last and still,

  And then God gives them what they will.

  “Let us pray. Our dear, loving heavenly Father, increase our trust in your love. May we learn even to trust you in death. May we trust that you are more the Father of our loved ones than we are. Give us spiritual eyes, our Father, to see that this grave is not the resting place of this dear child, but that you are already gathering Jessica smiling into your arms and welcoming her to her new home, the home of your presence, the home of your heart. We thank you, Father, that you are good . . . and that we may trust you for all things, even in death. Amen.”

  Tears now flowed freely down the faces of both father and mother. They came forward while their friends moved slowly about in the background and spoke in hushed tones.

  “We cannot thank you enough,” said Mrs. Porter, taking Christopher’s hand. “Everything you said was very meaningful.”

  “You have helped us a great deal, Mr. Braxton,” said Mr. Porter. “It has been a struggle to come to terms with why this happened. Listening to you just now, I realized that we must look beyond why, that trust must be greater than our powers of reasoning.”

  Christopher smiled, and the two men shook hands.

  “You do not, if you will pardon my saying so, strike me as a typical Westerner,” said Christopher. “You sound like someone I might have encountered at a philosophical society meeting in the East.”

  Mr. Porter smiled. “We are new here,” he said, “and, yes, I suppose you might say we are of a more intellectual bent than most men and women we have met thus far. I mean no disrespect in saying such a thing, only that I am aware that there is a difference.”

  “I understand,” said Christopher.

  “I think that is what was so helpful in what you said here today,” now put in Mrs. Porter. “We have not heard such a sermon, if you will, since our arrival. If you will pardon my saying so, you sound more like an eastern preacher yourself.”

  “Tell me,” asked Mr. Porter, “when are your services up in Miracle Springs? We would very much like to attend and listen to more of what you have to say.”

  “Actually,” replied Christopher, “I am not myself the pastor. Rev. Rutledge was ill and asked me to come here today. You are right,” he added, turning to Mrs. Porter, “I am an eastern preacher—from Virginia. My wife and I are leaving next month to return there.”

  “Oh, I see . . . hmm, that is too bad. Well, nevertheless, we are very grateful that you were able to attend to our daughter’s burial today.”

  Chapter 6

  Trustworthiness

  By late February the plans for Christopher and me to leave Miracle Springs were well in motion.

  I wished the transcontinental railroad were finished and we could be among the first people to ride it. But Christopher purchased tickets for the third week of March on a ship bound from San Francisco to New York City. We didn’t exactly know where we would go from there, but we tentatively planned to settle somewhere in Virginia.

  I did my best to keep a cheerful outlook, though the thought of leaving Miracle Springs could still bring tears to my eyes if I let it. I tried not to think about it. I wish I could have anticipated the move as a great adventure. I know that is what it would have been for most people. But this wasn’t going to be like before, when I had traveled east to help with the war effort. The fact that this would be a permanent move, not just a temporary visit, changed everything. What if I never saw my family again? I couldn’t bear even to think of such a thing.

  So I cannot say this was an easy time for me. Thinking about this move was probably the hardest thing I had ever had to face as a Christian. I had more or less come to terms with the decision before Christmas, but I still had to pray every day for the ability to trust both God and Christopher.

  When Christopher told me about the funeral in Dutch Flat and about what he’d tried to communicate about God being trustworthy, I found myself thinking about my life and my own reaction to our upcoming move. I realized the reason I’d finally been able to lay down my own wishes in the matter was because I did trust Christopher. I knew him to be trustworthy. This did not necessarily mean that I believed he would always be right. God, of course, we trust because we know he will always do the right thing. He is perfect, we are not. But we can still find human beings trustworthy, even though at the same time we know that anyone can make a mistake.

  So maybe Christopher would make mistakes. Maybe he might even be mistaken about our moving to the East. If I knew him to be trustworthy, then that almost didn’t matter anymore. His trustworthiness was higher than whether he was right or wrong in a given situation.

  At least that is how I came to see it. This realization helped me to say to the Lord one last time, and this time with more contentment, Not my will, but yours be done.

  I tried to explain to Christopher the thoughts I’d had.

  “I know you have been struggling with the decision,” he said. “But you have shown me, at the same time, that you have trusted me in spite of your doubts.”

  “I could never question your trustworthiness,” I said, “and eventually I came to see that to be a higher thing than the decision itself.”

  “You cannot know how much that means,” replied Christopher quietly and sincerely, “and how much I appreciate it. I don’t know if a woman is capable of knowing how much trust means to a man. I realize that there are cads and untrustworthy men in plenty, and I don’t suppose they ought to be trusted. But for a woman to find a man honest and trustworthy to an extent that she is able to rely on him and place her confidence in him, as you have done with me—that means more than you can know.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I suppose I didn’t know how much it meant.”

  “And you know, Corrie,” Christopher went on, “that may even be one of the reasons I’ve been in such a quandary over my decision.”

  “Because I trusted you?”

  Christopher nodded. “In a way, your trust makes it all the harder. Because if you hadn’t trusted me so much, or perhaps if you had expressed your dissatisfaction more persistently and kept saying you thought I was wrong . . . well, that might have pushed me even further in the other direction, forcing me to defend the decision I had made within myself. Do you see what I mean?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “I think as soon as others say or imply that he might be wrong, a person subconsciously builds up a fortress of reasoning to defend a position he’s taken. I don’t say it’s good to do that—it’s not. It clouds your judgment and your openness. I only say that such is a normal human tendency. But your trusting me rather than arguing against my de
cision, trusting and sacrificing your own—”

  “Aren’t you spiritualizing my position just a bit?” I interrupted. “I promised to stay with you till death do us part. I’ve done nothing more than any wife would do.”

  “No, Corrie. You are staying with me in soul and spirit. Many wives stay with their husbands in body but leave soul and spirit behind. We’ve both seen plenty of wives who are here in California with their husbands, yet never really let go of the East. And they never let their husbands forget that they don’t like it here. They never allow themselves the freedom of trusting their husband’s decision. You know the proverb about a quarrelsome or nagging wife?”

  I nodded. “But how does trust make it harder for you?”

  “Because since I haven’t been forced into defending what I feel the Lord is telling me, I am all the more concerned that I truly am listening to him. I’m having to muster up all the old sermons I preached about knowing God’s will and try now to apply them in my own life!”

  “Zack used to tell about the time he was being chased by the Paiutes and trying to recall a sermon Rev. Rutledge had preached on knowing what to do. I still laugh when I think about it.”

  “I think I’ve heard the story too—something about closing his eyes and counting and hoping the Indians would disappear.”

  “It is so funny to hear him tell it!”

  “Let’s close our eyes and see where we wind up.”

  We did so.

  “Well, where do you have us?” asked Christopher after a minute, “in Virginia or California?”

  “Wherever you are,” I said.

  “That’s not fair,” laughed Christopher, tickling me in the ribs.

  We began laughing. At length we lay down on the bed, and Christopher put out his right arm and I laid my head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around me. We were quiet for a few moments, then he began to pray.

  “Lord,” he said, “whatever else is to come to us, I want to thank you for what a precious gift Corrie is, and thank you again for giving her to me. We continue to ask you to guide our thoughts and our decisions in this important time of change in our lives.”

  Even as he was praying I found myself smiling as I remembered again how Christopher had found his “gift”—lying unconscious on a Virginia roadside, and with a bullet hole in her! God had brought us so far and so faithfully from those dangerous wartime days.

  How could I not trust him to be faithful with us now?

  Chapter 7

  Memories

  Becky and I were sitting at the table after breakfast one morning. All the others had left on their day’s business. Ruth sat on the rug near the fire while Almeda sat on a chair behind her and began gathering her long hair into two braids. About halfway down Ruth’s back she joined the two braids into one thick one for the rest of the way.

  I was in no hurry to go back out to the bunkhouse to continue my packing. It was a cold morning and I decided to have an extra cup of tea instead. There’d been a light frost during the night, and it felt good to be warm inside and out. Pa’d set a great blaze going in the fireplace before he left, and the kitchen was already feeling toasty. Becky just sat at the table, absently making patterns on her plate with biscuit crumbs and drying bits of egg yolk.

  “I’m going to miss all this,” I said at length, not talking to anyone in particular. “I don’t mind telling you that I’m a little nervous about leaving. How long does it take for someone to make a nice cozy home like this?”

  “It doesn’t take any time at all,” replied Almeda. “By the time you make your first hot meal and fill your new home with appetizing smells and spread out your quilts by the fire, you’ll have a cozy home.”

  “What if I can’t do it?”

  “Anyone can make a place cozy, Corrie. Because it’s not the place, it’s being with your man and knowing you love each other.”

  “I remember when Pa and Uncle Nick first brought us here when there was just a cabin. I made biscuits then, but it didn’t feel cozy. We were nervous and scared.”

  “That’s because you hadn’t yet learned to love your pa like you do now. Love is what makes a home.”

  “I don’t remember it being so bad, Corrie,” said Becky. “You made it feel like a home for me. I remember thinking it was great to be with Pa and Uncle Nick again and having someplace besides the wagon to sleep in. And besides, you always made such good biscuits.”

  I couldn’t help smiling at Becky’s younger and more innocent memories of a time that had been very difficult for me as the oldest of five children whose mother had just died.

  “You see, Corrie,” said Almeda, “Becky knew that you loved her and that you would watch after her. You made it a home for Becky and the others. You might have been scared, but you were taking care of the young ones, and they felt safe.”

  I was quiet a moment, holding my cup of warm tea between my hands, thinking back to those early days in Miracle Springs. They seemed a lifetime away. Then my memories drifted even further back to our days of living in New York, days I knew Tad could hardly remember. I had been fifteen when that part of my life had changed and we’d come West. Now Miracle Springs had been my home for fifteen years, and I was about to embark on another great change. What would the next fifteen years bring, I wondered. Fifteen years from now I would be forty-five. I could hardly imagine it!

  It was Becky’s voice that brought me out of my reverie.

  “Corrie,” she said, starting to laugh, “do you remember when Almeda made Pa take us in?”

  “I’ll never forget. She was determined that he and Uncle Nick were going to take care of us.”

  “How could Ma make Pa take care of you?” Ruth piped up.

  Becky and I looked at each other and now burst out laughing.

  “Your mother had a way of making everybody do what they ought to, Ruth,” I replied.

  “Come now, girls, you’re making me sound like a bossy old lady!” objected Almeda with a smile just as she finished tying off Ruth’s braid with a ribbon.

  “You should have seen your ma, Ruth,” said Becky, “sitting up there on her freight wagon with her leather breeches and a whip in her hand—why, she could make anybody do anything.”

  “Girls, you’ll put all kinds of wild and silly notions about me into poor Ruth’s head!” Even as she said it, however, Almeda joined us in laughter.

  “I want to hear more!” said Ruth, thoroughly enjoying the enlightening exchange.

  “We need to get you off to school, young lady,” said Almeda, standing up.

  “Please, Ma, I want to hear more of Corrie’s and Becky’s stories.”

  “And what would Miss Benson say if you are not there?”

  Ruth sighed and now stood up and reluctantly began helping Almeda gather lunch bucket, jackets, and mittens. In another ten minutes they were gone. Becky and I cleared the table and washed up the dishes. By the time we were through, the morning sun had just about cleared away most of the frost that wasn’t lying in the shade, and it looked as though it would be a bright, crisp, clear, sunny day—just the sort of perfect winter’s day that happens only in northern California.

  “Becky,” I suggested, “let’s take the horses and go for a ride up into the hills.”

  “That’s the kind of thing that you do!” Becky laughed. “I’m not a horsewoman like you.”

  “Please. I’ll saddle the horses while you write a note to tell the others where we’ve gone.”

  “What will I say?”

  “That we’re riding up to the falls by Forest Glen. I want to show you one of my favorite places. If I’m going to have to leave California, I want someone to be able to enjoy it after I’m gone.”

  Chapter 8

  Sisters

  It didn’t feel like a wintry February day by the time we found ourselves galloping along the road through the trees and foothills that led in the direction I wanted to go. Before we had been gone ten minutes, we had to stop to take off our gloves and unb
utton our coats.

  “Phew, I forgot how hot you get when you ride hard!” said Becky. “I ride so seldom, I was worried that maybe I’d have forgotten how.”

  “You never forget how to ride,” I answered. “And besides, the horses know what to do.”

  As the road gradually steepened and narrowed, we slowed to a walk, making our way eastward through the foothills along the side of the swollen creek that flowed down out of the mountains, past our family’s mine and our claim (where Pa still hoped to strike gold again) and on into Miracle Springs and down farther into the valley where it eventually fell into the Yuba and Feather Rivers and finally the great Sacramento River itself. It was about a three-mile ride to a place where two smaller creeks joined to create Miracle Springs Creek.

  When we got to the fork, we dismounted so the horses could rest a bit and take a drink out of the nice cold mountain stream. Whatever the blue sky and the bright sun might be trying to say, it was definitely winter. The seasons aren’t so defined here as in the East, and the pines and firs were nice and green. Yet there was still a different look to the terrain and to the forest and the grasses underfoot. We stood gazing about, drinking in the quiet. No words passed between us. This moment was in such contrast to the chatty time we had spent with Almeda and Ruth earlier. But when you are out in the midst of nature’s wonders, a different kind of sharing takes place that requires no words.

  In a few minutes we remounted our horses, and I now led the way along one of the two creeks in a more northward direction. After another forty or fifty minutes, we drew near the place I had wanted to show Becky.

  I reined in beside a small still pool of dark blue-green water and dismounted. Becky did likewise.