by Linda Byler
Dat and Mam would get over it, eventually.
Wasn’t that the most beautiful verse in the Bible? That part about Ruth going with her mother-in-law? “Thy God shall be my God.” But she already had a God.
The old rooster in the henhouse crowed, and through the heavy blackness, Sarah squinted at the alarm clock and rolled out of bed. She surprised Dat by being the first one in the barn at four thirty. She wasn’t tired, she said.
That spring, Sarah’s world became tumultuous, her mind and spirit tossed about, surging forward, drawing back. The only description fitting of her inner turmoil was the stormy waves of the sea.
It was funny, the way doubt changed her perspective. The kindly people in church, sitting on their hard benches with their attention levels varying to some degree, all made her wonder if it really was the way Matthew had said—unspiritual.
There was Henry Zook, sound asleep, his head rolling to one side, his mouth sagging open slightly. If that wasn’t unspiritual, she didn’t know what was.
In the kitchen, a group of young women was gossiping, covering their mouths as they glanced around, their eyes stealthy like cats. Catty, that’s exactly what they were. Well, perhaps Matthew was right.
She saw the yellowed covering set haphazardly on the head of the aged deacon’s wife, a fine dusting of dandruff across her black cape. She thought of the snowy line veils the women in the Charity group wore instead with their hair combed up over their heads in a loose, attractive fashion. They wore pure pinks and yellows and blues. And Sarah suddenly didn’t like the sloppy old Amish ordnung.
Then she became thoroughly miserable, remembering the day of Matthew’s departure, the eagerness in his eyes, the new light of expectation. She would have done anything to keep him.
Lester Amstutz had waited in his sports car, keeping an eye on every move they made when Matthew stopped to say his final good-bye. Lester’s head remained turned in their direction, watching shrewdly like a lion inspecting its prey, unsure what the outcome of its stealth would be.
Matthew had not held her hand that day. He only held her eyes with his own, his voice quiet, smooth, like water gliding quietly over oiled rocks, without turbulence. His voice was even, flat, whispery in its reverence. Had he already made a decision?
Fear had clawed at her heart, raking its fiery talons through her, producing a pain so great she had reached out with both hands, her palms upturned, and stepped toward him, a great sob catching in her throat as the words poured from her pain.
“Matthew, you can’t! You can’t do this to me. Does my love mean nothing to you? Does our God, our way of life, our heritage mean nothing? Don’t go. Please, don’t go. You’ll be enticed into a new belief, to a place I cannot follow.”
Matthew drew himself up, his voice quiet, reserved, as smooth as silk.
“I must go, Sarah. I have prayed. I want to become born again. Whosoever cannot leave his father or mother or sister or brother is not worthy.”
“Don’t, Matthew.” Anger consumed her now. “You know better than to spout that verse at me. If you do that, you are clearly calling me an unbeliever. I am not. Neither is your father, or your mother, or…or Chris!” she spat out.
“By your anger, I know you are not born again.”
She wanted to draw her arm back and smack him across his face, beat his chest with her fists, rail and cry and break down this new barrier between them. What she did do was draw a deep and steady breath and say, “It certainly has not taken you long to descend into self-righteousness.”
A small, sad, smile played around Matthew’s lips. His eyes became heavy-lidded, almost sensual. “I found Jesus last night at the revival meeting. I have not, as you say, descended into self-righteousness, but I’ve been clothed by the righteousness of Jesus.”
“So you’re not coming back?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. I’m on a search for the true call of Jesus Christ.”
There was nothing to say to such piety.
“I am a new creature, alive in Jesus.”
That was the sentence that threw her off balance, hurling her into a vortex of uncertainty, wavering unsteadily on the brink of a precipice as he turned, still wearing the small, sad, conquering smile, and walked placidly away from her.
Would she always have every single angle of his body imbedded in her mind? His dark hair, cut just right, his wide shoulders, the way he swung his arms, his loose gait, even the way he placed his feet, so athletic, so Matthew. Her Matthew. No one else’s. Not the world’s, not a church’s, not a new belief’s.
Oh, come back to me, Matthew. Just come back.
And so her spring had turned gray. She no longer enjoyed the beauty of the azure sky, the birds’ songs, the smell of fresh soil and newly mown hay, the wonder of a newborn calf. Her life was too full of indecision, longing, fear, and, above all, the strange new way she now viewed the Amish through lenses of doubt.
Was Matthew right? Was not one member of the Amish church born again? Did they all live in ignorance and suppression? She thought she might eventually go mad as the darts of confusion slowly entered her heart, draining the life from her.
Desperately, she hid her turmoil from her parents. They knew Matthew had gone on a trip to see the western part of the United States. That was all. That was all Hannah knew, or Elam. They went about their busy lives, working from sunup to sundown, happy and talkative, their ignorance about their son’s travels a blessing, Sarah supposed.
Was it pride that kept her secret intact? Sarah didn’t know. All she wanted was for Matthew—the old, happy, genuine Matthew—to walk back up on the porch, take her in his strong arms, say there was nothing out there for him, that he was staying Amish.
She prayed frequently and fervently, with tears squeezing between her stinging eyelids, which were red and swollen from lack of sleep.
Mam watched her daughter, bought allergy medication at her request, and said nothing.
One fine spring evening, when the air was mellow with summer’s warmth, Sarah could no longer hide the fact that her life had turned completely upside down. Mam sat on an old lawn chair on the porch, sewing buttons on a new pair of denims. The thimble on her third finger flashed in the pink glow from the setting sun. Her face was serene, the dark wings of her sleek hair now showing an extraordinary amount of gray, her homemade covering large and snowy white, the wide strings pinned behind her back with a small safety pin.
Mam’s hands were calloused and work roughened but somewhat softened each day by the same lotion, the large yellow bottle of Vaseline Intensive Care, which she applied liberally at bedtime. She was humming softly, contentedly. Then she stopped, laughed, and said she didn’t even know that song. It just stuck in her head, the way Priscilla kept singing it around the house.
Sarah smiled. Knowing she would burst into tears and thereby lay bare her secret, she got up and said she was walking down to Lydia’s to see how she was doing.
Mam nodded assent and then shook her head at Priscilla, when she rose to accompany her sister.
“Better not, Priscilla.”
“Why?”
“I’m afraid you’re spending too much time with Omar. You’re only fifteen.”
Priscilla blushed furiously. The color in her face did not escape Levi, who watched her with a calculating expression, pursed his lips, and asked Priscilla if she hadn’t heard that the younger daughter should not marry before the elder.
“Oh hush, Levi!”
“No. You shouldn’t be going to the widow’s house.”
Mam smiled but said nothing.
“The barn fires made a mess of many people’s lives,” he said, shaking his great head sorrowfully.
“What makes you say that?” Mam asked.
“That poor widow. My, oh.”
Mam said, yes, he was right, but there was also much good that had come of it. Every trial, every adversity in life serves the purpose of making people better, whether they are aware of it or n
ot.
She clipped the strong black thread with her small quilting scissors and looked at Sarah, whose eyes became liquid with her own hidden feelings, guarded for so long. She propelled herself off the porch and away from the love in her mother’s eyes, the one thing that would bring down the wall of reserve around her.
Sarah found Lydia relaxing on her own porch, the children around her. Omar was in the new horse barn building stalls for the large draft animals.
She waved, and he answered with a hand thrown high over his head.
Sarah grinned and greeted Lydia gladly.
“Such a pretty evening!” she responded.
“Sure is. Hi, Anna Mae. How is everyone?”
“We’re doing well, Sarah,” Lydia said. “Too good, I’m afraid. It doesn’t seem right that we just take and take. It’s overwhelming.”
“Don’t you worry, please, Lydia. I’m sure many families have been blessed by their charity.”
“But it isn’t really right, is it? I mean, I could take the cost of this.”
She spread her arms to indicate the yard including the new white fence and the shrubs bordering it. She could live on the price of that fence for quite some time.
“Ach now, Lydia. You must stop that.”
Lydia asked the children to see if Omar needed help, and Anna Mae left with them obediently.
Lydia turned her head and looked squarely at her new found friend. She began to talk, hesitantly at first, then with more conviction.
“It’s hard for me, Sarah. Too hard. I talk to my counselors but….”
Lydia stopped and looked away, unseeing, across the yard. Her gaze went down to the hollow where the new red barn stood resplendent in the evening’s glow.
Sarah remained quiet, biding her time, allowing the widow the space she needed to gather her courage.
A small vehicle drove by slowly. The occupants turned their heads to peer at the new barns. From the wide door of the smaller building, Omar straightened his back, throwing a friendly wave at the car’s occupants.
For a second, Sarah thought it was Ashley, from market, in the passenger seat. Her eyes were wide, her face thin and white.
Must be her imagination.
But when the car returned and slowly made its way past in the opposite direction, she had a full view of Ashley through the front window. Hastily Sarah stood up, waving a hand eagerly, wanting to catch the girl’s attention, but her gaze was focused on the barns.
It was clearly Ashley, Sarah realized. Why hadn’t she returned her wave?
Like a bolt, the memory of Levi describing the car he had seen the night of their fire came back to her. He had described the taillights as being low, like a Volkswagen’s, and this car was certainly a Volkswagen, and light-colored as well.
Was there a connection? Was Ashley involved in these fires somehow? Sarah thought of the girl’s fright, her frequent questions. She didn’t even hear Lydia ask her a question.
“Hello, Sarah?” Lydia laughed.
“Oh, sorry, Lydia. I just thought I knew the girl in that car, but she obviously didn’t see me.”
“Well, you probably don’t want to hear about my boring, messed up life, anyway.”
“Stop it. Please do continue.”
“Well, I was just saying that it’s hard for me to accept all this. Soon after I married Aaron, I learned life is easier if you kept blaming yourself when things…stuff, you know, goes wrong. That way, you don’t see all the bad in the other person. Do you understand?”
“Well, not really. How can you place the blame on yourself for something you didn’t do?”
“Well, I could. I wasn’t a good wife.”
“You weren’t?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Oh, there were lots of things. I don’t think Aaron would have lost his temper so easily if I would have tried harder to keep things going smoothly. Sometimes I just gave up and didn’t try, figuring it would make no difference, and that was wrong.”
Sarah shrugged. “I don’t understand.”
“Maybe I’m not saying this right. When the barn burned, I blamed myself. I figured I must have done something wrong, and God was chastening me for my wrongdoing. You know we can bring a curse on our own heads for not having enough fear of God in our hearts, don’t you? Sometimes I feel cursed, Sarah. The night I no longer wanted to live—that was only the easy way out. Not easy, but the only way. A life of wrongdoing, then Aaron’s suffering and death, the bills, the children crying, my baby so thin and sickly, never enough money, then the barn, and always, I felt cursed. It’s as if God placed a special accountability on my head, and I literally had to pay here on earth for every one of my missteps, known or unknown.”
Sarah sat on the wooden rocking chair, her thoughts slowly clicking into place, a typewritten message, easily deciphered. Here were the two opposite sides of Christianity.
The message was drummed into Sarah’s mind, and she grasped it eagerly, greedily. The truth was a thing she could hold and cradle and care for with a genuine and sound mind.
There was Matthew on one side, aloof, with great quantities of redemption given to him, but so sadly unaware of the great gift he could not obtain because of his exalted, prideful state.
Lydia, on the other hand, was cowering in fear of her own wrongs, feeling cursed, unable to lift her head and accept as much as one ounce of forgiveness. She was not even able to believe. And both of them were missing Jesus’s greatest gift.
Love. The love of their parents, their neighbors and friends, their church. They were missing it all as they grasped for the truth of Jesus. Hadn’t He dwelt among sinners and shown His love to all?
With sadness in her heart, Sarah told Lydia the details about Matthew’s leaving, revealing that it wasn’t what Elam and Hannah thought it was.
Lydia listened, her eyes soft and luminous with sympathy, as Sarah poured out all the misery of the time since Matthew had left.
“He’s not coming back?” she questioned softly.
“I am still hoping.”
“Why are these revival meeting so fa-fearish (misleading)?” Lydia asked.
“I think they are misleading only to the Amish. I don’t think the basic content is wrong. It just leads us away from what we have been taught.”
“We can’t judge others, I know.”
“Absolutely not.”
“But Matthew is not honoring his parents.”
“No.”
“Surely that must bother him.”
“I doubt if it does. He feels free. He has Jesus now.”
Lydia nodded, understanding.
“I would say he’d have more of Jesus by loving and obeying his parents and remaining humble, esteeming others above himself.”
Sarah nodded, then asked bluntly, “Are you born again?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t talk about that. The fruit of the Spirit is the only way we know. Isn’t that what we believe? And I couldn’t say I have any fruits at all, or…or all this bad stuff wouldn’t have happened.”
Sarah laughed softly.
“Well, Lydia, I’d say Matthew is floating somewhere close to the moon, but you’re tunneling below the surface of the earth.”
“Ach, I know. My counselors say I’m getting somewhere, though.”
At that moment, Omar appeared, his face lined with fatigue, his shoulders rounded with the weight of responsibility far above his years, a tired smile lighting up his face.
“Hi, Sarah!”
“Hello, yourself. Hard day?”
“Sort of. Trying to do too much during the daylight hours, I guess. I don’t know what I’d do without Lee Glick. He’s over here every chance he gets. Did you know he’s helping me get started raising these Belgians? He claims that with the cows’ income and the farming, we can turn a profit. Sometimes though, when I’m tired, like now, I just want to go work for him. By the hour. Less worry. Less responsibility.”
He looked around.
; “Where’s Priscilla?”
“Levi wanted her to stay home.”
“Oh.”
Omar was clearly disappointed, but he said nothing further. He just smiled and let himself through the door to the kitchen. Anna Mae followed him, clearly idolizing her older brother.
The soft, velvety darkness gently folded its curtains across Lancaster County. The two women sat side by side on the front porch of the old farmhouse, united by the shared calamities they had experienced, coupled with troubles of entirely different kinds. Their personal heartaches brought them together in ways they could never before have imagined.
Lydia was a member of the same church district as Sarah, but she had only been a slight acquaintance, someone Sarah had spoken to only occasionally. Now, however, she had shared her deep and personal secret about Matthew and had lent a sympathetic ear when Lydia shared hers. What a rare and appreciated treasure!
Only time would disclose the real nature of Matthew’s spiritual adventure, which is exactly what it was, Sarah decided as she walked home through the mild, dew-laden evening. She walked with her head bowed, her thoughts wandering as she sifted through new information. Was it okay for Matthew to do what he was doing, in God’s eyes? Did his parents’ pleas and broken hearts mean nothing at all? Who was right and who was wrong? Were they both wrong?
And there was the poor Widow Lydia, unable to lift her head, so burdened by her own shortcomings.
Well, Sarah wasn’t going to figure it out in one night, and, very likely, she didn’t have to. All she needed to do was allow Jesus to carry her yoke, and she’d be just fine.
That was why she was humming when she walked past Elam’s house. For once, the pain wasn’t quite as blinding even though she knew Matthew was not upstairs in his room. He was somewhere on God’s earth, and where there was life, there was hope.
But there was still one other thing. What was that frightened Ashley doing in a cream-colored Volkswagen driving past Lydia’s farm? As Melvin would say, “The plot thickens,” she thought and chuckled.
Sarah shifted her weight, pulled up her knees, and braced them against the seat ahead of her. She was searching for a measure of comfort to grab a few minutes of sleep before arriving at the market in New Jersey.
