Stuart Thomas Rogers paced back and forth at the foot of his bed, oblivious to the sumptuous and comfortable surroundings of his living quarters at the White House. There were times—and this was one of them—when he missed Caroline with a yearning that was almost palpable. If only he could reach out and grab it, seal the searing pain inside some bomb-proof container with an impenetrable lock, and bury it in the deepest recesses of the ocean, maybe, just maybe, he could escape its clutches and breathe again. Maybe his heart could beat without the thundering, throbbing ache of loss that plagued him all hours of the day and stalked him through his dreams at night. Then again, maybe not.
This had been their dream—all of this. The long years spent representing his constituents at the local, state, and finally federal levels prepared both of them for the arduous task of espousing a platform that would glorify God and bring Stuart to the presidency. Through the years, they’d waited patiently and prayed constantly for a word from God that it was, indeed, His will that Stuart lead the country; that Caroline should bring to the position of First Lady the spiritual vibrancy and urgency that would help return the American people to Christ.
And now it was all gone. Yes, STR was the President of the United States and had been for three years. With his first term nearing an end, he had a crucial decision to make in the next few weeks—whether or not to run for a second term. That’s one reason this trip to Road’s End was exactly what he needed. A few days away from the White House would give him time to think.
But it all seemed so bleak, so purposeless. So, what if he decided to run again? Maybe he’d win, maybe he wouldn’t. Did it really matter? He certainly hadn’t done anything during these past three years to engender the loyalty of the American people, at least not the Christian sector that had rallied behind him throughout his campaign—a campaign based on his promises to bring God back into the government. He was supremely aware of his failures and of the backlash that resulted. Not only had his party suffered, but those voters who’d pinned their hopes on him as a true Christian leader, one who would base his decisions upon prayer and following God’s Word, were sorely disappointed.
And they weren’t shy about letting him know.
Of course, there was always his brother-in-law to fall back on when things went a little too smoothly for a couple of days. Gilbert would try the patience of a glacier, but he had a special way of irking Stuart. As though it weren’t bad enough that he had to battle Austin through every single congressional vote, every issue that crossed his desk, every battle waged in Congress, every disparity along party lines—he had to look at him across the dinner table during the holidays, as well. Took a lot of the fun out of family gatherings.
It all came back to one thing: did Stuart Thomas Rogers want to continue as the President of the United States without his beloved Caroline by his side? Without Caroline, life didn’t seem worth the trouble and governing the greatest nation in the world seemed utterly impossible without her wisdom and guidance and unending patience. After all, he’d failed so far, and he was ashamed.
If he were truthful with the American people, he’d bow out of the campaign for a second term, explain that he no longer believed in God, and let it go at that. Other politicians had successfully faded from the spotlight. He could too. More than likely, they’d be just as happy to see him go. Gilbert certainly would.
He sat down on the side of the bed, slumped over, and put his head in his hands. Oh, how he wished Caroline was beside him to give him counsel. Of course, if she was, he wouldn’t be in this mess. He and his beloved wife would be praising God and rejoicing in the opportunities He was granting them to bring Him and His Word before the American people and the whole world. Instead he was by himself, a failure as a leader of the free world, a grieving widower, a man who no longer believed in a loving Father.
He looked up and stared blankly at the wall. He could almost hear Caroline’s voice gently chiding him for his unbelief and his loss of purpose. She’d be disappointed in his behavior. Everything the two of them believed in had been wrapped up in his campaign for the presidency. They’d thrown their passion for God into speech after speech, and it seemed that God was opening doors. And indeed, He had. Stuart recalled the primaries they won, time after time—hard-fought battles that no one believed they could win, the debates that miraculously went their way, the interviews where God’s Word came as effortlessly as if He Himself were putting the words into STR’s mouth.
And that’s precisely what Caroline claimed had happened. “You can’t win this election alone, Stu. Not with all the help in the world. No matter how much we try, how hard and fast and effectively we campaign, this is not a battle between you and your opponent. This is a battle between God and the devil for the soul of our country. And He’s using you to work His wonders.”
Although her words were a comfort, without Caroline by his side, they rang hollow. Yes, God had no doubt opened doors and created opportunities for Stuart during the campaign. But what good had it done? The presidency was won, but his wife was lost. STR’s life was over now. He was just living out his days, drawing breath, and smiling for the cameras. The heart of his passion for leading the American people and for bringing God back into the government had died the minute Caroline’s heart stopped beating.
Stuart lay back on the bed and sighed. He would give it all back to have Caroline by his side. All of it. His political success, the influence, the respect, honor—even the presidency. Especially the presidency. None of it was worthwhile without Caroline.
But he’d made this wish before. He’d prayed harder during those first few minutes after Caroline’s heart attack than he’d ever prayed. He was sure God would bring her back. Why wouldn’t he? Hadn’t she always obeyed Him? Hadn’t she been instrumental in putting Stuart in a position to lead the country in a godly manner, to do His will? Wasn’t she the perfect woman to become the nation’s First Lady?
Why then had God not healed her? Why had He let her die? Why was Stuart Thomas Rogers alone?
And why should he believe in a God Who had forsaken him?
Chapter 16
I’ve done a lot of things during my lifetime. Pastoring military personnel—sometimes on American soil, sometimes not—and being a part of both Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom were among them. I’ve moved my family thirteen times to eleven Air Force bases in and out of the country for a total of twenty-seven years. I’ve married, raised three children, with Mel’s help, of course, and recently became an innkeeper. I’ve watched and rejoiced as people accepted Christ, and mourned and second-guessed myself when they died without Him. I’ve experienced success and failure, joy and sorrow.
And through it all, despite my firmly held, Word-breathed belief that worrying does not add a single hour to my life—probably just the opposite—I still do so on a regular basis. Some people exercise or learn a foreign language in their spare time. I torture myself.
But I have never, ever tortured myself as thoroughly as the good folks in Road’s End torment me. In the world of annoyance, they are Grand Poobahs of Persecution. They deserve a medal or trophy of some kind, but then rewarding them for driving me up the wall seems counter-intuitive to my problem.
Nevertheless, I try to understand where they’re coming from. They’re well-meaning, high-spirited, hard-working men and women with multi-layered personalities. If they were a food item, they’d resemble a seven-layer salad—one of my wife’s best recipes. Let’s hope STR is fond of lettuce, tomatoes, peas, bacon, and whatever that sauce-like stuff is that holds it all together, because there’ll be a lot of it at the wedding.
I had ample opportunity to hone my fretting skills that week. It was a wild and wooly combination of restoration work, repairs to the landscaping, and last-minute touchups to the church. For the wedding itself, there was even more to do—meal planning, decorating, gathering RSVPs, assigning rooms at the inn, and cleaning. Lots of cleaning. And fretting. While the men and I labored at the church and Mel an
d the neighbor ladies took care of most of the activities relative to the upcoming nuptials, I—generous man that I am—offered to take over the bulk of the fretting.
And a fine fretter I am. Good thing, too, because there were an awful bunch of things that could—and no doubt would—go wrong, and that wasn’t even counting events I couldn’t—not in ten lifetimes—foresee.
Apparently, the townsmen were taking their Road’s End Inaugural Presidential Motorcade and Honor Guard Parade seriously. Despite Sadie’s threats to draw and quarter them if they bothered her during this frantic preparation period, her Bake House and Egg Plant was jammed to the rafters by the time I joined them at five minutes after seven. She told me George, Dewey, Frank, Perry, Leo, Rudy, and Joe, or the Silly Seven, as she called them, met there each morning at seven a.m. and called themselves the Planning Committee for the Road’s End Inaugural Presidential Motorcade and Honor Guard Parade. Not surprisingly, none of them trusted any of the others to make decent decisions so each of them appointed himself to the committee. As for Sadie’s threat of great bodily harm, I guess they figured she couldn’t take them all on at once and were willing to take their chances that someone else would be made the grim example.
The morning I ran into them, I entered to a chorus of jeers. The seven of them sat around two tables pushed together, and from the look of things, they’d been drinking coffee and eating cookies as fast as Sadie could take them from the oven. “Sleep in, didja, Pastor?” “Well, lookie here. Sleepyhead’s arrived!” And my favorite—Leo’s silent, ascending smoke ring. I guess you get up early if you want to get the warmest cookies and freshest coffee.
I’d interrupted Leo’s reading of the last meeting’s minutes. He resumed his report. It was slow going.
“The meeting …” Puff, puff. “… of the …” Long pause to ponder. “Planning …” Another puff. “Committee of the …” Ten-second silence for no apparent reason. “Road’s End …” Puff, smoke ring, another puff …
And so it went. Ten minutes and a coffee refill for everyone later, Leo had managed to spit out the minutes from the meeting held a scant twelve hours before at Frank’s Repair Shop and Convenience Store. Essentially, they’d decided absolutely nothing the night before, except to adjourn and meet again the next morning—this time at Sadie’s. Because last night’s gathering had been the inaugural committee meeting and didn’t require the reading of the minutes, the entire get-together thing lasted about forty-five seconds. To be honest, I don’t think these men can decide anything without refreshments, and nobody wants to eat anything from Frank’s convenience store. Just take my word on that.
By 7:30 a.m., Sadie had lost patience with us and sent us packing. I thought about arguing that she owed me another cookie and a coffee refill because I’d arrived a tad late, but the look on her face convinced me to shut up and live to fight another day. Besides, the men were off to join Bristol at the church. I had a feeling he’d need reinforcements, and I’m not talking about two-by-fours.
Surprisingly, work had progressed nicely on the church foundation. The men of Road’s End might be a dysfunctional bunch, but they know their construction methods and with Bristol’s knowledge of codes and products, the project was not only nearly finished but looked great. Perhaps if we could keep the president from falling through the floor, we could forestall a national security incident after all.
The earthen walls of the basement were now reinforced with random pieces of wood found tucked away in dark corners of the dank underground room or buried on the property and unearthed during our excavation project. Our goal was to keep the church from falling down around our ears, not to change its historical significance in any way, so a short-lived movement to turn the basement into an entertainment menu, as Dewey called it, was quickly quashed by more rational minds.
“But where will we show our movies?” Dewey said at our construction meeting being held five minutes later than the meeting we just left. We stood around the basement trying not to mess up our newly raked dirt floor, discussing what to do next to prepare for the president’s arrival.
Against my better judgment, I jumped into the fray. “What movies?”
Dewey looked at me as if I’d asked him to sell one of his children to me, children who are a decade older than me, mind you. “Well, Pastor, I mean the movies. You know, the movies that big churches show one or two nights a week to bring in the younger crowd? The kids, teens, people like that.” He looked around the table for support. There was none to be had.
“Younger crowd, Dewey?” I said. “Look around you, man. We are the younger crowd.”
He looked around at the men surrounding him, thought about it for a moment, then slowly nodded his head. “You’re right, Pastor. An entertainment menu might not work. How about a game room? You know, a pool table, pinball machines, stuff like that.”
I had a feeling that menu remark would be more than George could take, and he didn’t disappoint me.
“Entertainment menu? You old coot. It’s venue, not menu. And just where are we gonna put a pool table down here?” He pointed a bony finger toward the corner. “Barely got enough room for that woodstove over there. Gonna set it on its end? Let the balls just sorta roll all over the floor? Besides, we don’t have enough money to—”
“You just shut yer mouth, George Washington,” Dewey said, shaking his finger in George’s face. “You ain’t no fancy talker neither, so stop makin’ fun of me. I just think we oughta use this basement for somethin’ other than pilin’ up wood for that-there stove. No call to make fun of me just ’cause I’ve got some ideas. No sir.” He stood his ground like a pit bull with his jaw jutted out so far, I was afraid his dentures might pop out right there on our carefully groomed floor.
I stepped between them and put my arms out like some referee at a boxing match. “Men, let’s get a grip here, okay? Dewey, your ideas are good, but we just don’t have the space—or the young people, for that matter—to show movies down here. And George, you’re right about us not having any money. Funds are short. There’s no doubt about that. I’m afraid this basement is just going to have to remain an old, dirt room with a woodstove in the corner.”
Both George and Dewey opened their mouths. I tried to head them off by jumping in first.
“Dewey’s right.” Too late; George beat me to it.
I don’t know which of us in that room was more shocked to hear George agree with Dewey. There was a collective intake of air, and it crossed my mind that I might end up with a roomful of unconscious old guys. They all stared at George, expecting an earth-shaking cataclysm, I suppose, at this bizarre turn of events. Leo ceased his pipe-puffing; Frank, who had been snoring just seconds before, opened his eyes, and I … well, I was awestruck. God does indeed work in mysterious ways.
Dewey found his voice first. “I am? About what?”
“About us using this basement for something besides a hidey-hole for spiders and a place to stack cordwood,” George said. He waved his arm around the room as if we were standing in the Pontiac Silverdome. “This is a perfectly good space. We need to make use of it.” He punctuated his remarks with several wild head bobs.
Then he turned his attention to me. “Notice anything missing down here, Pastor?”
“Well, let’s see,” I said, looking around. “No electric outlets, no flooring …” I ticked them off on my fingers. “… no wall covering. No ceiling.”
George waved his hand at me as if I were spewing noxious fumes in his direction. “You missed the most important one, Hugh. Take another look.”
I did. I shrugged. “I give up, George.”
“Windows!” he said with a fist-jab into the air. “We have no windows!” He sounded so joyful, he might as well have proclaimed, “Leprosy! We have no leprosy!”
I took a quick look around and nodded. “By George, George, you’re right. We have no windows. What’s your point?”
“My point, Pastor,” he said, ignoring my little joke, “is that thi
s room will make a perfect fortress!”
“Fortress? Against what?”
He looked stunned. “What? You wanna know what? I’ll tell you what!”
“Please do, George.”
“Murderers, thieves, terrorists, the whole lot of ’em!”
I tried not to smile. “But George, we don’t have any murderers or thieves.”
“Or terrorists,” Dewey said helpfully.
“Shut up, Dewey.”
The honeymoon must have been over. “I’m sorry, George, but I just don’t understand. Explain again why we need a fortress?”
George sighed; it was plain his patience with the dunderhead of a pastor he was talking to was wearing thin. “That’s just my point, Pastor. If we have a fortress, we won’t have any of them. Get it?”
No.
“Listen,” he continued, “this is a church, right?”
We all nodded.
“Okay, then. What better place for a mighty fortress?”
“I think you’re talking about that old hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” Not, I thought to myself, A Mighty Fortress Is Our Dirt Floor Church Basement. “That hymn refers to God, not a building.”
“But this is His house, isn’t it?”
He had me there. “Well, yes, but that’s beside the point. I still don’t understand what our having no windows down here and our needing a fortress to ward off bad guys have to do with our church basement.”
“We had plenty of bad guys a few months ago,” he said.
“Yes, we did, but that was a once-in-a-lifetime event. We don’t need to guard against anything like that again. It just won’t happen.”
“What about the president?”
“What about him?”
“Won’t he need protecting?”
“Yes, but he has his Secret Service detail for protection. They don’t need us, although I’m sure STR would appreciate your thinking of him. Besides, you pointed out yourself that we have no windows. How would we be able to see anyone?”
Faux Pas (A Road's End Mishap Book 2) Page 9
