Coming Home: (Contemporary Christian Romance Boxed Set): Three Stories of Love, Faith, Struggle & Hope

by Debra Ullrick

  “Were you planning to take them in that thing?” his father asked, indicating Keith’s pickup with a nod.

  Keith turned back. “Well, yeah. It’d kind of be a long walk otherwise.” The joke fell like a pancake under an army boot.

  However, his father examined him without rebuke. “Inez, page Ramon. Have him bring the car around front.”

  The middle of Keith pitched forward. “The car?”

  “If you’re going to go, you might as well go with a real driver.”

  How his father could give such backhanded assistance, Keith wasn’t at all sure.

  Inez came back. “He’s on his way, Sir.”

  “Good.” His father nodded. “Go tell Ms. Montgomery it’s time for church.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Maggie hadn’t seen Keith for a whole week, and it was starting to grate her nerves not knowing where he was or if he was all right. She and Greg had talked twice during the week, and although he hadn’t asked her out again, that was just a matter of time. Had she met and fallen for Greg first, this would all be perfect. As it was, perfect felt a million miles away.

  She sat on Isabella’s window seat and gazed out at the backyard. She wondered about Keith if his week had gone well, if the horses were coming along, if things were going well with Dallas. Yes, she would’ve even taken talking about Dallas to have the opportunity to talk with him about something.

  “Ms. Montgomery?” Inez asked as she knocked on the door.

  Instantly Maggie was on her feet. “Yes, Ma’am?”

  The look on Inez’s face went from happy and hopeful to condescending and cold. “Mr. Keith is here to see you.”

  A joy she had never before felt flooded through her.

  “Keef!” Isabella said from the floor where she and Peter were playing.

  Maggie knew she would need all the reinforcements she could get. She swung Isabella to her hip. “Come on, Peter. Let’s go see why Keith is here.” She followed Inez out the door.

  “He’s at the front,” Inez said but turned for the kitchen.

  “Okay.” Maggie walked to the main staircase and started down it. On the curve halfway down, she caught his gaze, and the smile couldn’t be stopped. However, she had to keep it as professional as possible because Mr. Ayer was standing there watching. “Hi. Inez said you wanted to see me?”

  “Hey,” Keith said. “I wondered if you wanted to go with me to church.” He seemed subdued and hesitant. His hands were behind his back, and his head was down more than it was up.

  “Oh… I don’t.” She glanced at Mr. Ayer. “I don’t know if the children…”

  “I’ve called the car, Ms. Montgomery,” Mr. Ayer said. “If you would like to take the children to church, I think that would be acceptable.”

  She looked from his father to Keith and back again. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  The saddest but almost not there smile she had ever seen met her. “I think it would be good for them.”

  The Dodge was one thing. The limo was quite another. Maggie helped Peter strap in while Keith got Isabella settled. When both children were ready, Maggie sat down on the plush seat that faced backward, and Keith sat next to her although at the far other end of the seat. He buckled in and then tapped the dividing door. The car rolled out.

  This was beyond anything Maggie had ever expected. She wasn’t made to ride in limos. She wasn’t even made to stand on the street corner and watch a limo drive by. Limos weren’t a part of her world. However, the thought slid through her that they were how Keith had grown up. That thought stabbed into her as it illuminated in brilliant colors why they could never be together. Nonetheless, she was sure he was enjoying this chance to exhibit his status in the world. After all, wouldn’t everyone?

  Keith hated this. With everything in him he hated this. In fact, if he would have thought of it, he would’ve told her he would meet her there. This was like wearing a big sign across your forehead—Hello, hate me because I’m rich! He tried to quell the crawling shame, mostly because he didn’t want to spoil this ride for Maggie. She was staring out her window, surely thinking how far she had come in the world.

  His gaze drifted over to her silhouette. She wasn’t looking his direction so he let his gaze linger there, watching her. She could even make a limo ride bearable, and for him, that was a stretch. He wanted to ask about her week and the kids, but it was clear she was lost in her own thoughts, so he kept his own to himself.

  Maggie followed Keith who held Isabella up the steps and into the church, wishing it didn’t feel like everyone was staring. Their arrival out front had been less than ordinary, and now it was as if everyone in the church was glancing at them, whispering, wondering who they were. Maggie hated the attention, but they were here, so she had to make the best of it. With Peter’s hand in hers, she stepped into the bench, and Keith followed her in. Her heart stifled the breath from her when he was once again by her side.

  There was something about standing next to him, something so familiar and yet exciting just the same. He didn’t look at her even when the service started, and that worried her. They stood there together, yet separate. Joined by the children, and yet not. It was a strange space in life to occupy.

  By the time the sermon started, Keith knew with everything in him this was a total mistake. He felt the gazes on them even if he didn’t look around to actually see them. Worse, his mind kept going to how right this would feel if he could let himself think that. Her by his side, saying the words and seeming to guide their little group through the prayers without effort. He couldn’t explain it, and after a while he stopped trying if for no other reason than every time he tried, he kept coming to the same conclusion, and it was a conclusion he liked but could never make happen anyway.

  In complete frustration with himself and everything about his miserable life, he anchored his attention to the preacher. Somehow, Keith knew he had to find something else to think about or his mind was going to get so tangled it would never work right again.

  “The pots,” the preacher began. “Six pots, set off to the side. I wonder if we have ever really thought about those pots. Here’s Jesus at a wedding. His disciples are there. His mother is there, and as the wedding progresses, they’ve run out of wine.”

  Oh, terrific, Keith thought, shifting in his seat. We come to church, and they’re going to talk about getting drunk. This is exactly what Maggie needs. Not to even mention me. We shouldn’t have come. I knew we shouldn’t have come.

  “Now one thing you have to know is that in this time period, to run out of wine during a wedding celebration was a major insult to all the guests. It would heap dishonor on the host, and presumably the host was a friend of Jesus because… well, Jesus was invited, and you don’t invite just anybody to a wedding. So here’s Jesus and his friends, and it becomes clear to Mary that they have run out of wine.

  “Mary on faith goes to Jesus. ‘They’ve run out of wine.’ Jesus puts her off. ‘It’s not my time.’ But Mary, her faith in what Jesus can do never wavering, looks to the servants and says, ‘Do whatever He tells you.’ And what does Jesus say? ‘Take those pots, and fill them with water.’

  “Take those pots? But what were those pots? If you’re like me, you think they were pitchers just like you would normally think you would put wine into. Ahh, but that’s not what it says. It says, ‘Now there were six stone waterpots set there for the Jewish custom of purification…’ The Jewish custom of purification. That means those pots are there for the Jews to wash themselves, to purify themselves in order to be clean enough to share a meal.

  “Notice. Jesus doesn’t say, ‘Take them and wash them with Dawn detergent and then go out fill them with water.’ In fact, He doesn’t even mention washing them out first. He just says, ‘Take them, and fill them with water.’”

  The preacher paused and looked out at the crowd. “What does this mean to us? It’s very simple. We are not required to get our act together and then go to God. We are those d
irty pots—full of the filth of our lives, even the filth of our own attempts to wash our sinfulness away with our religions and our rules. Those rituals can never save you. Even if you live by the rules, you are still unclean. You still need to wash and to be washed. And then Jesus comes along and without requiring you to get clean first, He points to you and says, ‘Fill that one with My water.’ The living water that He refers to later on. ‘Fill her with My water. Fill him with My water.’

  “And then, as if that’s not enough, He tells the servants to take some of what has come out of these pots to the headwaiter who will judge the wine, the fruit that comes from these dirty, filthy, stinking pots. Think about that. All these people have washed themselves in these pots, and now these servants are going to take what they know was water only minutes before to the ultimate judge to seek his approval to share it with others. Isn’t this just like you and me?

  “We are these pots, once filthy and dirty, but now not only filled with the living water, but filled with the wine of a new life. And the fruit that has come out of us is now taken to the ultimate judge. Does the judge take one sip and spit it out in horror at our filth? No. You know the end of the story. He praises the bridegroom for saving the best wine for last.

  “Understand this,” the preacher said slowly, “Jesus is the new wine. He is the best, and He wants to fill you right now. Not when you get your act cleaned up, not when you’ve gotten yourself presentable. Right now. He is standing here calling you to be filled with His new wine. The question is: Will you let Him do it, will you do whatever He says, or are you still going to try to do it on your own? It’s your choice.

  “Let us stand.”

  Keith could hardly move, and even when he did, it felt like someone else moving him. How many years had he known he was not good enough? How many hours had he spent beating himself to a pulp because he couldn’t be what his father wanted? How many hours had he spent first trying to escape through a bottle and then hating himself for being so weak?

  The guilt was crushing. The deep understanding that he could never, ever measure up was like a million pound weight that he labored to carry every day. Even when they had first started coming to church, he knew it held a peace he hadn’t known in years, but he felt so unworthy of the peace it seemed to offer.

  Now as he stood fighting to breathe, he realized he was one of those waterpots. He was filthy and dirty and vile. He had sin upon sin, worldly answer after worldly answer, and as much as he had wanted to gain the peace he could feel being offered here, he had convinced himself he wasn’t worthy of it. He was too bad to ever fix, and he knew it to the bottom of his soul.

  Guilt and shame for all the things he had done swiped through him, raking gashes in the façade of I’m-all-right as it went. Sins he remembered and many he didn’t gushed to the surface, reminding him how far he had fallen since he had stood in this space with his mother all those years before. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be as easy as the preacher made it sound, and yet…. Yet, he could see those pots, sitting in the corner, dirt-stained and contemptible at the very least. That’s how he felt—dirt stained and contemptible.

  Fear and shame gripped the grain of hope the preacher’s words held, and Keith crushed his eyes closed as the battle rose inside him. “You don’t understand, Lord,” he prayed in the depths of his heart. “You don’t understand all the bad things I’ve done.”

  “And you, Keith don’t understand what I can do if you will let Me.”

  The voice was so real, Keith didn’t even question its existence.

  “But I’ve done so many horrible things. Things I can’t even forgive myself for. How could you ever forgive me?”

  “I can do all things. In fact, I have already forgiven you. All that remains now is for you to accept that forgiveness.”

  He thought the guilt might squeeze his breath right out of him. It was like he was suffocating. His head swam for want of oxygen. “How, Lord? How?”

  “Trust. Walk through the door I open, and trust that the next step will appear.”

  “Keith,” Maggie said, and when he came back to the church, she was looking at him with worry. “It’s over. Are you ready?”

  He looked at her with uncomprehending eyes. His insides were exhausted from the battle. “Is it real?”

  Her gaze fell increasing with concern. “What?”

  “What you have. Is it real?” He really needed to know.

  “What I have?” she asked, clearly not understanding.

  Keith glanced to the front. “The praying. The believing.” He looked back at her. “Is it real?”

  She smiled but barely. “It’s the most real thing I’ve ever found in my life.”

  For the first time he took a real breath, and slowly he nodded. “Then I want that. I want what you have. But I don’t know how. I don’t know how to be there—where you are. Can you show me?”

  His gaze seemed to sink into hers.

  “I’d love to.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Maggie knew she was pushing her luck, but she also knew Who she had on her side, and so she put the day in His hands and let go. When they got back to the mansion, Patty Ann met them at the front door. It was enough to make Maggie question God’s sanity.

  “Where did you take the car?” Patty Ann asked in angry exasperation. “The Ayers will be late.”

  Pulling Isabella closer to her side, Maggie lifted her chin. “We went to church, and we took the car because Mr. Ayer said we should.”

  Patty Ann surveyed Keith, clearing knowing he was to blame for this, but Maggie held her ground.

  “Mr. Ayer didn’t say anything about him needing the car.”

  “That’s because Mr. Ayer didn’t know about the Coopers’ brunch in…” Patty Ann looked at her watch and went ashen. “Oh, my. I’ve got to get them in that car, or they are going to be far more than fashionably late.” She practically ran up the stairs.

  Keith was all-but doubled over as his gaze stayed on the floor. Hesitantly he glanced up at her. “Well, I’d better get…”

  The thought seized her with a vehemence that took her breath. Quickly she darted a glance up the stairs before she bent closer to him. “Come back and get us in thirty minutes.”

  Confusion slid over his face.

  But she was perfectly calm. “Trust me.”

  Keith waited until the limo had been gone for ten minutes before he had the guts to go back to the mansion. Even then, he parked on the trail close to the kitchen. His heart was jumping through his chest and at the door he had to exhale hard to get his emotions to calm down. He opened the door and found Maggie, a whirlwind of activity in the kitchen.

  He let the door bang softly behind him, and when she looked up and smiled, life stopped.

  “Oh, good.” She licked her finger and slapped the two pieces of bread together. “Inez is off, so don’t laugh at my cooking.”

  “O… kay.”

  “The car seats are right there. If you’ll get them ready.”

  Keith picked them up, questioning his sanity. He must be crazy. That was the only logical explanation for any of this.

  “So, I’m driving,” Keith said when they were all in the pickup and strapped in. “Mind telling me where we’re going?”

  Only then did Maggie hesitate. It was nearing 100 degrees outside, and keeping the children out in that for hours didn’t sound like a great idea. “Well, you said you could drive out to the waterfall if you had to.”

  “There’s a couple places that are a little scary.”

  “Depends who’s driving.”

  Keith was amazed. Maggie had weathered the bumpy, uncomfortable trip out to the falls with grace and humor. She was simply amazing. There was no other word for her. At the falls, she unpacked lunch. She fed Isabella. He helped Peter. When lunch was over, Maggie told the kids to play under the tree, and both seemed so happy to be there again, they obeyed.

  “Now,” Maggie said, sitting on her knees and pulling one la
st thing from the lunch basket as the peaceful sound of the falls enveloped the afternoon, “were you serious about what you said at church—about being where I am?”

  Reaching up to scratch his collarbone, Keith nodded.

  “Well, then I brought you something. It’s not new or anything. If I’d have had the chance to get a new one, I would have, but you didn’t give me a lot of notice.” With a short breath she handed it across to him, never really meeting his gaze. It was a black leather book with a worn zipper around the outside. The lettering across the front, faded to a nearly unreadable gold held five simple letters: Bible.

  “It was my parents’ Bible,” Maggie said softly, looking more at it than at him. “It’s what I have left of them.”

  Gratitude and guilt smashed together in the middle of him. “Oh, Maggie, I can’t…”

  She smiled serenely. “Just until you can get one for you.”

  Gently, reverently, Keith held the Bible, fighting not to let his hands shake for the trust it represented. He slid the zipper around it and let it fall open. For all the wear on its outside, its inside was remarkably intact.

  Maggie watched him as he flipped it first from one page to another. “One thing that really stuck with me was that I remember Mrs. Malowinski telling me that faith isn’t just believing He’s there. Real faith is trusting Him to guide your every step to your greater good. He wants that for you, you know? Your greater good.”

  The protests crowded through him about his own life, but he chose to use hers as an argument. “But how can you believe that? How can you trust a God Who took away your parents?”

  Her gaze fell. “This life isn’t perfect, and there are things that happen, bad things, set into motion by people who make really bad choices. God does not alter the physical laws of this world. If velocity says a car traveling at this speed hits another at that speed, there are consequences to that impact. God allows the laws here to work so that we can live our lives. Otherwise, if the law of gravity worked sometimes and not others, we couldn’t even walk out of our house because we might float off the planet.”