Sea to Shining Sea

by Michael Phillips

  Cal Burton was the next to speak. “It’s all for the good of the party, I assure you,” he said. “They genuinely want her involved, as they do her father, I might add. I promise to take good care of her.”

  “It’s your chance to be a famous man, Drum,” said Uncle Nick, going back to the subject of Pa’s running for office.

  “That’s the last thing I want,” said Pa. The laughter had faded from his voice, and I figured he might be thinking about all the things Zack had said. The conversation gradually subsided, and I couldn’t hear everything. The next thing I did hear seemed to be Cal Burton talking to Aunt Katie and her sister. Edie had apparently said something about having recently come from the East.

  “What’s it been like there?” Mr. Burton asked her.

  Edie laughed. Her voice had an edge to it just like Katie’s, and I could hear her distinctly. “How do you mean?” she said. “Between my husband dying and political tensions, I can’t say it was an altogether pleasant time for me before coming here.”

  “I suppose what I meant was more the weather, the scenery. It’s been some time since I saw spring come out in that region, and your mentioning Virginia flooded me with memories.”

  “Why?” asked Katie, drawing into the conversation. “You’re not from there, are you?”

  “No, but close by. Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, actually.”

  “I would never have known! What happened to your accent?”

  “A casualty of coming west to California!” he laughed.

  “And you are working for the Republicans?” put in Edie in astonishment.

  “You have to take the opportunities that come your way, you know.”

  I had hardly paused to consider why their three voices sounded so clear. With the next words Katie uttered I suddenly knew—they had been gradually moving closer to the window I was crouched below outside.

  “Is it only me, or is it rather hot in here?” said Katie.

  When I heard her hand on the window latch. I panicked and ran. But it was too late!

  “Why Corrie Hollister,” I heard behind me. “What in heaven’s name are you doing out there?”

  I stopped and turned, trying to look as though nothing was wrong. “Oh . . . I was just coming around the back of the house,” I said lamely. “I heard you talking and couldn’t help listening.”

  “Eavesdropping!” said Katie with pretended annoyance. “Shame on you, Corrie!”

  There stood Cal Burton right behind Katie, along with Edie, looking out the window at me where I stood like the mooncalf I was! I was so glad the trees kept the light dim. I would have died for him to see me in the state I was in!

  “Well, Corrie, don’t just stand there,” said Katie. “You were coming in, weren’t you?”

  “I . . . was . . . I mean I didn’t want to—”

  “Come on around to the door, Corrie,” she insisted. “As I understand it, this man came all the way from the big city to see you.”

  I hastily tried to think of some way to squirm out of the awkwardness and get out of there. But by now Pa realized what the ruckus was about. He came outside as I walked slowly around the side of the house.

  “Where you been, Corrie?” he said. “I’ve been looking high and low for you.”

  “Just around and about, Pa.”

  “Well, come on in. Cal’s back.”

  “No, I have to go back home and take a bath before supper, Pa.”

  “At least come in and say hello.”

  “Oh, Pa, I’d rather—”

  “Come in and be sociable a minute,” interrupted Pa. “You can clean yourself up later.”

  I knew there was no way out of it, so I sighed silently and went into the house with Pa. He may not have minded my dirty dress and mussed hair, but Uncle Nick wasn’t about to miss the chance for kidding. For once I wished he’d have kept his humor to himself. Usually I didn’t mind, but this time it hurt.

  “Corrie Belle,” he said, “you’re a mess! You look like you just stepped out from wrestling with a dad-blamed hog!”

  “Nick! Haven’t you got any sense in your head?” Aunt Katie rebuked him sharply. “Now’s not the time for saying such things.”

  I was grateful for Katie’s standing up for me, especially since it gave me a quick second to blink back the tears.

  “I think your niece looks just as nice as can be, Mr. Belle,” said Cal Burton to Uncle Nick. Hearing his voice say such a thing took my breath away for an instant, and I almost forgot the mess I was in. “Hello again, Corrie,” he added, turning to face me and holding out his hand.

  I shook it, daring a quick glance up into his face. His eyes were looking straight at me. I glanced away almost as fast as I’d looked up.

  “Honest, hard-working, robust beauty, Mr. Belle,” he said, turning again to Uncle Nick. “Not the kind of thing you see too much in the city, you can take it from me. I’ll take a handsome young lady from the country like this anytime!”

  “Oh, Corrie,” whispered Aunt Katie behind her hand, but loud enough so that she made sure everyone in the room heard her, “you better snatch up this fellow while you can! Men like that don’t come along but once in a lifetime!”

  Now my face was red! I couldn’t stand it, being the center of everyone’s talk. But everybody just stood there looking at me in my dirt-smeared dress. I could hardly keep the tears back now. It was awful to be stuck there like that!

  “So, where have you been, Corrie,” asked Pa, “to get such a mess all over you? We got a guest for dinner.”

  “I know, Pa,” I said, trying to stay calm. “I was rubbing down Raspberry. I guess the time got going too fast for me.” I wiped the back of my hand across my eyes.

  Pa laughed. “You just smeared a streak of dirt across your forehead,” he said. “Here,” he added, reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief, “you can wipe it off with this.”

  Suddenly, without even realizing what I was doing, I spun around and ran for the door. I made for the woods as fast as I could, tears streaming down my cheeks.

  Chapter 19

  Learning to Look for the Lord’s Doors

  Somehow I managed to get through the horrid day.

  After a long cry I went back home, got water for a hot bath, with Almeda’s help, and was probably halfway presentable by the time Pa and Cal Burton got back down from Uncle Nick’s. Almeda and I talked a little, but I think both of us realized if we talked too much about what had happened, I’d start bawling like a baby all over again. So she just loved me as best she could, and let me take my bath and get dressed by myself.

  Pa felt bad for what he’d done, I knew that. I did my best to look at him in a way that would tell him I didn’t hold anything against him, and that I knew it was my own fault. I didn’t want him to have to worry about anything he’d said to me on top of his heartache over Zack.

  Cal Burton kept being just as nice as he could be all evening, treating me as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all. But I kept my eyes away from his. Down inside I was just too mortified over having behaved like a ridiculous little schoolgirl.

  “So, Miss Hollister, what about going to Sacramento to work for Mr. Lincoln?” he asked.

  “I’ve been thinking about it,” I said, “but I haven’t had the chance to talk with Pa and Almeda yet.”

  He smiled into my eyes—a smile that almost made me forget how foolish I’d been. “I understand,” he said. “I can stay for another day at the boardinghouse in town, and we can discuss it again tomorrow.” Then he and Pa spent most of the rest of the evening talking about politics. As interested as I’d been before, I just couldn’t seem to concentrate on what they were talking about. I sat there silent the whole time, my mind muddled up with Mr. Burton’s eyes, his smile, his deep resonant voice. Then I’d think about running out of Uncle Nick and Aunt Katie’s that afternoon, with a dirty dress and crying, with everybody staring after me! It was a miracle I didn’t cry again just thinking about it! I did shed a fe
w more tears later, though, lying in bed trying desperately to go to sleep and put the day behind me at last.

  I felt just as stupid the next morning, but at least a night’s sleep put some distance between the present and my inane behavior. The sun shining into my room helped cheer my spirits somewhat. Besides, whatever I felt like, I had to make a decision about what to do.

  I got dressed and walked out. Almeda was just taking the water for Pa’s coffee off the stove. I walked toward her. She put the kettle down and drew me to her in a warm embrace. We stood there for a long time without saying a word. I wrapped my arms tightly about her waist and buried my face in her neck. It felt so good to know I was loved no matter what I did!

  “What should I do, Almeda?” I said finally, slowly pulling away from her and sitting down.

  “About yesterday, or about going to Sacramento?”

  “I don’t think there’s anything I can do about yesterday!” I laughed halfheartedly. “No, I mean, should I go?”

  “What are you feeling about it?”

  “After yesterday it’s hard to know. I thought I had things more or less worked out about the election. I was even beginning to look forward to writing something. Now I’m confused again.”

  “Do you feel the Lord prompting you to go?”

  “Oh, I don’t know!” I wailed in frustration. “I can’t even concentrate enough to pray or to ask the Lord what to do! I don’t know why, but it seems like a big decision. I have the feeling that whatever I decide, the results will be with me a long time, maybe for the rest of my life. But God might as well be a thousand miles away for any feeling I have of his presence.”

  “Do you think he really is a thousand miles away, Corrie?” Almeda asked.

  “No, I know he hasn’t gone anywhere. You’ve taught me better than that. I know you can’t depend on your feelings. God is near, he is still with me—I know that. I just don’t feel him, that’s all.”

  Almeda smiled. “I’m so glad to hear you say that, Corrie,” she said. “It doesn’t concern me to hear you say the Lord seems distant as long as you know he really is still right beside you.”

  “I know it, at least in my head,” I answered. “But not feeling him, not hearing his voice anywhere makes a decision that much harder. How can I know what his will is?”

  “Could he be speaking to you in ways you’re not used to?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “God doesn’t always speak to us by giving us a strong urging or compelling to do something. The older we grow as Christians, the more he actually may not give us those strong inward voices telling us what he wants us to do.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I have an idea,” Almeda answered. “But it’s only my own personal theory, nothing I’ve found in the Bible or anywhere.” She gave a little laugh. “So if I answer your question, you can’t hold me to it if someday the Lord shows us I’m wrong.”

  “Agreed,” I said.

  “Okay, here it is.” She paused, took a breath, then launched in. “When we’re young, either in age or young as a Christian, there are many things we don’t know. Young people have to learn about life. And when you decide to give your heart to the Lord, there are many, many things you have to learn about what life with him is like. The Lord has to tutor us, for a while, helping us learn new habits, new attitudes, new ways of looking at things. He has to train us spiritually. He has to teach us to stand, then walk, then move forward as Christians. In the same way that a parent has to train a child in the ways of life in the world, our Father has to train us in the ways of life in his kingdom. Until we get our spiritual bearings, that training has to be very direct, very close, very personal. There is so much we don’t know and that he needs to teach us.”

  She stopped, and a thoughtful look passed over her face. Then she laughed again.

  “Oh, Corrie!” she said. “If you could have seen me that first year or two I was married to Mr. Parrish. There was so much I had to learn, not just about being a Christian, but about being a wife, about living a normal existence. Every day was a new learning experience!

  “You see, that’s what I am getting at. Both my heavenly Father and Mr. Parrish together contributed to that remaking process in me. But eventually I did change. Eventually I learned the new ways. And now, after all these years, I am truly an altogether new and changed person. I have matured in many ways. As a Christian, as a daughter of God, although he is still with me always—inside my heart and right beside me—I no longer require the same kind of training I did back then. I am God’s daughter, but I am also a grown woman. I think God treats me in many cases like an adult rather than a child. Whereas, at first he had to show me everything, and had to take my hand and literally guide me through every step of life, he doesn’t have to do that anymore. He has trained me, and in the same way that a parent gradually releases a child to walk on his own, I think God begins to release us—not to walk independently of him, but to walk beside him as he has shown us without his having to direct every single move we make. In obedience to him, we walk along the path he has given us to walk, without having to stop to consider every step. Does that make sense?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “It’s very difficult to explain what I mean,” Almeda went on. “I don’t mean to sound as though I think I want to walk independently, or that I think God isn’t there with every step I take. I do try to bring him into all aspects of my life, even more than I did at the beginning. But the more we mature as Christians, the more of our decisions he leaves in our hands—knowing that we are walking along the road he has placed us in, and according to the ways and habits and attitudes that he has trained into us.”

  “In other words,” I said, “he might be leaving part of the decision of what I should do in my hands?”

  “Exactly. If he didn’t want you to write, I am confident he would let you know it very clearly, and I am equally confident you would obey his voice. But since he has led you into writing in the past, I think he will very often let you make the decision yourself as to what specific things you write about. He may give you a stronger sense of leading at some times than others. But there will also be times when he will trust you to go either way when you’re facing a particular decision, and he will make either one work out for the best.”

  “Hmm . . . that is a new way to look at it.”

  “God is our Father, of course. We must look to him for everything. We can’t breathe a single breath without him. We can’t take a step without him. Yet it is one of the many paradoxes of the Christian life that he also entrusts to us a sort of partnership with him. As we walk along with him, keeping our hand tightly in his, it is as if he says to us, ‘My son, my daughter, I have trained you and taught you and placed my life and spirit inside you. Now go . . . walk in the confidence of your sonship. I will always be at your side; if you err or misstep, my hand will be right there to help you up and guide you back into the middle of the path. But until then, walk on with the boldness that comes from having my Spirit inside you.”

  “Do you think that applies to big decisions too?” I asked. “Things like whether or not I should get involved in this election?”

  “I think we always have to pray and ask the Father for his specific guidance,” replied Almeda. “Then the time comes when we must make a decision.”

  “And if we don’t seem to hear a definite answer?”

  She thought a minute, then answered. “There are two ways, it seems to me, in which God can answer our prayers and direct us. He can open doors, or he can close doors. If we’re standing still, facing a fork in the road, facing a decision to be made, he can either open a door going in one direction or close the door going in the other. Or, if we don’t happen to see the fork, or don’t see any possibilities clearly, it has always seemed best to me to keep moving and praying until he either opens or closes a door. I’ve even prayed something like this sometimes: ‘Lord, I don’t know for sure if this is the way you want me to g
o. It seems to be best right now, and I think this is what you want, so I’m going to keep moving cautiously ahead until you say otherwise. Please, Lord, if this is not what you want me to do, slam the door shut in my face.’”

  “Is that what you did before the election four years ago?” I asked.

  “I suppose it was something like that, although there was, as I now look back on it, an ample supply of my own wishful thinking involved in what I thought was God’s leading. Yes, I thought I was going in the right direction, so I moved ahead. But then when God made some things clear in my thinking about my relationship with your father, I knew he was closing the door.”

  “And so maybe Cal Burton’s coming like he has is the Lord’s way of opening the door to what I’ve been in doubt about all this time.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me a bit,” said Almeda.

  “I’ve been thinking about Davy Crockett’s saying, ‘Be sure you’re right, then go ahead.’ Maybe I’ve been expecting the Lord to be more direct than he wants to be.”

  “There’s wisdom in that motto,” said Almeda. “Yet on the other hand, we don’t always have the luxury of being absolutely sure before we have to go ahead. In the absence of any positive leading by God, sometimes we have to launch out according to what circumstances seem to be saying, and prayerfully trust God to open and close doors as we go along.”

  Both of us were quiet a minute or two, until the door opened behind us and Pa walked in. Almeda glanced up, then her face fell.

  “Oh, Drummond!” she exclaimed. “I’m afraid I let your coffee get cold.”

  “What’d you go and do a thing like that for, woman?” barked Pa, throwing me a wink.

  “Corrie and I were talking. I’m sorry.”

  “Cold coffee from your hand is better than a hot cup from anyone else’s,” said Pa, walking to Almeda and giving her a kiss.

  She handed him the cup. He took a long swallow, then nodded in satisfaction. “Yep . . . not bad at all!”

  “So, what do you think, Corrie?” asked Pa. “You recovered from your embarrassing little runaround yesterday?”