Grandfather is one of many missing pieces replaced in my life. Another might come next spring if plans work out to visit his estranged son. My dad.
A robin scatters seeds, digging for one in particular. Dozens of little birds flit from branch to ground…more than many of these. I’m more valuable than many of these.
Me, the woman at the well, the woman who deserved stones.
I feel how God loves me when the sun penetrates my shirt like a warm hand caressing my back.
I hear how I’m loved in the whippoorwill call.
I see it in the burnt-red leaves tumbling down, the breeze controlling their fall. Me.
“Are you going to do your little swirly, praise-dance thing before we leave?” Hayden grins. I place a quick kiss on his upper lip, grazing his scar. He’ll wait. This is between Jesus and me.
The scent of autumn tosses my hair and I breathe deep the bounty of God Most High. My shoes slip easily from my feet, and the damp grass chills me. Oh, God, I love you.
I lift my face with my arms, and we dance.
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“The Eternal your God is standing right here among you, and He is the champion who will rescue you.
He will joyfully celebrate over you;
He will rest in His love for you; He will joyfully sing because of you like a new husband."
Zephaniah 3:17 (The Voice)
Book Club Questions
1. Many of us long for control over our own lives, what was the turning point for Sparrow when she finally relinquished that control? What led up to it? Is there anything in your life you are unwilling to surrender?
2. Define the difference between sexual power and real control over your life. Is it possible to confuse the two? Why?
3. Do you view the women in pornography as being similarly trapped as brothers, sons and husbands? Or do you view them as perpetrators in the industry? Would most men view pornography differently if they thought of the women as victims?
4. Are there any similarities in Sparrow’s story and the way that Christ and the world both woo a soul? Who represents Christ in the story? Who represents the world and what are their tactics?
5. Why did Sparrow dream of dancing? How was it different from the dancing she ended up doing?
6. Did you feel you could identify with Sparrow in any of the following dancing scenes?
· The first time when she does it because of the praise
· Later when she views it as a charade
· When she dreams of it with her face and arms held high
· When she gets used to doing it as a means to an end
· When it is between her and Jesus and she rejoices
7. Were Leah’s parents wrong to want to protect her? Was detective Malcolm wise to counsel Hayden the way he did? Would you feel differently if you did not know the stripper’s story like you knew Sparrow’s?
8. To which character did you most relate?
9. What did Cori mean when she said, “No religion is better than a false one.”? Is this true?
10. When in a woman’s life is her longing to be desired strongest? Does it decrease with age?
11. Is Sparrow correct when she wonders about the difference between modeling lingerie for a department store ad versus any other business?
12. Sparrow’s perception of church was that they walked around congratulating themselves on how little sex they had. Is this a common misconception? How does God feel about sex?
13. Sparrow said people have been having sex since they crawled out of the slime. How would your views about sex, created to be pleasurable by a loving God, contrast with someone who believed in evolution?
14. Why did God make sex to be the way it is, instead of purely functional?
15. Why do you think Cori felt unable to receive forgiveness?
16. Why might Lorna have seen the prayer/blessing from Sparrow’s Grandfather as a curse?
17. There are many scenes revolving around showers and cleansing; what does this represent?
18. Why did Hayden’s Cinderella story affect Sparrow specifically?
19. What was Sparrow’s “Pearl?” What was Hayden’s? What is yours?
20. When the Grandfather says they are on sovereign ground, did he mean something more than American Indian territory? As believers, where do we find sovereign ground?
Acknowledgements
I'd like to thank the many people God brought into my life who helped me on this journey.
My husband first, because it never seemed to occur to him that I wouldn't publish someday. Maybe soon he will read something I've written.
To Lisa Buffaloe, the first pair of eyes on Sovereign Ground. I will never forget the weekly email critiques which inspired me to finish.
To my son and daughter, the first two to read the complete story. Your insight and suggestions made the difference.
To Kristine McCord and Heather Woodhaven who sacrificed a day at my kitchen table to read my manuscript aloud—with only chicken salad as payment. As a result the manuscript became a semi-finalist in Operation First Novel.
Thank you Lisa Phillips for never holding back what was lame.
To Idahope Writers, especially Ray Ellis, Becky Llyes and Peter Leavell. Two hours a month socializing with Christians who hear voices is just not enough.
To my family. Thank you Mom, Katie and Judy for honest impressions.
To those who had a part in my writing journey as well, especially Erin Taylor Young, Holly Smit and Becky Avella.
Hilarey Johnson teaches martial arts in Idaho with her husband and three children. She keeps a larger than normal, urban garden with chickens.
When she isn't writing or getting lost, she loves to cook foreign foods and read redemptive fiction. Someday Hilarey hopes to time travel.
She blogs infrequently at Hilarey.com. Sovereign Ground is her first novel.
A Heart of Petra
Breaking Bonds, Book 2
Chapter 1
Whoever heard of an insomniac with a pajama fetish? I swipe my hand down the leg of my lime-green cotton PJs but it doesn’t help, and I still need two tries to adjust the telescope.
With a deep breath, and a double check at the lock on my bedroom door, I’m able to slow the skipping in my ribs. It’s amazing how blood and heart vessels work together, pumping day and night, even while people sleep—well, while most people sleep. An insomniac doesn’t have the pleasure of dreaming during the seven-hundred and twenty minutes our sun shines down on the other side of the world.
I twist the focuser on my telescope clockwise—a bit too far, back just a hair. Perfect.
Returning to my love of pajamas: Seven sets of long-sleeve, long-pant outfits wait in my bottom drawer in two neat piles. One drawer up contains nine matching shorts-sets, twelve nightgowns and one baby-doll nightgown my parents don’t know I own.
Shouldn’t the comfy fabric and freeing cut of nightclothes start to filter into all daywear? Maybe this is where my obsession began. The cotton, polyester and spandex blends create some of the most luxurious sensations—I wish I never had to change into the heavy fabric we usually use to make my clothes. I don’t mean people ought to walk around outside in their lounge pants, with slip-shod manners as though they don’t respect the society around them. But, if someone could invent a style that felt like pajamas—I’d order from that catalog.
Now that my space probe is set, I can stretch out and wait for the earth’s rotation to progress and pretend I didn’t get my sister’s email.
Pretend Ava didn’t leave us.
One o’clock in the morning is when it usually gets good. Until then, celestial bodies will ballet across the chasm of oxygen-less dark. The place where God has gone to prepare a palace of many rooms.
Of course, that isn’t where I look.
Neither do I strain to see down in the city, praying in vain for a glimp
se at the sister who wouldn’t listen. I haven’t done that for years. Until tonight.
Ava wanted to tell me why she left and why it’s been so long since I saw her. She wants to know if I feel the same as she did when she lived at home.
Even in the semi-dark, I’m distracted by the bumblebee-yellow paper, the YWAM Discipleship Training School application sticking out from under my Bible. The black letters, “Youth With A Mission,” buzz in my brain as I read. I finger-trace the script of my full name: Leah-Patrice Petra Jones. I don’t feel the same as Ava—at least not enough to defy mom and dad. To leave my family.
I lift the paper and take time to match the corners, creasing the center. It isn’t exactly disobedience that I kept the filled-out form after my parents said, “No.” I filled it out months before mentioning the idea…and it would be wasteful to throw it away now. It could be used for scratch paper or something.
“Oh God, thank you for this day, thank you for your provision, please put a hedge…” My mind and eyes wander to the ambient glare of downtown Reno lights diminishing the glow of stars. Up here, on a hill overlooking the city, it’s like I have sky above and sky below. I’m trapped—suspended in stasis.
After I finish creasing the YWAM application, I start to tear the paper. Three centimeters into the act, there is the heat of regret deep down in my core. I slide the paper into my purse. Maybe I’ll get the impulse to toss it sometime away from home, and I won’t be able to retrieve it like when I am here.
“I’m ready for an adventure, God. Whatever you need to do with me, whatever you want from me.” My words flit off into the void as I’m distracted. That always seems to happen when I pray.
It’s weird to be so tired and yet unable to succumb to such a simple, natural function as sleep. “How can I be still before you, God, when my mind races like this?”
Doesn’t Psalm say he grants sleep to those he loves? The thought makes me gulp.
When I can no longer hold it in, air strains for release against my teeth. The sound of a sigh crescendos like a sonnet in my lonely bedroom. Never mind, it is enough that I have eternity ahead—I’ve probably misunderstood the meaning of that verse. Dad is adamant about not taking verses out of context.
A knock at my door.
I scramble to open it before I’m asked why it’s locked.
“Leah?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“You can say ‘Yes Mom,’ too.” She takes a deep breath. “You’re up late.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t mean…” She leans in to kiss my cheek. The smell of her Oil of Olay night-cream reaches me before she does. “You sleep with your blinds open?”
I don’t look at her but try to answer offhand, arbitrarily. “Yeah, I’m a little warm. I was just about to open the window a crack.”
“You know Dad doesn’t want your window open at night.”
“I thought that was only because I used to sleep on the first floor. Second story now, won’t it be fine a crack?” I cover the tension in my forehead by lifting my eyebrows. “Just a breath of wind off the Sierras. It’s January and still doesn’t feel like winter.”
“Okay.” Mom’s nose wrinkles up for a moment and she looks so pretty. Maybe I should borrow her night cream.
Just to show her how little the window needs to be cracked, I walk over and lift it less than an inch before closing the blinds with flair.
“G’night.” She starts to turn. “Are you coming to first service?” The question comes like a belated thought, but I’m sure it’s what brought her up here.
“I’d rather not, Mom.” Sitting through Pastor Thompson’s sermon twice is not the problem. It's doubling up the thirty minutes of boring singing where I have to stifle a hundred yawns.
“Dad loves having your voice with ours on the worship team.”
I hesitate—still living in stasis.
“But beyond that…” Mom’s eyes smile although her mouth stays still. “Actually, Pastor Thomson will be out of town and Dad is very excited for the substitute to meet our whole family.”
“All right.” Definitely why she came up so late. So we finally get to meet the visitor Dad’s been spending so much time with. “But I better get to sleep then.”
“Yes, get your beauty sleep, Leah.”
I huff. “I need beauty sleep?”
“No, darling. You don’t need any more beauty, and that’s the truth.”
She leaves while my cheek still tingles from her second kiss. Truth? I relock the door and angle my telescope uphill—parallel to the ground behind our house.
Like Jacob’s wife: weary Leah—the unloved. Wouldn’t a beauty have a husband by now? My mom and sister are beauties. They both had husbands and kids by my age. Ava-Nicole was the prettiest one of us all but Dad said it was her lust for the world which made her run away and bow down to an institute of humanism.
Truth.
The day the man I loved married a stripper, I knew everything my parents had ever told me was a lie.
Sovereign Ground (Breaking Bonds) Page 24
