Raising Attabury: A Contemporary Christian Epic-Novel (The Grace Series Book 5)

by Stallings, Staci

  “Bigger than keeping us from tanking life?” Derek asked.

  The pastor nodded with no question in his eyes. “Yeah. A lot bigger than that.”

  Silence followed for several seconds.

  Finally Eric voiced what he thought they were all thinking, “How? How do we do that? How do we go from trying to keep our lives from falling apart to… what did you call it? Impact. Whatever that means.”

  “Impact.” The pastor cracked his hands together. “Making a difference. Helping people’s lives for the better. Getting in there and really doing something to move the dial in this ol’ world.”

  “But how do we do that?” Luke asked. “How do we move the dial?”

  Derek raised his hand just off the armrest. “Uh, let me take a crack at that one.”

  “Go for it,” the pastor said.

  “Well, this week while I was sitting in the hotel for hours and hours, praying Jaycee would somehow get better. While she was sleeping and I was trying not to lose my mind, I picked up this book, and there was a quote in it by Einstein. It was something like, ‘Stop trying so hard to be a success. Instead become someone of value.’ I’ve been trying to figure out what that meant all week, but I think maybe this is it. What you’re saying. I’ve been trying to be a success all my life, and maybe I’ve kind of gotten there. I don’t know. But now that I’m here, it’s like I’m asking, ‘Is this really all there is?’ I thought fame would make all the hassle worth it. Now with the baby and all, I think there might be more to this life and what it means than I ever really knew there was.”

  The pastor nodded. “I think it’s all of this. Getting together, being real, taking the game to guilt and shame rather than letting them lie to us and keep us…”

  “From going on offense,” Caleb said, and a light jumped into the pastor’s eyes.

  “Right. Because Satan knows full well if we ever really go on offense with God on the field with us, he’s toast,” the pastor said. “I think we have to start asking ourselves how can God reach out through me and help and heal the world. That world might start with those closest to us, include them, learn to love them more and better. And then let that circle just gets bigger and bigger.”

  “It’s like what Sage was telling me the other night,” Luke said. “We were talking about all of this, and she said something like, ‘First you have to know you’re loved. Then you have to accept that love. Then you have to learn to live like you are loved.’ I never thought about it like that—living like I’m loved—by God, by Sage, by my family. I can’t explain why but that feels like courage to me.”

  “Well, that’s great if you’ve got it,” Eric said, and he couldn’t stop the bitterness in his heart from coming out in his voice.

  “Life change isn’t lived in a vacuum,” the pastor said. “We don’t get to go up on a mountaintop by ourselves, alone with God to figure all of this out. If we could, maybe all of this would be easy. Instead, I think God put us in this multi-dimensional crazy puzzle that feels so overwhelming because we have spouses and kids and friends to contend with. That’s what Satan wants us to believe. He wants us to be so overwhelmed we give up. In fact, I kind of think that’s what life is set up to convince us of—that it’s too big, to just give up.”

  “Boy, do I know that feeling,” Derek said. “I remember driving into this town the first time. I thought I had to be out of my mind to think I could do anything to help. It was just total destruction everywhere.”

  “And Rachel’s house?” Caleb said. “Geez, let’s just knock that thing down and start over.”

  “Attabury,” Eric said, and they all looked at him. He squinted into the understanding before raising his gaze to meet theirs. “It looked absolutely impossible to all of us.” He tipped his head. “It did, right? You’re going to lie and tell me it didn’t?”

  Slowly, reluctantly with small grins, they all nodded.

  “It should’ve been knocked down. It’s time had passed. It didn’t deserve our time or our effort.” His mind cleared. “Just like I was.” He gasped at the understanding. “I told you before, I didn’t feel like I deserved any of the friendship you all gave me, us. I couldn’t figure it out, why you would even care about me, but you did.” He looked around at them. “You guys don’t have to try to make an impact. You already made a big one on me.”

  “I feel the same way,” Luke said. “Just having Derek to call when something’s not working the way I wanted it to, and he talks me through it. Or seeing you guys at church. Y’all coming out to the house. It’s made a huge impact on me.”

  “I grew up in scarcity,” Greg said. “Not really debt so much but definitely scarcity. There was never enough month at the end of the money for my parents. So when I got my degree and got married, I did not want to live like that anymore. I wanted out, and I thought the job in California would give that to me, but I think all I really did was take the scarcity thing with me to California. I see now, it wasn’t so much the money. It was feeling like I wasn’t enough. I think that’s why I tried so hard to find someone that would… I don’t know, fill that and make me feel like I was ‘enough’? Not that that worked all that great, but I think that’s where it came from. Scarcity. I do know I’ve spent most of my life in that scarcity and only now do I get a glimpse when I look at my beautiful children and grandchildren that maybe my life always had more wealth in it than I realized.”

  “So it’s the way we look at things,” Caleb said, and they all looked at him.

  “Explain,” the pastor said.

  A second and Caleb sat forward, putting his hands out in front of him. “Okay. I’ve learned something working with things. A lot of the time we go into it, looking at it only one way. We think that’s the way it is, but that’s never the whole picture. If you don’t look at the whole picture, you can get into things and make huge mistakes you didn’t see were even going to be a problem. Like those stupid tree roots this week. Who would have even thought those things could take down the whole house? But they would have if we hadn’t gotten a handle on how deep they had dug under that house.

  “It’s the same with this stuff. If you look at it only from your perspective, of course, it looks one way. If you look at it from scarcity, of course, it’s going to look scarce—no matter how much you have, it’s never going to look like it’s enough.”

  “But if you look at it from wealth and impact,” Derek said, and Caleb nodded, encouraging him to finish the thought. “That’s how you come at it because that’s how you see it.”

  “Right,” Caleb said. “When I first saw Rachel’s place, oh, Mylanta. I thought you’d lost your ever-lovin’ mind.” He nodded to Derek who tipped his head in acceptance of the assessment. “But then I met Rachel, and…” Caleb’s gaze narrowed. “The whole project like… flipped for me. Like I didn’t really care if I had to take down a mountain to do it, I was going to make that home beautiful… for her and Rhett and Nat. Not for the show. Not for me, but for them. Everything about it changed when I changed how I was looking at it.”

  “Impact rather than scarcity,” Greg said.

  “Compassion rather than selfishness,” the pastor added. “When we’re not in it to get but to give.”

  “It really takes a lot of faith to be like that,” Luke said. “Especially when reality says something totally different.”

  “It always does though,” Caleb said. “It’s the reality we choose to look at that matters, our perspective. It’s like the pastor said, Satan is always going to be right there to try to convince us that this will never work, that we should just quit and give up. That’s one reality, but what if there’s a different reality?”

  For a long moment the pastor nodded. “Hebrews 11:1. ‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things we cannot see.’ So when things,” He smiled and tipped his head at Luke, “reality, isn’t what we want it to be, maybe it’s faith that helps us see it a different way?” He nodded and grinned. “I like that.”
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br />   “It’s like that Jesus door thing,” Derek said, and they looked over at him. He sat up. “Okay, one time the pastor said the world is all full of chaos and drama, and we look around, it looks like there’s no way out. And if we try to do it on our own, there really is no way to get out of it. It’s only when we see Jesus as the door out of what the world says is reality that we can walk through Him and get out.” He looked over at the pastor. “How was that?”

  Pastor Steve grinned at him. “Amazing.”

  “So maybe this whole thing has been about more than we thought,” Caleb said. “Maybe it was about teaching us to look at reality differently and stop settling for believing in scarcity and man’s math and all of that.”

  “Maybe God’s been putting something together this whole time so we can have a real impact on the world,” Luke said.

  Profound silence settled over all of them.

  “I think putting this project, whatever it is that God’s got in mind, back into God’s hands would be a good idea,” Caleb said. “Pastor?”

  With a nod, the pastor slid out of his chair, and after only a moment, the others joined him on their knees on the floor. “Dear Heavenly Father, author of all that is good and right and beautiful. We feel the call on our lives to take what you’ve been teaching us out to our worlds. Please be with us in this endeavor, show us where Your love can most impact the world through us, and give us the courage to follow what and where You lead. We ask this in Your Name.”

  “Amen.”

  Chapter 22

  Dani made it a point to say hello to Alan the next morning as she and Joel left the hotel to go to Blair’s. At first Joel seemed surprised. He was one second away from asking when she saw the horror go through his eyes, and she knew he had gotten the message.

  When they got to Blair’s office after a very quiet ride, she lifted her chin and took a breath. “So here’s what I’m thinking. They’re trying to delay. What if we just go full-bore and ask the tribunal for a speedy decision. I mean, what are we waiting for?”

  “They’ll never go for it,” Blair said.

  “Why not? The town’s agreed. Drake’s ready. The money’s there. If they’ve got an objection, I say let them speak now or forever hold their peace.”

  In the back servant’s quarters, Eric ripped the sheetrock down, the dust mask firmly on his face as each pull sent dust particles dancing in the bright sunlight. The manual labor felt good, and he relished every second of it. Behind him, Caleb worked to remove the debris a wheelbarrow load at a time. When the walls were just studs, Eric stood back and smiled. Attabury was teaching him more than he ever thought possible. “Walls,” he said softly as he touched one of the studs, “we’re going to rewrite your story, so get ready.”

  Turning, he wondered about the room as he looked it over. In all likelihood, it probably housed slaves before the servants. Slaves. People in bondage with seemingly no way out. No, it hadn’t been easy to get from there to here. But standing here, Eric knew he was in a far different place than they had been. He could make his own decisions, chart his own course. He could chose his own destiny. Because of their sacrifices, because of their faith to continue even when life looked utterly hopeless, because of their heart, he had the life he now lived. Somehow, he had never been grateful enough for that, but from this moment on, he would never make that mistake again.

  “You ready to tackle the old dining room?” Caleb asked.

  “Ready when you are.”

  Dani got back to her room after seven. Joel had no desire to eat with her, and the feeling was more than mutual. He’d spent the day in a not-quite-well-disguised snit. That was okay. He could fuss and fume all he wanted to. Made no difference to her so long as he showed up and did his job.

  Wanting with everything in her to curl up with the diary, she took a few minutes to order room service and a few more to take a quick shower before placing the call to the States. She glanced at the clock, 7:45 her time meant 2:45 theirs.

  “Hey, babe,” Eric said, sounding like a bright ray of sunshine breaking through the gloom of overhanging clouds.

  “Hey,” she said, feeling like she had when he had called her that first time all those years ago. Even on the phone after all these years he still sounded handsome. “How’s it going?”

  “Great! We’re ripping down the walls in the dining room. Making good progress finally.”

  “That’s good to hear. How’s everything?”

  “Good. Good. We’re going to be here through tomorrow.” He let out a sigh. “It’s getting harder and harder to leave.”

  That surprised her as much for the bluntness as for the honesty. “It’s not as bad as it was?”

  “No. I’m kind of falling in love with the place. Oh, wait ‘til you see it with the windows. The view out that upstairs window in our room is… Well, you’re just going to have to see it to believe it. And the front is amazing. You can see for days across the field on the other side of the road.”

  “For days, huh?” She got up from the bed and went over to her window. Opening the curtains, she gazed out upon the stark gray, stone building across the street, a perfect clone of the one she stood in and every other one up and down the street. “Sounds great. How’s Jaden?”

  “I think Emily’s spoiling her rotten. They went to the library this morning, and she got like five books. Then they went up to church to help Jane change out the flowers. I talked to her at lunch.” He laughed. “Well, mostly she talked, I listened. But I’m getting pretty good at that. What do you think about her becoming a florist? I think that’s her newest career goal.”

  The thought jerked through Dani. A florist? Who ever heard of such a thing? Her father would disown them all. “I’m glad she’s having fun.”

  “Oh, and even better news.” The cheerfulness in his voice dragged her heart under. He sounded so happy. She was so utterly miserable.

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, remember how Jaycee’s been sick?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, it wasn’t food poisoning…”

  Worry crept across her heart, and she remembered sitting with Jaycee only a couple months before at Rachel’s wedding. “It wasn’t? Oh, no. Is she all right?”

  “Oh, she’s more than all right although I think we might have to get some oxygen ready to keep Derek standing because he’s become a basket case.”

  “Derek? What? Why?”

  He laughed. “I’ll let you think about it a minute. Smart woman like you, won’t take you long to figure it out.” Just as he had said, he quit talking, and anger poured on her.

  “Eric… This isn’t…” However, her mind took over for one heartbeat, and suddenly it hit her. “She’s pregnant!”

  His laugh was even heartier. “She is! Isn’t that awesome? They’re due in like October, I think.”

  Sliding off the bed, Dani bounced twice. “Are you serious? She’s really pregnant?”

  “She is.” Then he went somber. “But say some prayers for her. Okay? She’s way sick. In fact, she’s come back to Ridgemount for a while. I think Sage is not going to leave her bedside. Derek either, but that’s a little trickier because they were just finishing up the job in Buffalo, and who knows what they had scheduled after that.”

  “Ah, man. Bad timing.”

  However, he laughed. “Nah, blessings are always good timing. Besides, God’s smart. I’m sure He’s got a plan all worked out.”

  Dani let out a short, disbelieving breath. “Well, I’m glad somebody does.”

  “So am I.”

  Dani crawled into bed after her quick rendezvous with supper. She rolled her neck, fluffed her pillows, and picked up the diary.

  “That Dani earlier?” Caleb asked when they had taken a break for water and an assessment of what came next.

  “Yeah.” Eric took a drink and wiped his forehead.

  Caleb nodded slowly and waited before realizing that was all Eric was going to say. “How’s that going?”
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  A shrug was all Eric could manage. “Good, I guess. It’s just… I can never really tell with her. Even when I think it’s good, she could be wound up like a top ready to fly on me.”

  “I hear you there. Sometimes I think my radar needs adjusting or tuning or something.”

  “What is that?” Eric asked, really wanting to know. “Why can’t they just say what’s going on, get it out in the open, and get on with it?” A half a drink and he heard the question. Glancing over at Caleb, he tipped his eyebrows and sighed. “That’s probably why, huh?”

  “Could be. You ready to get to work on those bedrooms upstairs?”

  “Let’s do it.”

  May 1952

  The weather outside is improving which is a blessing too great to be hoped for. Winter has been taxing on both Olivia and me. Each day reminds me how old I am becoming and that I am now closer to death than birth. For some, that might be a gloomy thought. For me…

  February 1965

  The floors of this old house have become nearly as creaky as I have. The banker came today. Every time he darkens my doorstep, more of the Attabury land is sold away to keep me eating. Tony would never approve, but what am I to do? An old woman with few skills set adrift in this world by life and all its tribulations. Olivia has made attempts to get me to go into town with her, but the thought of riding in an automobile makes me quite ill. I remember the day… I remember. Often far too well for my own wellbeing.