Unmending the Veil

by Lisa Heaton

  Feeling the swaying of the dock, she turned to find Mike walking her way. Moving up close behind her, he slid his arms around her and rubbed her swollen belly. At six months pregnant, they knew already they were to have a girl. Never before, while standing in that same exact spot grieving and hurting, could she have dared to believe such happiness would exist for her again. It did, though.

  They were at the inn for only a few days and, fortunately, it was in the midst of the season of fall colors. Emma and Stan had chosen the time for their wedding precisely for that reason. The main house was in a flurry of activity, as the wedding and reception would be there the following day. She had snuck away from the chaos to step back in time and reflect on how far the Lord had actually brought her. There was a verse that followed her to the dock that day. David once asked, “Who am I, O Sovereign Lord, and what is my family, that you have brought me so far?” That was her question to the Lord that day. What a mess she was. But finally, she was whole and complete.

  “Do you think you would like to come here to live someday?” She never mentioned that Emma planned to leave the inn to her.

  “I will come now if it is what you want.”

  She knew that to be true. Without doubt, he would move heaven and earth to make her happy. “No, I mean when you retire. Could you see yourself here?”

  “As long as I am with you, I can see myself anywhere. But, yes, I think I can handle a hard life of boating and fishing.”

  “The winters are tough, though.”

  “I will keep you warm.”

  Smiling, she rubbed his hands resting on her stomach. “I am content.”

  “Me, too.” Lowering his head, he kissed her neck. “What do you think it will be like with your parents?” It was all he had thought about since getting on the plane.

  “I think it will be okay. Are you nervous?” Her parents called her the day after reading her letter. Their tone gave away their true feelings, but they said they supported her decision. Since that time, they only called her on her cell phone, and she suspected they did so to ensure they would not accidently reach Mike if they called her at home. She knew it would take time. With her parents due in that afternoon, neither of them knew what to expect, so understandably, Mike was anxious about being with them for the first time.

  “Very nervous.” He was not as concerned about her mom, rather her dad. Though taller than Bill since he was sixteen, Mike always felt dwarfed in his presence, as he was such a dominating man. Always strong and confident, godly and good, he was everything Mike would want in a father. He respected him more than any man he had known until Tim, and the loss of him from Mike’s life had left him with a deep longing to restore what they once had.

  “Don’t be. I am with you.”

  “It will be fine then.” Releasing her, he asked, “Are you coming back up?”

  “I will be up in a while.”

  When he was gone, she walked to Chris’ cabin. Relieved that Emma did not allow anyone to stay there while she was in town, Robin was glad to be able to go in and spend some time there. With Stan’s four kids and their families, plus her parents, Mike’s mom, and the two of them, the house and many of the cabins were full. She and Mike were staying in her old room. While it crossed her mind to stay in the cabin during the visit, she decided it would not be fitting. Though it was never spoken, she suspected Chris’ feelings ran very deep for her. Actually, she was sure of it. He loved her. And while he never did or said one thing to that effect, she knew still, it was evident in the way he looked at her, especially there at the end.

  Taking a seat in his chair, she recalled the wise things he said to her, and the way that, no matter what she felt, he always directed her back to Jesus. He was sent for her, and the Lord proved His mercy and loving kindness by that very act. Though never suspecting what was coming; help was on the way in the form of a barefoot, selfless school teacher, who, while facing the end of his own life, poured into hers, giving her the chance to begin again. Her greatest desire was to be more like him.

  “Lord,” she prayed, “just as Elisha asked from Elijah, I ask You for a double portion of Chris’ spirit. My desire is to help others the way he did, and to reach out and touch lives and direct them to You. As I have been comforted, I desire to comfort others. I want to have a purpose beyond what I know right now. I am Mike’s wife, and soon I will be a mom again. Those are the greatest purposes, I know. Still, there is something deep within, a calling of some sort, and I am not sure that I fully understand it. But I know You have something for me, and Lord, I sure don’t want to miss it.”

  Mike stood at the door, hesitating. Emma sent him back out to look for Robin, something about a shoe emergency. When she was no longer on the dock, he suspected she was at the cabin. She once told him that was where she prayed. Having reached the cabin, he froze in his tracks when he read the name on the plaque above it, Chris’ Cabin. It caused an unnerving stirring within his chest, and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Finally, he tapped on the door, and when he cracked the door open, he saw her sitting in a chair beside the fireplace. Awkwardly, he remained outside. “Emma needs you.”

  “Come in.” Pointing to the chair she usually sat in, she told him, “That is where Jesus healed me.”

  Mike walked over and put his hand on the top of the chair. Rubbing the woven tapestry fabric, for the first time he voiced his suspicion, “Chris was in love with you.”

  Without confirming or denying the truth of his statement, she offered, “He never, ever made that known then. Each and every time we talked, he simply listened, and then led me back to God. He was kind and compassionate and helped so many people, including me. You can’t imagine the hundreds of people at his funeral.”

  Her statement startled him, heightening his discomfort. “You went to his funeral?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “I didn’t realize you were that close.”

  “I was with him when he died.” There had never been a reason to mention it before, but she could tell by the look on Mike’s face and the tone of his voice that he was disturbed by it; even the veins in his neck began to bulge. This was not the moment to discuss it further. He was upset and that upset her. “I better get back up there.”

  “I will be up in a while.”

  Moving to his side, she rubbed his arm. “Are you okay?”

  “I will be.” He smiled half-heartedly.

  Standing on tip toes, she kissed his cheek. “I love you.”

  “I love you more.”

  Once alone, Mike knelt in front of the chair. Placing his hands on the seat where she would have sat, he prayed, “Thank You for what You did for her right here in this very spot. Thank you for the man you sent, and I am sorry I have been so jealous of him. It’s just that he knew her in such an intimate way, and I have no doubt he loved her. I suppose that is my fault, though. Had I not left her in the world alone, so broken and vulnerable, she would have had no need of him. I did, though. Lord, I give these feelings to You, knowing You will take them away. I don’t ever doubt her or her feelings for me, but I am jealous still. I’m so afraid she loved him, too.”

  Mike reached the back steps of the main house just as it was getting dark out. When he opened the screen door to the porch, he found Robin’s dad sitting there in a wicker chair, glaring at him. Approaching him hesitantly, Mike stuck out his hand. “Mr. Jacobs.”

  Standing, Bill took two steps forward. He had dreaded this trip, and he dreaded seeing Mike. After what happened, he swore he would kill him if he ever got the chance. But after reading his letters, and later the article Robin sent, his stony heart began to soften toward him. “You could have come to me, son. I would have gotten you some help.” Reaching for him, he grabbed his shoulder and pulled him nearer. Embracing Mike, as if he were his own boy, he added, “I always thought of you as a son. I would have done anything to have helped you.”

  Standing in that embrace, tears ran down Mike’s cheeks. Having not had mu
ch of a dad in the picture, Bill had always been the closest thing he had known. Letting him and Linda down was second only to letting Robin down the way he had. “I would like to think if I had it all to do over again, I would, but I was so confused, and I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I am so sorry. Sorry for everything I did and didn’t do.”

  They spent nearly an hour together talking and sorting through the past few years. For Mike, it was one of the final steps he needed to take in the healing process. The things he had done to this man’s daughter required confession, and he desperately needed to ask for his forgiveness. Soon, he would have his own little girl, and even with her yet to be born, the thought of any man hurting her the way he had Robin was something that could easily send him into a mind-bending rage. Again, from Bill this time, forgiveness and grace was extended to him, demonstrating God’s love in a way he hoped he would always be able to exhibit to others. If there was ever a man whose life could be modeled, it was his father-in-law’s.

  Later, sitting around the table, Robin scanned the large crowd. Her soon-to-be brother and sisters were all there, her parents plus Emma and Stan, Tommy and Becky, herself, Mike and Kathy; the room was full and lively. How different from exactly one year before when there was only Emma and herself. How much more joy was in their lives! Life was so entirely different, entirely blissful, that it was a testament to the great things God had in mind to do.

  Emma was beaming with happiness. Becky and Tommy were engaged. Then suddenly, something began to stir in her spirit, a reminder from the Lord that she had touched their lives. He had used her, even if in the tiniest way, to help them see Him. There was purpose for her in their journeys. Back at home, she had been ministering to Kathy. Having finally accepted Christ, she entered as Emma did, full of shame that prevented her from making any real progress. They spent hours on end talking, Robin sharing her story and Emma’s and was beginning to see some progress. Tim had sent a girl from their youth group, struggling with some serious issues, to talk to her.

  Had she not just prayed in Chris’ Cabin for purpose and to help others? There was already purpose for her, and it was for His glory. He was gracious enough to open her eyes to understand that she was doing exactly what He had planned for her in that season. As was the mystery of Him, she had no way of knowing what it would look like in the future, but she trusted Him entirely and without fear. For the time being, though, she would simply do what He placed before her.

  Earlier on the dock, she thought back to something Chris said on more than one occasion. He reminded her they lived in a fallen world. And sitting around her that very moment was a group of people who each lived in their own distinct fallen world and experienced pain in differing degrees. Just as each would eventually stand before God as individuals, so, too, the life they lived was just as individual, uniquely carved out for them. From her own standpoint, she lived in a world where her baby was taken much too early and where the man she loved succumbed to mental illness and alcohol and became abusive. Even prior to those tragedies, she was a young woman, a perfect example of all of fallen humanity, who desperately sought human love, to the exclusion of God’s love. That was the true basis of her fallen world, one in which she thought she could live and move and breathe without Him.

  Mike was hardly even given a chance with a father who abused the entire family, then, and maybe even worse in the long run, left the family defenseless. It is a fallen world indeed when the words, “Our Father who art in heaven,” causes you to cringe because it contains the word “Father,” a word synonymous with pain and fear. Mike recently shared that with her while talking about the arrival of their new baby. All those years he attended church with her, he despised the word father. In hindsight, it was what kept him from God in the first place. Once he came to know his heavenly Father, though, the word became something to long for, something sweet to his ears and to his heart.

  Chris’ fallen world consisted of losing his father at such a young age, then losing his mother to alcohol soon after. He was left with no parents to care for him. As if that beginning were not harsh enough, his end came much too soon and as the result of some aggressive mutation of cancer cells.

  Kathy’s need for human love tore her from the arms of her children, sending her off in a never-ending pursuit of fallen, human love. Still, even to that very day she reached for what would never satisfy the true longing of her soul.

  Becky’s need was much the same. The giving of herself to a young man who had no intention of loving her or marrying her was proof that she, too, sought after a love that left her destitute and empty. Tommy would not receive a particular gift because of it.

  And Emma, oh, how she hobbled in her own fallen world for more than three decades. She longed for what she lost, then longed even more for what she gave away. Closing herself away in a world where shame and self-loathing bound and gagged her, she forfeited the grace that could have been hers.

  Robin’s parents not only experienced infertility, but along with the sweetness of an adopted baby girl, they were forced to carry the burden of the secret of her birth, stripping them of the light and joy that could have been theirs had the truth been told.

  While each of them inhabited individual worlds of pain and suffering, resulting from consequences of personal choices, their own and those of others, it was the very same Lord who, in His unfathomable mercy, stepped into each individual world with the offer of His grace. One Lord, yet to each He offered different elements of His character, based on individual need in the initial wooing and pursuing of each of them. To Mike and Chris, they each needed the Father. With that position solidified in their hearts, He then journeyed with them, demonstrating new layers and levels of His nature, cultivating them into sound and godly men.

  To her, He was first and clearly most essential in the beginning, her Wonderful Counselor, as her need of healing and restoration prohibited further growth. Then eventually and most importantly, after a lifetime of pretending to follow Him, He became her First Love and her God. It was that layer upon layer of intimate knowledge of Him that would ensure she could never again be shaken. He held her firmly. She was His.

  For Emma and Becky, He showed Himself as the Lord who hears and forgives, the One who replenishes that which is lost by filling that place of longing with His Spirit and love.

  It was not lost on her. Almighty God was to each what they needed. As their worlds were unique and individual, He was just as much unique and individual in His dealings with them. In and for all of them, His timing was precise, whether patient or expedient. His touch was as needed, ranging from tender to heavy.

  The commonality for all of them in the beginning was that, though He chose to rend the veil and offer direct access to Himself, they each set out on a course to mend it right back. In their pain, grief and fear, rather than looking toward Him, the One who heals and restores, they began to stitch and mend that veil, or in some cases install a zipper to close Him out. Having pondered for some time as to why, she came to the conclusion, at least in her own situation, she wanted to try to maintain some kind of control in a world out of control. Ultimately, she wanted to be her own god, not trusting Him to be, which in turn led to utter devastation and self-imposed separation from the Source of Life Himself. Was that not likely the case for them all, the desire to control and direct their own destiny? As if that were at all possible. Praise God for unraveling the stitches in each and every person sitting around that festive table.

  At bedtime, Robin and Mike were alone in their room. Since they spoke in the cabin, she was concerned for him, about how he was feeling, but knew it was something he needed to work out with the Lord. As much as she hated that it bothered him about Chris, she could never regret his friendship. Having felt conviction in her spirit on a particular matter, she sat beside Mike on the bed. “I need to tell you something.” Taking his hand, she dreaded what she had to say, but it had been troubling her all evening. “Soon after I met Chris, he asked me to d
inner, and I said yes. I suppose you could call it nothing less than a date. I’m sorry.”

  He stood and paced for a moment, and her first inclination was to fear his former fits of jealousy. Back and forth he moved, not saying a word. Clearly, he was hurt, maybe even a little angry, but there was no risk of the old Mike resurfacing. She could tell by the look on his face; it was different, the expression more grieved than enraged. Quietly she sat, waiting for some reply. Tempted to try to explain further, she decided instead to let her words sink in and allow him to form whatever questions he might have.

  Finally, he stood before her, looked her in the eye, and demanded, “Did you love him as much as he loved you?” He always had a sense there was more between them. Not as if he had a right to be angry about it, but after seeing how Chris looked at her, he knew there was something significant there. In truth, he wished she would have never felt compelled to tell him about the date. He didn’t want to know.

  “Not like that. Before the end of the date, I knew my heart was still so full of you that I could never love another man that way.” Reaching for his hand, she added, “I never will.”

  He sat back down on the bed beside her. Elbows resting on his knees, he admitted his true feelings. “I hate that he knew you so much better than I did. Somehow, your relationship with him seems very intimate.”

  She almost disputed that fact, but then considered Chris’ remarkable insight into her. “You know me better now than he ever did.” Moving her fingers to stroke the hair above his ear, she was honest with him. “I did love him, but it was like family love. Will you believe that?”