53 
Becoming a Daughter

All the following day, Sister Gretchen prayed for Amanda. She had detected the subtle shift in spirit. That evening they were all seated around the fire with books or needlework in their laps. After some time, Gretchen broke the silence.

“Tell us your story, Amanda,” she said. “What circumstances led you to the train station where I first saw you?”

“Oh . . . you wouldn’t be interested.”

“Surely you know us better than that by now. That is the reason we are here, the reason we bring people to be with us. We ask the Lord to send us people who have lost hope.”

“So, you think that about me,” snapped Amanda sarcastically.

Several of the sisters glanced up. Eyes met as they seemed of one accord to sense a sudden dropping of the spiritual barometer.

“I was not referring specifically to you, Amanda dear. I did not mean to offend you. Although I must say,” added Gretchen, “when I saw you in Milan, you had a look of hopelessness such as I have rarely seen.”

Amanda sat in silence. As is the pattern with many, now that the unpleasant circumstances in which she had found herself earlier were alleviated and the temporary crisis past, she had begun again to consider herself an island who neither needed nor wanted anyone else’s help.

“Our mission in life is to give hope by encouragement and hospitality,” Sister Hope now added. “We try to help people to see that however bleak their circumstances, they yet have a Father who loves them, and is doing his very best for them.”

At the word father, Amanda bristled yet more. Her unsettled annoyance was growing more pronounced by the minute.

Both Gretchen and Hope saw it clearly enough.

“Amanda,” Gretchen began after a moment or two, “I would like to tell you a story about a young lady who was here at the chalet a number of years ago. She had been the most compliant little girl in the world growing up. She hardly ever did anything wrong and never needed to be spanked.

“But deep inside this girl carried a secret. More than just a secret—it was a secret sin. One of the worst sins imaginable. It was the kind of sin that rarely hurts anyone else because it is a very private sin. But if it is allowed to remain, it can destroy the person herself. And it almost destroyed her.”

Amanda wasn’t interested, but she supposed she didn’t have much choice but to sit and listen. She sensed that the sisters were closing in on her. It had begun to feel like years before at home.

“This little girl positively hated being told what to do,” Gretchen went on. “She did what was expected, but always on her own terms. She had a temper, too, but she learned to control it. She pretended to be obedient, to smile at the right times, and to wear a mask to hide what she was feeling down inside. In her own way, I suppose, she wanted to be good, but she didn’t want to be told to be good. All the while, as she grew, she became more and more determined to get away from her parents at the first opportunity, so that she could be free of their rules and ways of doing things. More than anything, she wanted to dictate her own affairs. She wanted to make her own decisions. She never wanted anyone telling her what to do again.

“That’s what made it such a serious sin—because that kind of attitude can prevent a person’s entering into the relationship with God we’re supposed to have. This girl thought about God sometimes. She even prayed. But she never realized that her independent spirit prevented God from being able to say anything back to her.

“Finally when she was twenty-one she had the chance she had been looking for. She was offered a job as a professor’s secretary. You see, this girl was very intelligent and had made the most of her education. The pay was very good, and she could easily afford to live on her own as she had dreamed of doing.

“She left home and worked at the new job for three years. But inside she was not as happy as she had always expected to be. Then she met another young lady several years older than herself. Immediately they became close friends. But the independent girl of twenty-four realized her friend had something she did not have.”

“What was that?” asked Amanda, gradually finding herself interested in the girl of the story.

“A meaningful relationship with God,” answered Sister Gretchen. “The younger girl saw immediately that it was much different than her own shallow belief. Her new older friend had invited her to come and live with her one summer when the professor in the city did not need her. She came to assume that the idyllic surroundings of her friend’s country home must be the cause of her peacefulness and spiritual maturity. If she could just stay there forever, she thought, she would eventually develop the same faith her friend had. The more she was around her friend, the more she hungered after intimacy with God too. Yet she didn’t know how to attain it.”

“Why didn’t she ask about it?” asked Amanda.

“That is exactly what she did. But her friend’s answer surprised her. Actually, at first it made her a little angry.”

“What did her friend say?” asked Amanda.

“She said that living in a peaceful setting would not bring her close to God.”

“‘Why?’ the girl asked.

“‘Because there is something wrong in your soul,’ answered the other, ‘something preventing the intimacy you seek.’

“‘What could that possibly be?’ asked the first.

“‘A spirit of prideful independence,’ answered the older.

“Sudden anger rose up within the younger of the two. Pride . . . independence—how dare her friend say such things! You see, beneath a very calm exterior, she still possessed her silent temper. She did not like to be criticized any more than she wanted to be told what to do.”

“What did she do?” asked Amanda.

“She stormed off,” Gretchen answered. “She smoldered and pouted and was silent for days. Eventually, of course, she calmed down. Actually, she was a little ashamed of herself. So she went to her friend and apologized. Then she said she was ready to listen.

“The older of the two young women became very thoughtful. ‘Are you certain you want to hear what I have to tell you?’ she asked. ‘It may be painful.’

“The younger said she was certain. She was ready to grow, she said, no matter what it took.

“So the older spoke very bluntly. ‘You have been resisting authority all your life,’ she said. ‘When you were younger and you could not run away from it, in your heart you silently resisted your parents, doing things your own way even though you pretended to obey.’

“‘How do you know that?’ asked the other.

“‘Am I right in what I say?’

“‘Yes, but how could you know?’

“‘It is not so hard to see. You still carry the same spirit. For those with eyes to see such things, it is as plain as the nose on your face. I see it all about you. Until it is dealt with, it will forever keep you distant from your heavenly Father.’

“‘What should I do?’ asked the younger.

“‘You must learn what you should have learned as a little girl. You must learn to rejoice in being a child so that you can learn to become God’s daughter.’

“‘Surely . . . you don’t mean I should go back to live with my parents. You don’t mean literally . . . a child.’

“‘I mean a child in spirit, one who does not resent authority over them—parents or anyone.’

“‘I am a grown woman. I have not lived with my parents for over three years.’

“‘Twenty-four is not really so very old.’

“‘But do you actually suggest that I . . . go back and live with them?’

“‘That is not for me to say. Whether with them or alone, somehow you must put right within yourself what you refused to learn early in life. You must learn to be happy and content under authority. Only then will you be able to discover the true independence of adulthood—the humble freedom of maturity rather than the prideful independence of childhood. It is what being God’s daughter is all about.’”

Sister Gretchen paused thoughtfully.

“What happened? What did she do?” asked Amanda.

Gretchen remained quiet for another few long moments.

“I quit my job and went back to live with my parents,” she replied at length. “I remained with them for five years, seeking to honor them and submit to them in my heart as I should have many years before. Believe it or not, they were the happiest years of my life. My parents treated me respectfully like an adult, yet I was able to honor them in a new way, even serve them and help them far more than I ever had when I was younger. I tried to live for them, rather than only for myself. My mother and father became true friends. My pride and self-centeredness gradually fell away—or, I should say, began to fall away. And I found myself beginning to understand many things about God in a new light. My dear friend had been right—the doorway to intimacy with God was through my very own parents. Not because of anything they did or said, but because of the change God wrought within me as a result of my decision to put myself willingly under them. My heart was wrong, and it could only be made right as I dealt with my wrong spirit toward authority. After five years, with my parents’ blessing and encouragement, I went back to live with my friend, and I have been here ever since.”

She smiled at the other sisters, though Amanda was silently beginning to fume at the trick she now felt had been played on her.

“I would have been content to remain with my parents even longer,” Gretchen continued. “But by then, I think I was ready to leave. And, of course, this time I sought their counsel in the decision. They, too, thought it was time for me to establish my own life apart from them, now that I had discovered what I had been put under their care and authority to learn in the first place. I now visit them every chance I get. Along with the sisters here, and my own sister Elsie, my mother is my best friend. My father is old, and if he should die, my mother will come to live with us here.”

“Why didn’t you tell us it was about you all along?” said Amanda stormily.

“I wanted you to hear my story,” replied Gretchen. “I thought that was the best way of telling it.”

Amanda rose and walked off under a cloud.