On Sunday the family drove over to Julia’s house. Since they were now in town each week for the church service, it quickly became a ritual to drop in for dinner before they headed back home. Their hostess seemed to take the new tradition in stride. Selena was one of the family now, teased with as much ferocity as the other members, and she loved it. As the wagon rolled into the yard, Wade squealed with delight. He loved Ra-ra’s home, full of boys and animals. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he darted for the front door. Julia cornered him for a bear hug before allowing him to race by her into the house and find his playmates. Swinging the screen door open for the pair trailing behind, Julia watched the couple thoughtfully. Her intuition confirmed her premonitions. The quiet entrance, the lack of communication evidenced that the couple’s relationship remained as platonic as the day they married. She longed to take Dirk to task immediately, but sagely waited until after dinner when, with a ploy to look at a troublesome plow, she lured him into the barn alone. As he peered at the rusty part, she began.
“So... how’s it going, Dirk?”
Dirk not in the least fooled by Julia’s fabricated story concerning the plow, sat down on the wooden stool and looked up at her. “Ah, so that explains the trip to the barn to look at the same rusty plow that I’ve been begging you to replace for years!” He grimaced preemptively for the lecture he knew would shortly begin.
But Julia surprised him and just waited. Dirk squirmed like a disobedient child until he finally succumbed to her silent pressure. “Harder than I thought, actually. I mean, Selena keeps up the home and takes good care of Wade.” He paused searching for a way to explain his feelings, “Really, she has been everything I could have imagined; I guess I just wasn’t prepared to share my home with her. “
Refraining from blurting out what she wished to say to that comment, she proceeded, “Dirk, she’s not Elizabeth!”
“I know, I know…but I don’t need anyone,” his voice pleaded to be understood. “I don’t regret my decision to bring Selena here; she’s a wonderful mother to Wade. He needed her, but I don’t, and I find it harder having her around than I thought, that’s all. We’ll adjust in time.”
“You sure about that?” she blurted out. “What will you spend your time doing when the rain comes in a few weeks, hiding out in the barn?” True to form, her words pierced their target.
Dirk momentarily put his head on his hands to avoid her probing eyes. Thwarting her questions, he tossed back, “Well, what do you suggest?”
“I suggest you begin to get to know that fabulous girl and build a life together.”
Jerking his head upright he said, “Hey, I clearly told her my intentions from the beginning. This is no surprise to her, nor has she complained about my conduct. I am not treating her any different than I said I would.”
“True, Dirk, true, but life is too short to have two wonderful people living a mediocre life when they could have so much more. You’re settling for a small portion of what you could have because you cannot let go of the past. I’m pleading with you. Don’t waste your life and Selena’s as well, for that matter, because of some stubborn foolery.”
Dirk ran his hands through his hair trying to wipe the cobwebs of the past from his thoughts, “Julia, I just can’t.”
“No, Dirk, you just won’t!”
Changing the subject, Dirk continued, “You still didn’t answer what you suggest I should do.”
Ignoring the fact that she had, Julia decided to get more specific. “I think you should take her elk hunting with you next month.”
Dirk put his head back into his hands and groaned.
“All of the other men take their wives. It will give her an opportunity to meet the other ladies and get to know you better. I’ll take Wade for the week just like always.” She let the idea simmer for several minutes and watched before speaking again. “Don’t you think the others will think it strange if you don’t take her?”
“Not in the least! I have been very open with my friends about the type of wife I wanted.”
“Hmmph!”
“Julia, please.”
“I’ll tell you what, Dirk, I’ll make a deal with you. If you take Selena with you on the hunting trip and do not have a good time, I will never mention it again.” She glared at him so intensely, he chuckled.
“Julia, never mention something again…that sounds too good to be true. Let me think about it.”
“I’ll give you until next Sunday.”
“So generous of you! What happens if I say ‘no’?”
“Then I will be mentioning it a lot!” For emphasis she spun on her small foot and left the comment and the rusty plow exactly how she wanted them.
Several weeks later, Selena headed over to Laura’s house for a visit while Dirk took Wade out to the barn. Wade had pushed all of her boundaries throughout the day, and Selena needed a break. Dirk was right; Laura and her family saw life from a different perspective, and Selena always found a visit encouraging. But today not even their coffee chat could lift Selena’s spirits. Laura watched Selena pause at the front door as she went to leave and read a verse of embroidered scripture hung prominently nearby. Selena’s body stiffened with the tension the verse provoked. Turning, she noticed Laura watching her. Years of repression spewed forth from Selena’s wounds like a dormant volcano brought to life. “A refuge! God surely was not a refuge for me!” The words vented from her mouth in short bursts. “I prayed like I never prayed in my life, and He did not answer.” An excruciating sob gasped from her as tears spilled over the dark lashes, streaming down her cheeks. Laura pleaded for wisdom from a God she did know and slid her arm around the helpless creature. Sobs flowed cleansing the pent-up emotions. Selena pushed Laura’s embrace gently away and wiped her wet cheeks with the back of her sleeve. “I’m sorry; I’m not sure what came over me,” Selena choked out the faltering words.
Laura led her haggard friend back to the nearby table. They sat in silence for what seemed like forever. “Selena as you’ve probably noticed over the past few weeks, it rains here in Oregon during the fall and will continue to do so for most of the winter. I remember the first year we arrived; I thought I would go insane with the never-ending dreariness. When the sun finally appeared I realized why the Indians worshipped this ball of fire. I lifted my head and gazed at it greedily, feeling the warmth surge through my body. Unfortunately, I gazed at it too long, and the sun left its bright impression on my eyes. Suddenly, wherever I looked, I saw its blinding image imposed on the scene.
“I learned an important aspect about life through that lesson. I had focused on the wrong thing. Instead of appreciating the effects of the sun: the warmth it projected, the growth it brought to the land around it and the crops it produced, I concentrated on the sun itself.
“Suffering in life often affects us much the same way. Our minds focus on the searing pain directly in our view instead of what the Creator might be using that pain to produce in our lives. If we continually direct our eyes on the pain, it will overshadow our view of everything else. Selena, suffering is a normal part of life here on earth. It’s not easy, but every one of us faces it at some time or other; however, if that suffering shrouds our view of everything else, our life will be tainted and sometimes even destroyed. If nothing else, we will miss the fruit God wants to produce in us from difficult circumstances.
“Let the pain go, Selena. Instead focus on other things. Think back to who you were before your husband’s accident and see if God did not use those very circumstances and the lessons you learned ministering to him to mold you into the person you are today. Turn your eyes away from the suffering and look at your life from a new perspective. Perhaps you will find God did answer your prayers that terrible day. He just answered them in a way that you never comprehended.
Selena tucked herself into bed early that night anxious to contemplate her afternoon discussion. Laura’s analogy impacted her deeply. Like the layers of an onion, she peeled back each season of her life, exposing the core of her nature. She remembered the selfish girl she had been. Images of her parents flooded her conscience. She had never thought about what she had done to them. How had they responded to their daughters’ desertion in the middle of the night? Her short note of explanation, brazen and heartless, made her head hang in shame. The loss of the small finances she could have sacrificed for the sake of her family by her hours working in town, the help with the younger children that she provided her mother after her endless day of work, why had she never viewed her life from her parent’s perspective? She shuddered at how her selfish choice must have impacted her family.
And what about my younger siblings? I must have devastated my little sister and brothers when I deserted them so suddenly. Watching Wade’s sweet attachment to her already made her heart weep. Now she understood what her siblings must have felt when their “Sellie” never returned. Laura succinctly captured the situation. Selena had spent too many years focusing on the sorrows of her life. Serving Johnny for ten years had transformed Selena into a different person, a better one. I bet my mother would hardly recognize me now.
Selena would never have chosen the path she had endured over the last ten years, but on the other hand, would she truly want to go back to the self-focused young girl she had been? Her sorrowful past had sculpted her into a very different woman than the heartless girl who left home years earlier.
For the first time in her life, Selena viewed God differently. She glimpsed the compassionate and faithful God that the pastor referred to so frequently. Maybe God’s portrait of her life was not yet finished! She had judged the Artist from His initial strokes of paint, but perhaps the picture He was creating might be a beautiful masterpiece if she just allowed Him to finish. What would it be like, she wondered, to be able to trust someone completely with your life? The verse on Laura’s wall reverberated in her mind. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble.” Could there truly be a source of refuge, a place to feel secure during the tempests of life? For the first time in as long as she could remember, she felt a glimmer of hope.
The next day dawned bright and clear. The crisp fall air and intense sunshine beckoned her to bundle up Wade and stroll outside. She marveled at the brilliant colors of the maple trees beginning to flame to life. Lifting her head upward, she closed her eyes feeling the warmth of the sun penetrate her whole being. Laura’s charge reiterated its message as the beams of light left its vivid imprint even through her closed eyelids. If God could create such beauty, such diversity, even this warmth surging through her now, could he not be trusted to complete the work He began within her? At that moment, Selena knew that she wanted no one else in charge of this unfolding portion of her life. It loomed before her undiscovered, unknown, but in the hands of the Artist, she knew it would be beautiful. A peace swelled through her like nothing she had ever known. A joy rose up and filled her with confidence. She was free from the hopelessness and emptiness of her past; for once, the future glistened with promise.
After Wade went to bed that night, Dirk pulled out his rifles to begin making preparations for the hunting trip. The week after Julia’s siege in the barn, he had reluctantly given his answer. He would take Selena hunting. Unfortunately, courage failed him here at home, and now the trip was just days away, and he still had not broached the topic with his wife. He had tried. Lord, knows he’d tried-several times actually. But the saner half of his brain, the part not swayed or manipulated by Julia, warned him that this decision would open Pandora’s Box. Life moved in a sensible routine; he preferred it that way. Everyone seemed satisfied with this arrangement-everyone except Julia. Why should he disrupt this congenial pattern and invite confusion, change, and possible conflict? No, I won’t go through with this!
“What do you need the rifles for, Dirk? Are the coyotes getting into the chicken pen again?”
Frustrated for letting Julia persuade him to agree to this farce, twist his arm really, he brusquely replied, “Hunting season”.
Selena sensed his irksome tone and wondered at the abruptness. She looked at him momentarily and then went back to her mending. Their usual silence morphed into an uncomfortable manifestation and rolled across the room like a layer of fog. Selena unable to comprehend the cause of his shortness set her mending on her lap and watched him. “I’m sorry. Should I have been preparing for it somehow?”
Guilt ridden, Dirk set the rifle down. He knew his frustrations rooted back to his own lack of courage with Julia. He had to face his rash decision whether he liked it or not.
“No, Selena, I’m just frustrated with myself. I should have told you sooner about this trip. Julia already offered to watch Wade; she usually does this time of year, so you can come along if you want.” There it was done. Anxious, he continued to focus on the rifle. He was afraid to look at her, afraid to see any response. If he could have faced his ignominy and looked up, he would have found Selena reserved but unaffected. She watched his nervousness, but failed to understand its source.
“Well, I’m not sure I would be of any help; I really know nothing about guns. I’ve never gone hunting in my life. Do other women come on the hunt?”
Dirk looked up astonished by her simplistic view of the situation. Relief soared through him. She thinks this trip is just a normal activity in my life. She has no inkling that I’ve lived in Dante’s inferno this past week. He smirked at his own stupidity. Selena doesn’t know Julia! She has no idea how calculating that woman can be! He laughed out loud softly
Selena, unaware of the internal conversation Dirk was having with himself, waited patiently for his answer. Dirk looked up. Her steady gaze triggered the realization that she expected a response.
“No, no, most of the women go to help with the cooking and such”…he really wasn’t quite sure what the women actually did while the men tracked the elk, but he happily fostered this idea which defended the necessity of her companionship.
“Would we stay in huts or tents?” Her use of the term “we”, did not go unnoticed by him. His heart sank.
“Usually, we all just bed down around the campfire unless the rains force us into the wagons. It can get quite uncomfortable and chilly, so don’t feel like you have to come along. I just wanted to let you know that Julia offered to watch Wade if the experience sounded interesting to you.”
“Really, it might be nice to meet more of our neighbors. How many other ladies will be coming?”
“There are three other couples, but none actually live nearby. I began hunting with most of this group when I lived near Portland proper. We hunted together for several years, before I moved up here on the farm.”
Selena thought for a little while, “If you’re sure Wade will be alright with both of us gone, I’ll be glad to go… if you need me.”
What does a man say to that? Of course, he didn’t need her! Dirk barely refrained from saying so.
The relief that washed over him that night made him feel almost giddy. He couldn’t believe how well this whole precarious fiasco had unfolded! Julia would be satisfied, and as far as Selena was concerned, she understood this trip as a way to meet new friends. He couldn’t help but smile at his good fortune.
Selena marveled at the change of emotions washing over her husband, but like a train’s engine churning and straining to begin its journey, her mind made little progress in understanding this man. She decided that hunting just excited a man, and she set the matter to rest.