“Merry Christmas.”
Khai slopped another spoonful of potatoes onto a plate.
“Merry Christmas.”
It was the week of Christmas and the crowd was larger than he had seen it the two times he had been there before. Evidently, word was spreading about the feeding at Holy Trinity and the change of day from Thursday to Tuesday had been just as well communicated. The crowd had grown so much that tonight they would serve dinner three times instead of two. It was worth it though for every smile and satisfied person.
Nonetheless, Khai was having a hard time staying focused. He pasted on the necessary smile but his mind wandered throughout the evening. Thankfully no one seemed to notice.
“You here with us, son?”
Okay, so maybe it was noticeable.
Khai looked up. Pastor Greg stood by his shoulder. “Huh?”
“Well, I know you’re enthusiastic to share, but there has to be a plate before you can dish out potatoes.”
Khai looked around and realized there was no one in front of him, even though he was holding a spoon stacked with the creamy white mush mid-air. The line had finally ended. He sighed and dropped the spoon back into the serving container.
“Why don’t you grab those leftover potatoes and come with me?”
Khai nodded and followed Pastor Greg into the kitchen to the back where a long stainless steel counter was laid out with leftovers from the meal. Stacked to the side were a couple hundred takeout containers.
“The shelters?” Khai asked.
“Yup.” Pastor Greg grabbed a styrofoam meal box and added turkey and beans to it before handing it to Khai. “Rough day?”
Khai slopped potatoes and cranberry sauce into the container before sealing it and setting it on the empty metal counter behind them. “More like a rough couple of weeks. Maybe longer.”
“Mhmm.” Pastor Greg nodded. “It’s hard to kick against the pricks, isn’t it?”
Khai took the container he handed him. “So now I’m Saul-Paul?”
Pastor Greg paused, raising an eyebrow at Khai.
Khai chuckled. “I remember that part from a play my nephews had to rehearse for. I’m not a complete heathen. I’ve been inside a church a couple of times. Used to sit in Sunday School with my brother when I was little. Church was a regular occurrence for the family. Right until my parents got divorced when I was nine. Then none of us bothered with it anymore.”
Pastor Greg went back to filling the containers. “None of you?”
Khai shook his head. “Nope. Well, my brother Kristoffe got back into it a couple years ago, got more serious when he met his wife. My dad and his wife started going when his wife got sick and kept going even after she got better.”
“Hmm,” Pastor Greg passed him a half full container. “Sounds like God is calling all of you, one by one. And using women to do it.”
Khai filled the container and sealed it, placing it behind him. He did four more before either of them started again.
“I...I made a promise.”
Khai glanced over at Pastor Greg, expecting the man to respond to his statement. When he didn’t, Khai went back to plating and kept talking.
“I promised God that He could have me if He...if He did something for me.” Khai swallowed hard as he remembered his literal eleventh hour petition in the middle of an empty Brooklyn street.
“And?”
Khai sucked in a deep breath. “And He did. He answered my prayer.”
Khai didn’t say anything more. Didn’t think he needed to. He meant what he said that night. He didn’t make promises he didn’t plan to keep, and his promise to God was no different. But it wasn’t like the promise he made to his mom to visit more often. Or the promise he’d made to Portia to keep their friendship platonic. Both of those promises he could do. He didn’t have to like them. He didn’t even have to feel like doing them, he just had to do them and he would have kept his word.
But this one was different. How did he come to Christ unless he wanted it? He could show up in church every weekend. He could pay his tithe and be honest and do all the right Christian things. But those weren’t his heart. And coming to Christ was a heart thing.
“I’d like to keep my word.” Khai said finally.
“God appreciates your desire to keep your word,” Pastor Greg said. “But what He wants more is your heart.”
“I can’t tell my heart what to feel.” Khai shoved his spoon into the potatoes. “I can’t tell my heart to stop hating someone who helped destroy me. I can’t feel forgiveness just because I say the words. And I know that God wants all of that. I know I have to be able to do that before I come to him but…I can’t. This hatred...it just gets in the way, and I can’t…I can’t move it.”
He pressed his palms against the counter, willing the heaviness in his chest back down. Why was all of this coming up now? Why was it that when he wanted to want to do the right thing, it suddenly felt harder than ever before?
He wanted to not hate Trent. He wanted to move past what happened, but the feelings sat there like burning coals in the middle of his chest.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. “He knows you can’t move it. He’s not asking you to move it. He’s saying, come to Him and He will take care of it.”
“What does that even mean?” Khai hit the counter so hard with his fist, the containers jumped. “People always say that, my brother, my sister-in-law and now you. But it doesn’t make sense. How do I come to Him? He’s not here. He doesn’t have an office in Manhattan where I can go drop off my issues. How do I do this?”
Pastor Greg squeezed his shoulder. “You tell Him. You say the words out loud and let Him know you are giving your heart to Him. You are giving yourself to Him, along with all of these feelings and letting Him take care of it. And then you walk away. You don’t go back to thinking or worrying about it. You have faith and trust that He is taking care of it.”
Just like that?
It sounded too easy. There must be something else he had to do. But he had tried everything else to get past this chapter in his life and nothing had worked. No matter how much he took from Trent, he still felt the anger. No matter how successful he became in this second career of his life, it still didn’t feel like enough. No matter how many people respected him in spite of his prison time, he still felt like less of a man.
But he didn’t want to carry around these feelings of inadequacy anymore. God had proven to Khai that He loved him and cared about him. He answered his prayer with a yes when he really needed it. And maybe it wouldn’t always be that way, but this time was special and God had known that. And now Khai wanted to know this God more.
Khai sighed and looked up. “What do I say?”
Pastor Greg smiled. “Whatever is in your heart.”
Khai closed his eyes and did just that, praying out loud in the basement kitchen of Holy Trinity Church on a Tuesday night, surrounded by takeout containers full of Christmas dinner. It was a strange place to come to Jesus. But it didn’t feel strange. It didn’t feel odd to pray out loud, with his words bouncing off stainless steel surfaces. It didn’t feel like he was talking to Pastor Greg or to himself. It felt like he was being heard. Truthfully, it felt like coming home.