TWENTY-FOUR

THERE HAD BEEN NOTHING flashy or dramatic about Pastor Vernon Billings. He simply had a natural, down-home way about him, knew how to keep his audience’s attention, and put his emphasis on the message and not on himself. He actually seemed to be keeping Chloe’s attention too, no small feat. Irene couldn’t wait to find out what she had thought of her first Sunday school class at the new church.

Pastor Billings’s message was straightforward and informative. He made the Scripture so clear that Irene felt as if she were drinking fresh water. And it wasn’t an easy passage to explain; at least she didn’t think it was.

His bottom line was that the apostle John was writing about two families: the family of God and the family of Satan. Christians were forgiven and pulled out of Satan’s family, so they were now part of God’s family. They were not to love Satan or his family or the world that is controlled by him.

But what was all that business in John’s letter about little children, fathers, and young men? The pastor explained that the Greek word translated “little children” in verse 12 was actually different from the word translated the same way in verse 13. The first word, he said, referred to offspring of any age, while the second reference was literally to little children. According to the pastor, John repeated his message to hammer home the point of the believer’s belonging to the family of God.

As for the references to fathers, young men, and little children, Pastor Billings explained that these signified different stages of spiritual maturity. Could Irene ever relate to that! She so wanted to grow and become mature in her faith. But she believed she was stagnating. How she would love to make New Hope her church.

The truly spiritual person—the fathers, the pastor said—was spiritually mature because he had come to know God in His fullness. He referred to Philippians 3:10: “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”

Pastor Billings further explained that the second stage of spiritual maturity—the young men—was made up of those who may not yet know God in the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, but who did know sound doctrine. They had read and been taught and had an arsenal to help them stand against the deceit of the devil.

That’s where Irene had thought she was, or was at least getting there with Jackie’s help. Now she wasn’t so sure.

Finally the pastor explained that the earliest stage of spiritual maturity for the believer—the little children—comprised those who had only the most rudimentary knowledge of God and needed to grow the most. Irene feared the rest of her family was not even at that door yet and were thus vulnerable to the falsehood and deception the evil one tried to foist upon people.

Irene’s head and heart were so full when she and Jackie went to retrieve their kids that she hardly knew where to begin.

“Enjoy that?” Jackie said lightly.

“Enjoy?” Irene said. “Jackie, I should be further along as a believer. I’m getting a lot from you and from the Bible and from praying, but it doesn’t show in my life.”

“I think it does.”

“C’mon, Jackie. I want to be myself around you, but of course I always try to put my best foot forward. I have to live this in front of Rayford. My whole point is to try to reach him, but everything I say and do turns him away. I can’t blame him. It’s as if I can’t help myself. I’m doing the opposite of what I want to do. I love him. I care about him. I want to win him, bring him to Christ. But if I’m the example of Jesus to him, I’m failing.”

To Jackie’s credit, she didn’t argue. Without a word, Jackie’s mere sympathetic look spoke volumes. Irene knew she was right, that she had to examine herself, make a wholesale change in her approach.

Cameron had what he could only call a nearly out-of-body experience at his mother’s funeral. The service was so formal, so by-the-book, and full of so many platitudes and empty speeches that he found himself imagining her washing her hands of the whole thing.

She would rather people be honest and tell the truth about her. When the eulogies began and old friends and relatives made their way to the microphone, things livened up a bit. People laughed and cried and told stories of the real Mrs. Williams.

Cameron had decided not to participate but nearly changed his mind, particularly when Jeff spoke.

He was remarkably articulate and heartfelt and told stories of interactions between his mother and him that Cameron had never heard before.

Strangely, Sharon sat weeping through the entire service, unable to be consoled, apparently unable to even look up. Cameron could only imagine what upset her so. Yes, she had been close to his mother. But it was also common knowledge that the women had been honest with each other. That was one thing he could say of his mother: she met straightforwardness with the same.

Much as his mother accepted and, yes, loved her only daughter-in-law, she had never hidden that she did not appreciate Sharon’s take on religion. Sharon was too critical, too judgmental, couldn’t leave well enough alone. Cameron’s mother had always contended that one’s religion was as private as one’s politics and that it was impolite to probe either.

That had never stopped Sharon. She had invited her in-laws to her own church, and they had gone more than once—mostly to the grandkids’ programs. But Sharon couldn’t just leave it at that. She would quiz them later, ask them if their church believed the same way hers did. Could a person become born again at their church? What did they think about the pastor’s invitation to “give your life to the Lord”?

Jeff had been at first bemused and would regale Cameron with stories of how their father would jump through any hoop to avoid commitment or confrontation. He would answer all such questions with, “Yes, that was nice. Very impressive.”

But Cameron’s mother? No. Honest to a fault, as his father always said. “That rubbed me the wrong way,” she would say. “Implying that I’m not as good a person or a Christian if I haven’t been saved just the way the preacher says.”

“You thought he was talking to you, Mom?” Sharon said.

“He was talking to all the outsiders and making us feel more that way. It was rude. Get us in there to take pictures of our precious grandbabies and then hit us over the head with the Bible, implying we don’t stack up.”

Sharon had not given up. She raised the subject again and again until finally her mother-in-law had told her enough was enough. “I get it, all right? I get it. Is this not my own decision?”

Jeff reported that his wife had said yes, of course it was.

“All right, I’ll tell you, Sharon,” their mother said. “I think it’s fine for you, and I’ll take my chances staying with what makes me comfortable.” When Sharon got into making sure “you’re not comfortable now but burning in hell later,” that was nearly the end of the relationship. They barely spoke for more than six months.

And yet when Cameron’s mother was struggling with cancer, who was the first person she wanted to see? Who was the one who spent hours at her bedside, attending to her every—and Jeff emphasized every—need? Sharon, of course. The women developed a bond breakable only by death, but there was no indication that Mrs. Williams had ever received Christ.

Perhaps that’s why Sharon was so distraught now. She missed her friend, but maybe she feared the woman was in hell. Sharon’s agony carried to the gravesite and to yet one more reception at the house. She did her duty, serving and playing hostess, but tears streamed and her face was crimson. The more people embraced her and tried to console her, the more she seemed to suffer.

Cameron’s dad was the enigma. The man seemed to have run out of energy. He appeared so tired at the house later that people on every side urged him to get a nap. He refused. It wasn’t like him to abandon a houseful of guests, regardless of the circumstance. But by the end of the afternoon, he sat, clearly trying to keep his eyes open as dozens came by to express their condolences once more and say their good-byes.

Cameron’s own emotions were complicated. He was flooded with memories of his childhood relationship with his mother, when he had idolized her and she had been the object of his make-believe games. How many times had he rescued her from the enemy, saved her from a burning building, pulled her off railroad tracks with the locomotive bearing down?

It was not lost on him that he had somehow pushed from his mind memories of deceiving her when he was a teenager. Had she ever been the wiser? It didn’t seem so. Her love and devotion to him never seemed to abate. That left Cameron feeling sleazy, and part of him wished he could have confessed it all to her so they could share a laugh and he would feel forgiven.

Why did preadolescents have to be so maddeningly unpredictable? Irene would have bet Chloe had a million complaints for the ride home from church and would start her case about how she was giving this test a fair shot but it wasn’t going to turn out the way her mother wanted.

Raymie was quiet and nodding off, and Chloe was largely silent. If there was anything as bad as arguing with an unreasonable daughter, it was dragging opinions out of her one syllable at a time. Irene refused to do it.

It wasn’t that Chloe was wholly silent. In fact, she said things Irene was tempted to latch on to. Irene knew better than to yield, of course, because just about the time she concluded she had won over her daughter, Chloe would disappoint her with a unilateral decision.

Chloe sat in the passenger seat, pleasant enough, but hardly forthcoming. Irene glanced at her a few times, resisting the urge to say, “So . . . ?”

As Irene pulled into the drive-through chicken place, Chloe said, “At least these kids are more real than the ones at our church.”

“More real?”

“Well, they’re nerdier and a little out of it, but they seem—I don’t know—sorta genuine about it. Know what I mean?”

“Not really.”

“Maybe they’re faking it, like we all do at our church, but—”

“Not all of us fake it, Chloe.”

“I was talking about the kids, Mom. Except for a couple, we’ve even given up pretending anymore. But there the kids sure seemed to know a lot about the lesson and all that. And you know when the teacher prayed out loud, she asked kids to pray too, if they wanted to.”

“Did you?”

“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t do that with people I know, let alone a bunch of strangers. But some kids did. And they sounded like they pray a lot.”

“That impressed you?”

“I guess. Not sure I want to be that into it, you know, but I don’t think they’re faking it. Far as I can tell anyway.”

“What was the lesson about?”

“Same as the sermon, which was kind of an interesting idea. I don’t know if I get it all, but it makes sense to do it that way, don’t you think? Like they did it on purpose. They ever do anything in our church on purpose?”

Irene stopped herself from saying anything disparaging about her church. Just when it seemed Chloe was about to concede that the new place wasn’t so bad, she asked her mother to remind her how long this experiment was supposed to last and wasn’t her father expected to have to go too.

“I’m not your father’s mother,” Irene said. “I’m asking you to give it a fair shot, and then I’m going to ask you to keep going, even if you would rather not.”

“I knew it!” Chloe said, waking Raymie just in time for him to smell the chicken and want some. “You’re not going to respect my decision at all!”

“The fact is, Chloe, I’m scared. I want you to know that I love you and I do respect you, but I want the best for you. I would never forgive myself if I let you badger me out of having you in church every Sunday. What kind of a mother would I be?”

“One who treats her daughter like a human being and not a possession.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Don’t talk to me about fair, Mom. You’re not being fair at all. I’ll do my part, uphold my end of the bargain, but you have to uphold yours too. This was supposed to be my decision.”

“I was hoping yours would be a decision I could support.”

“So it’s my choice as long as I choose the way you want me to.”

“You make me sound pretty unbending, Chloe.”

“Am I wrong?”

“Please withhold judgment for a few weeks.”

“That’s not going to be easy, Mom.”

“I know, but do it for me.”

“Everything I do is for you. I wish you’d do something for me once.”

Someday, Irene knew, Chloe would have a child of her own and—hopefully—she would come to her senses and regret that remark. In the meantime, Irene would do all she knew how to do for her beloved daughter. She would pray for her with all her being, hoping God would change her mind and eventually her heart.