And the Shofar Blew (46 page)

Paul turned the wedding photo his mother had given him face-down on the passenger seat. He wasn’t going to think about what his mother had said. Not now. Not when he was so tired he couldn’t think straight. He found the on-ramp to I-5.

Bone-weary and groggy, he turned on the radio. He needed something to get his mind off depressing matters and worries about the future. Patsy Cline was belting out “Your Cheatin’ Heart.” He punched the Select button and heard Carly Simon singing, “You’re so vain, I’ll bet you think this song is about you, don’t you—” Swearing, he tried again and heard the first strains of a song he’d once told Eunice reminded him of her: Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle.” He punched the Off button.

He felt sick to his stomach.

The steep Grapevine was ahead of him, winding down from the mountains, the Central Valley stretching out like a patchwork quilt in front of him. Trucks moved at a snail’s pace in the far right lane, gears tortured, brakes at the ready. He stopped at the foot of the mountains for gas and a cup of coffee to go. At this rate, he’d be back in Centerville by ten. He’d have time to swing by the house, change his clothes, and be in the church office by noon. He could straighten it up, put it to rights before anyone came in. Nobody would even know he’d been gone. And if anyone did ask about Eunice, he’d just say she was visiting Tim again.

Was it only because of his Scripture reading that morning that Samuel could not stop thinking about the ram’s horn? The only place the shofar was still used was in Jewish ceremonies, and even many Jews didn’t understand. All men were accountable for their sin, and the penalty was still death. The shofar sounded to announce the coming of the Lord. When it sounded, the people were to assemble, confess, and repent. When it sounded, the people were to worship. The shofar announced the Day of Atonement and Jubilee. It sounded in the midst of battle.

A call to gather God’s people, a call to repentance, a call to enter into battle. God’s voice came to the multitude through the prophets in the days of old, but now the Lord spoke to each believer through the Holy Spirit.

Oh, Lord, I know I am in battle. How long must I fight this war? I’m weary
of it. Heartsick. Despairing. Only You can save him, and yet he turns away and
turns away and turns away. How do You bear it? What kind of power love did
it take for You to hang on that cross and listen to them mock You when You were
making a way for them to have redemption and eternal life? What keeps You
from wiping the world clean by fire?

He bowed his head, wishing he could give up his soul as Jesus had done, and enter his rest. But God was the one who counted his days. God gave him breath for a reason. Samuel had been at war for years now—one voice weeping before the Lord, pleading for the softening of a single human heart that grew harder with each year that passed.

Eunice hadn’t been back to this cemetery since her mother passed away. She parked the car and entered beneath the rusted iron arch. The first funeral she’d attended here was for a boy she knew who drowned in the river when he was eight. The last funeral was for her mother, two years after her father had been carried up the hill by six pallbearers. She and her mother had planted forget-me-nots around the grave after her father’s service, and Eunice had planted more of them when she returned to bury her mother. Then she put the house up for sale.

When she found their resting place and knelt, she plucked weeds and smoothed the grass as though it were a blanket over them. She missed her father and mother even more now. Alone and far away from a place she should have been able to consider home, away from a man she had pledged to love until death parted them, she longed for connection to those who’d love her unconditionally.

Oh, God. Oh, Abba, I want to come home. Couldn’t You take me now? Let
this grief stop my heart from beating.

Wishful thinking. God had already counted her days and was not likely to take her life just because living was so painful. Jesus knew better than anyone the pain of life on this earth. Jesus knew what it felt like to be betrayed.

Weary, she stretched herself out upon the graves, arms spread wide as though to embrace them both. The earth was cold beneath her.

Oh, her parents were the fortunate ones. They no longer had to suffer disappointment. And they would have suffered with her if they’d lived long enough to know Paul was not a man of his word. She longed for their wisdom. She ached at the loss, knowing she could’ve told them anything and everything and it wouldn’t have changed their opinion or their love for her or Paul. They would’ve wept with her and advised her. But would she have listened?

She knew already what her father would’ve said, and her mother would have agreed.
Forgive. No matter what Paul’s done, you’re still his wife.
No matter what she had seen when she walked into the church office, her responsibility was unchanged. Jesus was Lord. What had He seen as He looked down from the cross but a crowd gathered to mock Him? Yet He died for them.

Her mother and father would have told her to forgive, but what about going back to Paul? Would they have told her to go on living with a man who excused his sin and continued to walk in the ways of his father rather than obey God?

God said to do what was right.

Oh, God, what is right in this situation?

Paul wondered how many times Eunice had driven this route to see Timothy. How many times had she stopped somewhere and had a meal alone because he’d been too busy to go south with her?

He didn’t want to think about that now. He had to consider sermon ideas. Every one that came to him made him uncomfortable. He could always pull out notes from a past sermon, make a few changes, and go with that. Was there a holiday approaching? some civic activity that needed a boost?

When the freeway branched, he took Highway 99 north. He reached for his coffee. He took his eyes off the road for only a couple of seconds, but when he looked up again, a jackrabbit was running across the road in front of him.

Samuel remembered the evening three elders came together in the old church and decided not to close the doors.

We gave it one last try, Lord. Were we wrong? Oh, Father, it’s as though
I stood on the shores of the Jordan and saw the Promised Land. And I’m still
looking at it, from the valley of death this time, hoping and praying I’ll see the
day when Paul leaves the wilderness of sin behind him and crosses over into the
realm of faith.

Eunice. Sweet Eunice.
Don’t let her slip away from us. Lord, help her. Protect
her heart, for from it has come springs of living water. Keep her on the Rock,
Lord. Keep her in the palms of Your scarred hands
.

“Daddy.” Eunice sobbed. “Daddy.”
What do I do?

“Miss?”

A man stood nearby, holding a shovel. Startled, Eunice clambered up, dashing the tears from her eyes. He was a few years older than she, dressed in soiled jeans and a checked wool shirt, his boots clumped with earth. A grave digger? The groundskeeper? He looked concerned.

“Can I help you, miss?”

Embarrassed, she brushed the grass from her blouse and slacks. “I was just . . . ” Just what? Confiding her problems to her dead parents? She looked at his shovel uneasily. She didn’t know who this man was or if he was a threat.

He set the shovel aside. “Would you like to talk about it?” His face was so kind, his eyes so gentle.

“My husband . . . ” Her throat closed. Her mouth worked. She looked away. The man sat on the grass as though he had all the time in the world. She felt calm in his presence. He seemed so ordinary, just a man taking a break from whatever work he had been doing. She told him everything.

“I don’t know whether to go back. He’s a pastor, you see.”

The man said nothing.

She looked into his eyes. “It’s not just about his infidelity to me.”

“No, it isn’t.”

She ran her hand over the grass that covered her parents’ graves. “My father was a pastor, too. He worked at being a good one.”

“What advice would your father give you?”

“Forgive.” She smiled wryly through her tears. “It would be so much easier if my husband were repentant.” Her smile died.

“Were those at the cross repentant?”

She bowed her head, aching at the thought of what Jesus must have felt. What she was suffering now was merely a drop of the sorrow Jesus had drunk on the day of His crucifixion.

“Let the Lord’s strength sustain you, Eunice.”

“I know that in my head. But my heart . . . even if Paul were repentant, I don’t know if I could ever really trust him again. And if I can’t trust him, what sort of wife would I be? It could never be the way it was.”

“Are you looking for a way out?”

“Maybe. Out of the pain, at least.”

He smiled tenderly. “There’s no getting around that. It comes with life in this world, and following the One you do.”

“I don’t know what kind of future we can have together after what he’s done.”

“One day’s trouble is enough. Face tomorrow when it comes.”

“I’d like to run away from it all and never look back.”

“You’ll carry it with you everywhere you go.”

She knew that already. She’d come all the way across the country and escaped none of the anguish. “So what’s your advice?”

His eyes filled with compassion. “Trust in the Lord. Do what’s right. And rest.” He rose, took his shovel, and walked away.

Rest,
she thought.
In Him. I need to be still and stop running. I can’t trust
my husband or mother-in-law or friends, but I can trust God. And I can believe
that the Lord is working, even now. I can trust that Christ will turn all this pain
to His good purpose.

Someday.

In the meantime, she needed to find a place to eat and then a place to sleep.