Amy Inspired - Bethany Pierce [89]
“If we are known only to those who know us now and are forgotten soon after they too pass away, what do we have to give our lives weight and meaning?
“ ‘I have seen the burden God has laid on men,’ says Solomon in Ecclesiastes.‘He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.’ ”
He returned to the pulpit, shuffled the notes he hadn’t consulted once. “Now, I know you all can’t stand much more of this. ‘Pastor Maddock,’ you want to say, ‘we’ve got dinner in the oven.’ Just hold on to your seats, I’m almost done. And believe it or not, this is a message of hope. Because if you notice, the Scriptures say that God has set eternity in the heart of man.”
He braced his hands against either side of the pulpit. “That aching in your body that feels almost like a physical hurt. God has made it so. That passion to be known and loved not as a name or by an accomplishment or by a mistake—that desire to be known as you, yourself, in all your individual thoughts and dreams and worries and hopes and foibles—God has made it so. That need to wrap yourself around Time, to defeat death, to outlive this life—God has made it so. He has made it so that you will find recognition in Him.”
The pianist began to play. In automatic unison, we stood to sing the closing hymn. I was deeply stirred by the things Pastor Maddock had said and blinked back to the present moment feeling somewhat outside myself.
Dazed as I was, it took me a few moments to recognize a familiar looking girl slipping out the back doors after the last prayer had been said and the congregation began to file orderly from their pews. I hurried to the foyer and searched over the crowd of bustling families, but I’d no sooner seen Ashley Mulligan and she was gone.
After a lunch at the deli across the street, I took the bus to central campus and followed the sidewalk past the academic buildings to Leonard Chapel. The chapel was a whitewashed room with a steeple and narrow rows of many-colored stained-glass windows. It did not inspire religious feeling, but it was quiet and isolated, a good place to think. My thoughts wandered to Eli, but I quickly corralled them back. I refused to dwell on our fight; I didn’t want to consider the possibility that what he’d said about me had been true. I prayed, instead, for Ashley and then for Zoë and her parents. I prayed until I was sure I’d been in the chapel an hour. My phone informed me it had been exactly seventeen minutes. Prayer usually had this effect on me.
I took the trail down into the woods, following the creek until the path crossed the water by way of a rickety wooden bridge. I was skeptical of Pastor Maddock’s message. The need for popularity or fame or recognition had always been a point of guilt, not of hope; I had never before considered the possibility that the desire to be known was Spirit-inspired.
The well-worn trail wound and divided. When the path finally met an open field I was surprised to find myself on north campus, a soccer field away from the crowded neighborhood of underclassmen dorms.
It began to rain while I waited at the nearest bus stop. When the bus finally appeared ten minutes later, I was soaked to the skin, my arms covered in goose bumps. I didn’t mind the rain. It felt good, God’s opened arms throwing liquid blessing into mine.
Michael’s car was in the driveway when I arrived home. I hadn’t seen him since Zoë left. He ran to meet me under the porch awning.
“Where have you been?” he demanded, as if I had no right to be out alone past dark.
“Out.” I was cold and wet and quite aware that my body was broadcasting both of these facts through my shirt. I crossed my arms over my chest. “Why are you here?” I asked.