Lost and Found Faith Read online

  “Welcome,” Pastor Thompson said, “to our jungle!” When the applause died down, he continued, “This theme isn’t as far-fetched as it seems. The truth is, sooner or later, every Christian finds himself lost in a jungle of some kind—a dark place that tests his courage and his faith. The trick is not to set up camp there, so this week we’ll learn how to find our way through the jungles in our lives—by following God.”

  Another round of enthusiastic applause broke out. Neil shifted in his seat, and Maggie glanced at him. He wasn’t clapping. A muscle jumped in his jaw, and his expression was unreadable.

  “God loves us, and He’ll never leave us to struggle through the jungle alone. He—”

  “That does it,” Neil muttered. He gently settled Oliver in Maggie’s lap and got to his feet. “I have to go.” He strode toward the exit.

  Maggie stared after him until Ruby elbowed her sharply in the ribs. “Ouch!”

  “Don’t just sit there.” The older woman scooped Oliver off Maggie’s lap and plopped him in her own. “Go after him.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll look after Oliver. Here, baby.” Ruby pulled a tiny stuffed lion from her purse. “Look what Grandma Ruby has.” She wiggled the toy in front of the squirming toddler.

  Oliver was instantly smitten. “Kitty!”

  Ruby chuckled. “Close enough. Hurry up, Maggie, before you miss your chance.” When Maggie hesitated, she added, “Honey, this ain’t the time to dither. Go talk to him.”

  Maggie frowned. Something about Neil’s abrupt departure had Ruby concerned, and her foster mom’s instincts were usually right on target. Maggie jumped up without further argument.

  Neil was almost to his Jeep by the time she caught up to him. He had his keys in his hand and a grim look on his face.

  “Neil!”

  He turned, his expression changing to wary resignation.

  “Sorry, Maggie, but I can’t do this. I’m not a...religious person. I haven’t set foot inside a church since my wife’s funeral.” He glanced at the steeple towering over them. “Not until today.”

  “Oh.” Maggie wasn’t sure how to respond to that, and in any case, this wasn’t a conversation to have in the middle of a parking lot. Her eye lit on the gate leading into the church’s prayer garden. She grabbed Neil’s hand. “Come with me.”

  She tugged him into the small courtyard. At this hour, the little square of green lay in the church’s shadow and the air was pleasantly cool. Maggie dropped onto a damp concrete bench and motioned for him to do the same. “Now we can talk.”

  Neil didn’t answer. He seemed distracted by a weathered stone cross set among lush ferns. An engraved plaque bore a partial verse, My Peace I Give unto You.

  “Neil?” Maggie prodded gently.

  He sighed. “I told you my wife—her name was Laura—was killed in a car accident.”

  “Yes.”

  “She was bringing me my wallet. I’d left it at home.” He shook his head. “That was nothing new. You know me, always forgetting stuff. Laura had the day off—she was an RN—so I called and asked her to drop the wallet by the school. She just laughed and said sure.” His throat flexed. “It was the last time I spoke to her.”

  “That’s... It must have been terrible.”

  “More terrible than you know. Laura was eight months pregnant. That’s why she’d taken the day off work, because she had an ultrasound appointment. I was supposed to go with her.” His hands clenched into fists. “I begged off at the last minute. I’d been with her to all the other ones, and my school was doing standardized testing that day. I knew my students wouldn’t focus as well with a substitute, and I was worried about their scores. Laura was fine with it. It was a routine appointment, and the technician was a friend of hers. She’d promised to bring me a video of the ultrasound.”

  He paused, and Maggie braced herself. Whatever had happened, Neil needed to gather his strength to talk about it.

  “When she started to turn into the faculty parking lot, a student T-boned her. The kid was running late for the test, so he was speeding...and texting. He slammed into the driver’s side, never even hit the brakes. He was banged up pretty badly, but he made it. Laura didn’t. I heard the sirens from my classroom, but I had no idea...” He went silent, and Maggie heard her heartbeat pounding frantically in her ears. “The kids wanted to look out the windows, but we were about to start the test, and I didn’t want them distracted. I closed the blinds and told them to sit down. When my coworkers realized who was in the car, my principal came running for me, but it was too late.” He cleared his throat. “They said she lived for a few minutes. If I’d looked out the window, seen the car, maybe... But I didn’t. I knew Laura was driving to the school, but it never crossed my mind...” He cleared his throat again, roughly. “The whole thing was my fault.”

  “Oh, Neil, no.” She laid her hand on his wrist and squeezed. “That’s heartbreaking. But it wasn’t your fault.”

  He lifted his chin and met her eyes. “The kid was texting me, Maggie. He was late to my class, and he was messaging me to let me know. Back then, I gave my students my cell number, and they messaged me all the time. My principal didn’t approve, but I had a tendency to bend the rules, and I hadn’t paid much attention to his objections. So, yeah, it was my fault. But not only mine.” He glanced back at the cross with a fierceness that made her pulse jump. “A hundred things had to line up for the accident to be as serious as it was. So many lives—Laura’s, our baby’s, mine, my student’s—were balanced on a knife blade that morning. If God had shifted the timing by a few seconds, everything could have been different. When I realized that, I was done with God. I haven’t been to church since.”

  Maggie’s brain and heart struggled to catch up. She’d seen the pain in Neil’s eyes the day they’d met, but she’d had no idea how deep his wounds actually were. They cut not just to the bone, but to the soul.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. She was. Her heart broke for Neil’s pain—and a little bit, selfishly, for her own. The fragile dreams she’d been secretly spinning disintegrated like cotton candy in the rain.

  That was that. Neil Hamilton wasn’t for her. It was surprising how much that realization hurt, but the pain didn’t change anything.

  During her childhood, Maggie had known too many people who answered to nobody but themselves, and she’d seen up close how easy it was for them to twist the truth to justify their own views and vices. Because of that, she’d decided years ago that the only man she could trust with her heart was one who’d already entrusted his own heart to God. Now that she had Oliver to consider, that was more important than ever.

  She didn’t know quite how she’d missed this. She should have...checked. She should have asked. But none of that mattered now.

  She cleared her throat. “Thank you for telling me, Neil. I really... I needed to know this.”

  He nodded and stood. “I’m still happy to help you with Oliver, just not at church. I’ve changed a lot since Laura’s death—mostly in ways I’m not too proud of. But I’ve never been a hypocrite, and I won’t start now. Not even for Oliver.” Not even for you.

  He didn’t say the last words aloud, but he might as well have. She rose to her feet.

  “I wouldn’t ask you to.”

  Neil scanned her face. “This bothers you.”

  “Of course it does. Not the VBS part. Like I said, I wouldn’t ask you to do anything you weren’t comfortable with. But...what you went through, Neil, losing your wife and baby like that. I’m just so sorry. And then losing your faith, too. That must’ve made everything even harder.” She swallowed. Better to get everything out in the open now. She lifted her chin and looked him in the eye. “My faith is really important to me.”

  His eyes searched hers. “How important, Maggie?”

  She understood what he was asking. She sighed, but t
here was no way around it. “Very.”

  “I see.” He nodded, but there was so much regret in his eyes that her heart constricted painfully. “I guess we’ll leave it there, then. I’m sorry, Maggie. I wish things could’ve been different.”

  He meant it. She heard the sincerity in his voice, and somehow, that made it hurt even worse. She suddenly understood even better what Neil had said—about how everything could’ve been different, how his pain and joy had been balanced on a knife blade that had tipped the wrong way. Right now she felt as if she’d just gone running up the dock only to see her cruise ship sailing away, with banners flying in the wind, leaving her behind.

  Maggie sighed. “I wish things could’ve been different, too.”

  They looked at each other for a moment. Then Neil nodded shortly.

  “You’ll need to get back to Oliver. I’d better go.”

  “Hold your horses.”

  Neil and Maggie turned. Ruby stood framed in the courtyard’s gate, holding Oliver’s hand.

  * * *

  Neil glanced at Maggie. She was frowning at her foster mom, who frowned right back.

  “Ruby, Neil’s explained everything. He’s not comfortable—”

  Ruby waved away her words with an age-spotted hand. “I reckon the man can speak for himself. This shindig’s getting started, and Oliver has to go to his class. You take him, Maggie, whilst Neil and me get this straightened out.” The older woman leaned down, tipping the toddler’s chin up. “Mrs. Vivien’s teaching your Bible lesson today, baby, and guess what she told me? Every boy and girl in her class gets a surprise to take home!”

  Oliver looked uncertain—but interested. “Surprise?”

  “That’s right. So you’d better go in with Maggie lickety-split, before they’re all gone.”

  “Bye-bye, Neil. Maggie! In!” Oliver waggled his fingers desperately, asking to be picked up.

  Neil knew Maggie couldn’t—and shouldn’t—resist that plea. She shot a concerned look in his direction as she hurried to Oliver, hoisting him up into her arms.

  “Ruby—” she started, but the older woman shooed her away.

  “Go on. There’s lots of kids here today, and I’d hate for Vivien to run out of flashlights before Oliver gets one.”

  “Fwashwight?” Oliver’s eyes lit up, and Neil noticed that the little boy dropped his l’s, a sure sign he was excited.

  Ruby grimaced. “Kind of let the cat out of the bag, didn’t I? Well, try to act surprised or Vivien will have my hide. Now, get, the both of you.”

  Oliver pointed toward the church. “Go, Maggie! Pwease?”

  “All right, sweetie. We’re going.” Maggie left the garden, throwing one last worried glance over her shoulder before she disappeared around the corner.

  Ruby dropped onto the bench with a soft grunt. “Damp,” she pronounced disapprovingly. “Going to make my arthritis flare up, sure as the world, so let’s get right to it. What’s this trouble between you and the good Lord?”

  Nope. Not a conversation he wanted to have. “Mrs. Sawyer, with all due respect—”

  “Save your breath,” the older woman interrupted with a shake of her head. “No point telling me to mind my own business. I’ve never been much good at that. Now, I only caught the tail end of what you was telling Maggie. Tell me the whole of it, and don’t leave nothing out. Then you let me say my piece, and you can go on home if you’re still bound to it. And we won’t talk about it no more unless you bring it up your own self. Do we have a deal?”

  Neil started to refuse, but then he thought...why not? Once she heard how he felt, Ruby would likely back away from him just like Maggie had done. Might as well get it over with.

  “Fine.” He dropped down on the bench across from hers. “I’ll tell you, if you want to know.”

  And he did.

  Ruby Sawyer, it turned out, was easy to talk to. Her expression shifted as the story went on, but nothing seemed to shock her. There was a kindly shrewdness in her eyes, and she nodded here and there. Somehow, without saying a word, she made him feel like she was on his side.

  When he’d finished, she cocked her head like an inquisitive sparrow, studying him. “That all of it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” she said with a satisfied nod. “You ain’t near as far gone as I feared you were. No,” she said when he tried to interrupt, “I heard every word you said. You believe in God, all right. You’ve just been real mad at Him for the past three years.”

  She made him sound like a petulant two-year-old. “I don’t think you understand—”

  “Course I understand. I seen it lots of times.” Ruby shifted on the bench and grimaced. “With every single one of my kids. The clever ones, now, those are the hardest. Take my Ryder. Smart as a whip, that boy, so he took the longest to come round. Stands to reason you’re going to have a real tough time.”

  He wasn’t following. “With what?”

  “Trust, mostly,” Ruby replied simply. “And fear. You can dress it up with your three-dollar words if you want to, but that’s what it boils down to. You’re mad because God allowed something that hurt you real bad, and you’re scared to trust Him again. Like I said, it ain’t nothing I ain’t seen before. Some of my young’uns...you wouldn’t hardly believe me if I told you what they lived through before they found their way to my house. They had lots of reasons not to trust folks—nor God, neither.”

  Neil recalled what Maggie had told him about her childhood. “I’d believe you.”

  “Well, then, maybe you’ll believe me when I tell you what comes next. You got to decide if you’re gonna trust again or not. In your case, that means believing God knows what He’s doing.” She leaned forward, holding his eyes with her own. “Even when things don’t make no sense to you, even when you can figure four or five different ways you think He coulda done things different. Even when it hurts worse than anything you’ve ever felt before.” She shrugged. “For a smart fellow like you, that’s hard ’cause you’re so used to trusting your own thinking.” She chuckled wryly. “For an old lady like me, now, it’s a sight easier.”

  He studied the plainspoken woman. “I think you’re a very smart old lady, Ruby Sawyer.”

  She patted him briskly on one arm. “Well, good, ’cause this smart old lady doesn’t see why Vacation Bible School has to be a problem for you. I know,” she said, when Neil started to speak. “I take your point, and I don’t like hypocrites any better than you do. But look here. Nobody’s asking you to teach a lesson nor lead a prayer nor nothing like that, are they?”

  Neil opened his mouth to argue, then shut it.

  No. They weren’t.

  Ruby flashed a smug smile. “See? You can keep right on thinking all the stinky thoughts about God you want to. Won’t nobody know the difference. All you got to do is sit through some preschool Bible lessons, for Oliver’s sake. That’s all VBS amounts to—well, that and some snacks and a few arts and crafts. You ain’t scared of that, surely, a smart man like you?” When Neil didn’t answer, she heaved herself to her feet. “Well, you think it over, and do what you will. I’ve said my piece, and I’m supposed to be helping out in the kitchen. Just remember, now, a flashlight from the dollar store’s only going to keep that boy happy for so long. He’s getting better, but he still relies on you a good bit. Maggie, too. And if you ask me, both of ’em have had enough disappointments for one lifetime without adding any more.”

  Thinking hard, he watched the elderly woman walk slowly away.

  What she’d said made a lot of sense.

  Maybe he was overreacting to the church thing the same way he’d been overreacting to that kiss he and Maggie had shared. For the past few days, he hadn’t been able to think of anything else. He hadn’t felt so much as a flicker of interest in another woman since Laura, so this whole thing with Maggie had blindsided him.

 
He’d been doing his best to figure it out, to cope with the feelings she was dredging up. To complicate matters, last night he’d had an email informing him the curriculum-development job in Virginia was his if he wanted it.

  A week ago, he’d have accepted in a flash. Instead he’d asked for a few days to think it over, because of Maggie and Oliver and the unexpected possibilities that had begun tickling around the edges of his mind.

  He should’ve known better than to hope, but he had, a little. Until he’d seen that unmistakable look on Maggie’s face a few minutes ago.

  Now he had a choice. He could go home and spend the evening nursing his disappointment and socializing with a cat. Or he could take Ruby’s advice, go inside and try to finish what he’d started. He could spend his last few weeks in Cedar Ridge trying to help two people he’d come to care about.

  He glanced back at the steeple and came to a decision. He’d go in and suffer through Vacation Bible School. Ruby was right. No cutesy preschool lesson was going to make any difference to Neil’s opinions, and Oliver would be happier if he was there. That was all that really mattered.

  Cedar Ridge Christian was a large, thriving church, and Neil had to ask directions twice before he found Oliver’s room. The whole preschool area had been transformed into a jungle extravaganza. Artificial plants were clustered in the corners, decorated with bright paper flowers. Stuffed monkeys dangled from crepe paper vines looped around the ceiling. A plump, gray-haired woman sat on a beanbag chair in front of the room, facing a group of small children. The kids were sitting cross-legged, all holding flashlights and shoeboxes.

  “All right, everybody,” the teacher was saying as Neil slipped in to join Oliver and Maggie. “Switch on your flashlights!”

  Maggie looked at him and lifted her eyebrows. He smiled sheepishly and shrugged. She smiled cautiously back.

  Oliver had been absorbed in switching on his blue flashlight, but when he noticed Neil, he grinned happily. “Wight?” he called, waving to the teacher. “Wight for Neil?”