Decidedly Married. Carole Page Gift
realize her mind was wandering? She relaxed a little as he cleared his throat and moved his discerning eyes over the rest of the congregation. What had he said? Was he waiting for some response? Shamefacedly she realized he was halfway through his sermon and she hadn’t heard a word.
In his sonorous tone he was saying, “We are going to look today at God’s most significant commands to His children. These verses are found several times in both the Old and New Testaments. That shows us how vitally important God considers these instructions…”
But even as her fingers moved automatically through the rustling, tissue-thin pages to the Gospel of Mark, Julie’s thoughts turned inward again, meandering, traveling to a far corner of her consciousness. She was facing an inner crisis, something she couldn’t even articulate, but it had been building for days. A dark, ominous cloud had settled over her soul; the darkness encompassed Michael and Katie, her father, and even a woman named Beth and a boy named Jesse. With her mind whirling in such a maelstrom, how could Julie sit quietly and listen to mere words, even from a man of God?
And there was more.
After all these years I still sit here feeling anonymous, wearing a mask, pretending. I’ve seen these same people for years and yet never gotten to know them well. We go through the same routine every Sunday—entering the vestibule, smiling and saying hello, exchanging brief pleasantries, then sitting down, singing, praying, listening, getting up, going out and wishing one another a nice day or a good week. But we never go beyond the surface of one another’s lives.
With a start, Julie realized something else. God forgive me, I maintain the same facade with You, Heavenly Father—dutifully praying or reading a few verses, my time with You sandwiched among myriad other demanding activities. What does it mean? Who do I think I’m fooling?
From a distance she heard Pastor Brady raise his voice and declare with a solemn authority, “‘And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. This is the first commandment.’”
I love you, Lord—surely I do, Julie reflected with a twinge of conscience. Isn’t that one of the givens of life, one of the things we just assume? But I admit I don’t know You very well. Dear God, sometimes I wonder if I know You at all, or do I only think I know You?
Pastor Brady was still reading. “’And the second, like it, is this: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.’”
Pastor Brady paused for a long moment, allowing his words to take root. Then he went on in his smooth baritone, “Dear friends, how well do we even know God and one another? Have we cut God down to our size to fit conveniently into our priorities, our time restraints, our selfish desires? Sadly, many of us have hardly scratched the surface of knowing and loving God and one another. Because of our own blindness and indifference, we are destined to remain strangers all of our lives—strangers with God, strangers with one another.”
He’s talking about me! Julie realized. She felt as if someone had gripped her shoulders and shaken her like a child. He’s describing me. That’s exactly how I am. That’s my life!
Every relationship I have is superficial, transitory, with little meaning. I have no connections with anyone, nothing that allows me to vent the raw, unedited emotions I feel. I have no one with whom I can be totally myself. Was I ever truly myself with Michael? Or have we always worn the masks we thought the other wanted to see? Do I know Michael at all? Do I know Katie?
Startling her out of her reverie, Michael leaned over and whispered, “Are you okay, Julie? You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine!” she told him, but she said it with such force that several people in the pew ahead glanced around curiously.
“I’m fine,” she said again, licking her dry lips.
But she wasn’t fine. Her mind was going a mile a minute, dredging up alarming thoughts and painful insights in a random, pell-mell rush.
After all these years, how can we be such strangers to one another? How can you live in the same house with someone, the same little collection of rooms, the same walls and windows and furnishings and pictures—and not know someone? How can you live together in the routine of daily life and remain strangers? How can you live together for years and hardly scratch the surface of who they are, and have no idea what they think or how they feel?
Another thought was just as dismaying.
If Pastor Brady is right, I’ve spent my whole life living among strangers. I knew my mother—thought I knew her, but did I really? How well have I known anyone in my life—my father, my husband, my daughter, and yes, even God? Have I even bothered to try?
Or have I accepted superficial relationships because they’re easier, because they demand nothing of me? I’ve struggled to understand myself and I’m still light-years away from knowing who I am, what I feel and what I want. How can I know others if I’m not even sure about myself? What can I do to reach across the barriers and feel the texture and grain of another living soul?
And what if no one wants to let me in? she wondered darkly. What if remaining pleasant strangers is all anyone really wants of another person? What if everyone else is as protective of their private world as I am of mine? How do I start breaking down barriers and getting inside where someone else lives?
Is it possible others have been trying to break down my barriers, and I’ve never noticed? Michael? Even Katie? Have I been as impervious to the invasions of others into my life as my father has been? In the name of heaven, am I just like him?
The questions were overwhelming, terrifying, shattering. But before Julie could even begin to explore the answers, her attention was drawn back suddenly to Pastor Brady. He was saying, “Are you listening to me, my friends? This is important. This hits at the crux of all our lives.”
Julie gave the sagacious man in the pulpit her full attention. He had touched a raw nerve and she needed to know what healing balm he was going to offer.
“My friends,” he said, his deep, resonant voice growing buoyant with hope, “I challenge each of you to let yourself fall in love with Jesus…get to know Him as you would your most intimate friend. Make Him a vital part of your daily life. Don’t leave Him in the pages of your Bible or in the walls of your church. Let Him come alive in your heart. Let His Spirit breathe and speak in the hidden rooms of your mind. Let Him move in you and change the very landscape of your soul.”
At the barbecue that afternoon Julie couldn’t get Pastor Brady’s words out of her mind She thought about them as she marinated the steaks for the grill, as she boiled potatoes and eggs for the potato salad…and as she stirred catsup into the baked beans and made frosty pitchers of pink lemonade. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength…” But how did one love God that way? It was a mystery. Beyond Julie’s comprehension. “Fall in love with Jesus…let Him change the very landscape of your soul…”
But how? It sounded so perfect, but so unattainable. Could such love really change her? Change the very landscape of her soul? Would she be different if she let God into the hidden rooms of her heart? She already believed in Him. Wasn’t that enough?
And just as puzzling and paradoxical was God’s command to love your neighbor as yourself. It was a cliché, a vague and irrational idea. Did it mean the intimate circle of one’s life—one’s family and friends—or everyone she came in contact with? The admonition seemed overwhelming, paralyzing. How did one love like that?
Certainly Julie had no energy or motivation to think about loving people beyond her own family. She wasn’t even sure she loved her husband and daughter the way God intended. Her emotions changed so often and were colored by disappointment, exhaustion and irritability. Love was mingled with so many other