Page 2 of Evan

“My life is right here!” She had been resolved on that. She loved the cottage and could stay as long as she wanted to.

She also loved being the secretary to the ministry, which included outreach centers, funding the various missionaries sent to spread the gospel, some of them going as far as Africa and countless third world countries.

They had soup kitchens, thrift stores, back to school programs, summer camps and various other activities. She was busy every day of her life.

Her job was not boring, on the contrary, it was filled with excitement and different issues every single day. She would begin her day with prayers and supplication as well as thanksgiving, because well - she had so much to give thanks for.

She was college educated and had a wonderful life. There might be a wedding in the distant future, she was not in any hurry. She had celebrated her twenty-ninth birthday almost a month ago and was enjoying her life.

She travelled, first with Pastor William and his wife and then when she was old enough, had gone to Europe with friends. She had seen her fair share of misery – church family dying and leaving a vacuum.

Her past still managed to rear its ugly head every now and then, but she believed in the power of prayer. She was still untouched and innocent in so many ways, but she was saving herself for her husband. She wanted children and knew without a shadow of doubt that she was going to be a great mom.

But she had something specific to pray about. Since a month ago, there was this nagging feeling as if something was missing from her life. She had been praying against the feeling of inadequacy and the void that had started to get bigger. There was also another matter – She had picked up on the tension between her pastor and his wife.

They had lost a child and that was a turning point in their lives, something that had changed them irrevocably.

They put on their best outside, but after living with them and considering her substitute parents, she knew them better than anyone else. Their only remaining child, Darla, had left home and the church as well as the faith and they hadn’t heard from her in years. Taking a fortifying sip of her wine, she tried to ignore the other things bothering her.

Explosive things, something she had picked up on, discrepancies in the accounting, subtle glances exchanged by her pastor and a member of the women’s ministry. She had been praying about it and seeking guidance, but nothing was forthcoming. It was as if God had taken himself out of the mix.

She knew better of course. He was always around. She believed in the Bible and his promise of never leaving nor forsaking was not just an empty gesture. He meant every word. It had to be her. Something at her church was about to break and her feeling of dread was getting even more pressing.

*****

“Janet seems completely inconsolable.”

Pastor William Weeks, glanced over at her as she sat in front of the vanity mirror and rubbed cream into her unlined face. It was a nightly ritual that had become part of their lives and in the past, it had delighted him.

They had been married for thirty-five years now and had seen too much unhappiness in their lives for the marriage to stand firm. He still loved her and suspected that he would for as long as the good Lord gave him breath.

But losing two children, one to death and the other to the world had done them in. They barely spoke to each other. Private devotions had given way to long and uncomfortable silence.

They lived separate lives and no longer slept in the same bed. He had made the excuse that his sleep apnea was the cause of it, but they both knew that was not true.

He was a man of God and was going to remain that for as long as he lived. But he was tired and disillusioned. And had started to take comfort in another woman’s arms.

He was committing adultery along with his other sins and he was not sleeping through the night. But he consoled himself and tried to justify his behavior by saying thar he was human.

And wasn’t David in the Bible just as culpable? The man had lusted after another man’s wife and taken her for himself. Yes, the consequence of that particular sin had caused devastation that had lasted for years and destroyed several lives, but he was a man, and he had tried praying, but it was not working.

“Yes.” He responded briefly, turning away to take off his light sports jacket. After spending time with the bereaved parishioner, he had stepped out to visit a few sick and shut in parishioners.

He had said all the right things, even done some prayers, and left encouraging words, but it was a rite of passage, and he had been doing it for thirty years now, it had become ingrained. He could quote scriptures from memory.

“Losing a child is the most difficult thing a mother could ever face.”

He paused in the middle of unbuttoning his shirt to stare at her. She had hardly aged over the years, except for a few strands of gray in the thick coffee brown hair that was swinging loosely in a bowl cut around her cheeks. Her grayish green eyes met his in the mirror, their expression chilly.

“I am not a mother, but I can surely relate.”

“Can you, darling?” Her lips moved in a facsimile of a smile as she continued to rub the cream up and down her neck. “I carried Chad for nine months and went through a very difficult birth. Sixteen hours and at the end of it, I was able to hold my baby – my perfect little boy in my arms.

It was as if the grueling hours of pain had disappeared. I went through him teething, having ear infections, a broken leg while playing little league – a toothache and several heartbreaks.” She sent him a defiant look. “While you were out tending to your ‘flock’.”

“I am a minister…”

“Of course you are.” She waved a dismissive hand. “And I am the loving and longsuffering wife. ‘Wives, be submissive to your own husbands as unto the Lord.

---