Page 67 of The Confidant
Anachronisms?
I’d never heard that word before.
After a quick search in the online dictionary, I found that the word referred to situations when an object, event, or custom was attributed to a time period it didn’t belong to.
The example the Internet gave me was: “Like Abraham Lincoln using a cell phone to update his wife on the Civil War.”
Cell phones didn’t exist back then, so a story mentioning something like that would obviously be made up.
I didn’t know what kinds of anachronisms he believed were in Visitations with Jehovah. Probably things that Samuel Williams had just written down wrong when transcribing what Jehovah told him during one of his many visitations.
A human error was bound to come up here and there in a three-hundred page book.
But that was beside the point. One or two mistakes couldn’t discount all the truth and goodness that came from the gospel.
It was like he was trying to say that the church was purposely trying to hide things from us. That’s what he meant by “whitewashed history,” right?
Me:So you’re saying that the Elders and High Priest lied to us? That my dad lied to us?
What had this research done to Hunter?
Made him paranoid and mistrusting of everyone?
Hunter:I’m not saying that. I know your dad and the other leaders are good people and just doing and teaching what they believe is true. But there are a lot of things that were hidden from the church members by some of the early leaders. Things that they weren’t proud of and that hurt their agenda.
Me:The church is good, Hunter. It teaches us to be good people. It doesn’t tell us to do bad things. The only“agenda” is helping people be happy and follow Jehovah.
Hunter:I know. I was one of you. I was a good person too when I believed it.
Me:But you don’t believe it anymore?
Three dots showed on the screen, and I held my breath as I waited to see how he would answer my question. He had to believe at least some of it still. He had to know deep down that it was true, and he’d been led astray.
He couldn’t actually deny it when he’d had so many spiritual experiences that witnessed to him that the church was true.
But then his text came through.No. I don’t believe it.
No?
I know he’d said as much earlier, but this was just sofinal.
And with that simple confirmation, it felt like my heart was fissuring in my chest.
My stomach dropped down to the floor as I thought about all the plans I had for Hunter and me after high school. How we’d go to college together. Be able to actually start dating. Fall deeper in love.
He’d ask me to marry him. I’d say yes. We’d get married in the church, buy a home, have children, raise a family in the gospel together. Build a life.
But none of that could happen if he wasn’t a believer.
I couldn’t tie my eternal salvation to someone who didn’t share the same values as me.
My mom and dad had failed to make things work when my mom dissented. Plus, I didn’t want to only have the promise of living with my husband and children inthislife only. I wanted to marry someone I could be withafterthis life, too. Forever.
I wiped away the tears that were streaming more quickly now, and with trembling fingers, I typed:Can’t you just stay for me? Please? Do it for me?For us.
I held my hand over my heart as I waited for his answer, sure that it would break into a million pieces if he said no.
After another thirty seconds where I felt like I couldn’t breathe, he replied:I can’t live a lie, Scarlett. I was taught to live with integrity, and it wouldn’t be fair to you or to me to pretend to believe and support something that I just don’t.
