Night Light (40 page)
“Mark?”
He turned around and caught his breath at the sight of her. “Deni!” Mark dropped the ax. “I thought the train was gone by now.”
She shook her head. “I changed my mind. I’m not going with him.”
He let out a breath and put his hand on his heart. Eyebrows raised, he asked, “Not ever?”
She looked down at her feet, knowing she couldn’t make promises. “I don’t know. Ever’s a long time. All I know is I’m not going now. I gave him back the ring.” Those tears assaulted her again, and she felt like a fool. Why had she come here when her emotions were so raw? She should have waited.
But Mark closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered against her ear. “I know how hard this must have been. Are you all right?”
She savored the comforting feel of his arms around her. He made her feel safe. “I will be.”
After a moment he loosened his hold, and she stepped back, holding his gaze for a long moment. His eyes were probing, searching her heart. But she had no answers, and she could make no promises.
“I just wanted to come tell you,” she said. “I thought you should know.”
He brushed back the hair from her eyes. Her heart skipped a beat as his fingers lingered on her skin. Pleasure sparkled in his eyes. “I’m glad you didn’t go.” His voice wavered. “I hated the thought of losing one of my only friends.”
She appreciated his sensitivity, not to demand more of her. He was too wise for that, she thought. Too trusting of God’s timing. And that gave Mark a peace that other men only pretended. She loved that about him.
“Well, I have to get back and help with supper,” she said.
Quietly he walked her to the gate, and as she started down the sidewalk toward home, he called after her. “Welcome home, Deni.”
She looked back over her shoulder. He was smiling softly, and she smiled back. It lifted the weight of her grief and chased the shadows from her heart.
Restoration was on the horizon … and healing was on its way.
T
WO WEEKS BEFORE THE RELEASE OF
L
AST
L
IGHT
, I
FACED A
power outage of my own. My state of Mississippi was ravaged by hurricane Katrina, and I found myself living through some of what my characters were experiencing.
Though I live 120 miles from the coastal areas that were devastated, and my home wasn’t damaged, I wound up without electricity or telephones. Gas stations couldn’t pump until the electricity was restored, and once it was, lines quickly formed, with a three-hour wait to fill up cars and generators.
Food spoiled, and the spoiled people (like me) who were used to summer hibernation in our air-conditioned homes were suddenly drenched with perspiration and trying to get cool. Some had contaminated drinking water. Some had trees in their living rooms. And some, farther south, didn’t have living rooms at all.
While the government was condemned for FEMA’s response and the world seemed paralyzed with panic, an amazing thing happened. Christian people sprang into action. In their hurry to fill the needs of those around them, they found themselves guided by the Holy Spirit’s direction, falling into step with the God who was caring for those he loved, when they barely had enough time to think.
A great example of that was at Pass Road Baptist Church in Biloxi, Mississippi. Still standing in the midst of massive devastation, that church became a distribution center for supplies for the victims. Christian people who had lost their own homes showed up each day to sort, stack, and collect tons of supplies being donated from around the country, and they were distributing them to the hurting and hungry families lining up in their cars.
There weren’t many church members able to tithe, since the suddenly homeless were also suddenly jobless. So another church farther north committed to paying the salaries of the staff and helping to support the work going on in that place. Mission groups from all over the country began a pilgrimage there to help out in any way they could.
It wasn’t just that church, either. Teams of Christians were cutting fallen trees away from homes, mudding out sheetrock, showing up at sites of devastation, and doing for free what others were charging thousands to do. In my own church in central Mississippi, Christian doctors and nurses ministered to hundreds of evacuees who needed medication and medical equipment. Those who couldn’t go south spent hours a day cooking for the shelters, washing clothes and towels and sheets, visiting with the lonely who sat on their cots. An evacuated nursing home brought its weak, frail, elderly, and sick to our church gym. Those who had to be carried and wheeled off the buses were revived and cared for, and later were able to walk back onto the buses that took them to their new facilities.
I realized, as all that was happening before my eyes, that this was what I wanted to convey in this series. That each of us is put in place for a particular time in particular circumstances and prepared in a particular way, not knowing what God will need us for. Some of us have experienced tragedies and crises with no answers from God about why he would drag us through such pain, only to find that it qualified us uniquely to do some mighty work of God when the time of someone else’s crisis came. And that’s how the body of Christ works.
I wanted to make sure that my readers understood that we’re here for such a time as Katrina, or Rita, or September 11, or the Oklahoma bombing, or a mining disaster, or our neighbor’s cancer, or a parent’s grief, or a widow’s sorrow. And when we face our own disasters, there will be people there for us. Because when Christendom is really working, that’s what it looks like.
This message is for me as much as my readers. I pray that I will not whine when God strengthens me through trials, and that I will let him prepare me for what lies ahead — those things for which he made me. Those times when I can be Christ to someone who may never have met him and show them the love of the Savior who can lift their burdens.
And I pray that when that time does come, I’ll see the blessing in that crisis, and it won’t be wasted on me.
Terri Blackstock is an award-winning novelist who has written for several major publishers including HarperCollins, Dell, Harlequin, and Silhouette. Published under two pseudonyms, her books have sold over 5 million copies worldwide.
With her success in secular publishing at its peak, Blackstock had what she calls “a spiritual awakening.” A Christian since the age of fourteen, she realized she had not been using her gift as God intended. It was at that point that she recommitted her life to Christ, gave up her secular career, and made the decision to write only books that would point her readers to him.
“I wanted to be able to tell the truth in my stories,” she said, “and not just be politically correct. It doesn’t matter how many readers I have if I can’t tell them what I know about the roots of their problems and the solutions that have literally saved my own life.”
Her books are about flawed Christians in crisis and God’s provisions for their mistakes and wrong choices. She claims to be extremely qualified to write such books, since she’s had years of personal experience.
A native of nowhere, since she was raised in the Air Force, Blackstock makes Mississippi her home. She and her husband are the parents of three children — a blended family which she considers one more of God’s provisions.
www.terriblackstock.com
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