Waterfalls (19 page)

At the end of the sermon, Dad made his announcement. His voice quavered a little at the end. The congregation gave a strange response. Some whispered in surprise. Some rustled in their seats. Overall, there was a startled hush.

Meri had noticed when they entered the church that the majority of the congregation were people over fifty. Many of them she had known her whole life, and they had greeted her with hugs and smeared lipstick kisses on her cheeks. The congregation was warm and loving and had been generous to the Graham family over the years.

However, very few young couples or singles Meri’s age attended the service. And no teenagers, offering hope for a next generation of believers, sat in the pews. In a way, Meri could see why the board felt compelled to make a change in their pastoral staff. Everyone knows that the most money in tithes comes from the young families, especially the double-income households. Only the occasional retired parishioner who is well off will make a large contribution.

Meri felt angry with herself for allowing her thoughts to go that direction. Even though she knew it could be true, she didn’t want to think that perhaps the board had made its decision to let Dad go based on finances. This was a large church facility on prime downtown real estate. Even with the weeknight activities, the building wasn’t being used to its potential and hadn’t been for a number of years.

It was all very sad. Being there, in the front row, and looking
at her balding father as he held up his wrinkled hands in a benediction over the congregation brought Meri to tears.

They all went to her parents’ home after church. As she had always done in their youth, Mom had stuck a pot roast in the oven before church. The house smelled warm and inviting. It was a glad, familiar fragrance.

Meredith automatically went to the china cabinet and took out the Sunday best to set the table, just as she had done every Sunday when she had lived at home. The three Graham women completed their tasks in a well-choreographed fashion, even though they hadn’t played out this Sunday-after-church scene for more than six years. Shelly poured water into the crystal goblets and placed folded cloth napkins next to each fork. Mom carried in the platter of beef, carrots, and potatoes and set it in front of Dad’s place at the head of the table. Meredith brought in the red Jell-O salad, wiggling on the plate. Mom had a collection of copper molds for her weekly Jell-O salad, and this week she had used the cluster of grapes.

The timer went off on the oven, announcing that the refrigerator rolls were ready, and Dad and Jonathan automatically moved from the family room to the dining room. Dad pulled out his wide captain’s chair, and the rest of them followed suit, taking their places around the table. Jonathan had eaten many Sunday dinners with the Grahams while he was growing up next door. He fell right into his role as well.

“Let us pray,” Dad said. Meri listened to his words. Over the years she hadn’t paid much attention to his mealtime prayers, but today she listened. Despite his eloquent flourish to the simple words, Dad’s true heart shone through when he prayed. He was a man who loved the Lord and deeply desired that others would come to know God by making a personal commitment to Jesus Christ.

Meredith had made that commitment when she was nine. One Sunday, after a dinner not unlike this one, she had followed her father into the living room, where he had stretched out on the couch for his usual Sunday-afternoon nap while Mom did the dishes.

“Daddy?” Meri had asked, approaching him cautiously. His eyes were closed, and his right arm was over his head with his wrist resting on his forehead. She remembered the moment distinctly.

“Hmm?” her father responded without opening his eyes.

“I want to go to heaven, Daddy,” she said.

He slowly opened one eye and looked her over.

“Like that missionary said in church this morning. All of us are sinners and need God’s free ticket to get to heaven. I want that ticket.”

Dad opened both eyes and turned his head toward her. His arm was still across his forehead. “Do you believe that Jesus is God’s Son?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe he died for your sins?” The arm came down to his side.

“Yes.”

“Are you willing to confess your sins to him and ask him to come into your heart and take over your life?”

“Yes.”

“Then go to your room, kneel by your bed, and tell that to God. After you pray, come back and tell me what happened.”

Meredith remembered being so surprised at her dad’s instructions. She had expected him to take her by the hand and pray for her. At the least, he could have smiled or kissed her forehead and told her how proud he was that she was making this big decision. Instead, he stayed on the couch, still lying down, and watched her go upstairs to her room.

On the bumpy throw rug beside her bed, Meredith knelt. She folded her hands and rested her elbows on the edge of her bed. Meri didn’t remember what she prayed that day. She was pretty sure she had all the steps right. Ask forgiveness, invite Jesus to come into her life, then thank him. After the amen she waited. Her father had told her to come back and tell him what happened. Nothing seemed to be happening. She waited a little longer. Her room remained silent. The only tingles she felt were in her legs where the circulation was pinched off.

Finally, convinced she had done something wrong, Meri went back downstairs to sheepishly admit to her father that she had failed in her attempt to become a Christian and secure her ticket to heaven.

He was still lying there, with his arm over his forehead, but his eyes were open, and he was watching her come toward him. Meri sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of him, and with her head hanging down, she said, “I prayed, and nothing happened.”

“Nothing happened that you could see or feel,” her dad corrected her in his rich preacher’s voice, now toned down to touch the heart of his youngest daughter. “But everything happened inside the forever part of you that you can’t see or feel. You just became a Christian, Meredith. You are a daughter of the King. Your name was just written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. You are now a joint heir with Christ. Your sins have been cast as far as the east is from the west.”

Meredith looked into her father’s kind face. All his big words confused her. “Am I going to heaven when I die?”

He smiled. “Yes. By surrendering your life to Christ, you just entered the kingdom of God, and his kingdom is eternal.”

Her father reached over, and with strong, supple fingers, he took her chin in his hand. “Welcome to the family of God, my dear child.”

Meredith felt a little dissatisfied. “Why didn’t you come with me and pray with me?”

“You just made the most important decision of your life,” he said. “This is between you and your Father God. He will always be there for you. I won’t always be here. From the very start you must learn to depend completely on him and not on people who will end up leaving you or disappointing you.”

“But I don’t know if I prayed right.”

“Anytime a heart opens to Christ, it’s a right prayer. The words don’t matter. God already knows what you’re thinking. He knows everything.”

Meri looked down again and admitted to her father, “But I didn’t feel anything. Shouldn’t I feel something when I make the most important decision of my life?”

“Sometimes people do, and sometimes people don’t. The facts are never changed because of feelings. The Bible makes it clear that once you invite Christ into your heart he will never leave you. You may always rely on that unchanging fact.”

Meredith believed his words. After all, her father was in the business of getting people into God’s kingdom. He would know.

“Remember,” he said, “this is just the beginning. Now your relationship with God must continue to grow. Do you still have the Bible we gave you last Christmas?”

Meri nodded.

“It’s up to you, not your Sunday school teacher or anyone else, to take God’s Word and hide it in your heart. Do you understand that?”

Meri nodded again, solemnly.

With all the instructions given, Dad’s face broke into a big smile. He leaned over and kissed Meredith on the cheek. “I love you, honey. The angels in heaven are rejoicing over you right now.” His eyes grew misty, and he said, “You will never
know how magnificently my heart is rejoicing over you at this moment as well.”

She basked in his touch and his words of approval. Then she skipped out to the backyard and sat in the swing for a long time.

As the poignant memory began to fade now while Meredith sat at the dining-room table with an empty plate in front of her, she wished the old swing set were still in the backyard. She would sit in the swing again this afternoon and lose herself in her thoughts.

Mom rose to clear the plates. Shelly helped her and returned with an apple pie that had been warming in the oven.

“I saw the sign up for the loganberry farm when we were at Whidbey yesterday,” Mom said. “The sign said they would open on June first this year. Isn’t that early for loganberries?”

“It’s been unusually warm,” Meri said, entering the conversation for nearly the first time during the meal. “They also sell other berries at the stand. I don’t know what’s going to ripen first this year.”

“I’m ready to make some berry pies,” Mom said, pressing the knife into the homemade crust. “I’m hoping the blueberries will be sweeter than they were last year. It was not a good blueberry year.”

Meri was amazed that, despite the crisis with her parents, all they talked about was berries. She reminded herself this was the way her mother coped best, and Meri tried to honor that.

The apple pie was delicious, as always. The rest of the dishes were cleared with precision. Dad excused himself from the table by placing his cloth napkin, folded and tidy, next to his plate. Mom would wash it even though it was unsoiled. He pushed back his chair and said, “Excellent dinner, Ellen. Thank you.” Then he took the eighteen steps from the dining-room table to the living-room couch like a man under
the pull of an irresistible magnet. Within three minutes his light snoring ruffled the air.

The women began the cleanup in the kitchen. To the delight of Meri’s mom, Jonathan ordered her out of the kitchen, saying he would help clean up. Mom didn’t leave the kitchen and go relax as Jonathan had ordered, but she did sit down and put her feet up.

“It was really nice of you three to come today,” Mom said. “I know your father appreciates it.”

“We wanted to be here,” Jonathan said, washing the china with much less finesse than those fragile dishes were used to. “This is an important crossroads for you and Perry. Shelly and I have talked about it, and if we can help in any way, you know we’re here for you.”

“That’s kind of you, Jonathan, but I’m sure there’s nothing you can do.”

“Even so,” Shelly said. “Keep it in mind. If you end up moving out of this house, you might need a place to stay for awhile, and we have room.”

“In your little cabin?” Mom said with a laugh. “I hardly think so. Meredith has twice the space you two have.”

All eyes turned to Meredith as she pulled a dry towel from the bottom drawer. “Oh, of course,” she said, quickly entering into the charity of the moment. “You’re welcome to come stay with me. Anytime. As long as you like. I’d love to have you.” She wasn’t sure why her heart was pounding so wildly. Maybe because she was unaccustomed to lying.

“I’m sure none of your hospitality will be necessary. We are in no rush to sell this house. Who knows? We might end up finding another pastorate here in town.”

Meri knew that wasn’t likely. She hoped their moving in with her wasn’t very likely either.

A
fter the dishes were done and the kitchen cleaned, Shelly lured Meredith away from the others by saying she wanted to pick some flowers from Mom’s garden and needed help.

Mom’s garden was practical. She had built terraces years ago and kept all the flowers in nice neat rows and sections. The garden wasn’t particularly beautiful to look at, but the abundance of flora it produced graced every room of the house nearly nine months out of the year.

Shelly picked up Mom’s gathering basket from the corner of the mud room, and Meri followed her out to the garden. Neatly tucked inside the basket were Mom’s garden gloves and a pair of clippers.

“If you’re going to talk to me about convincing Mom and Dad to live with me, save your breath,” Meri began before they even reached the terraces. “I didn’t mean it when I said they would be welcome anytime.”

“Don’t worry,” Shelly said. “They would never do that.
They like their privacy and schedule too much to become dependent on anyone. I was thinking we could put them up at camp in one of the staff cabins. For a short time. Mom didn’t seem too interested.”

“I’m trying to be more understanding of Mom now that I know what a stressful time she’s going through, but honestly, Shelly, she would drive me crazy.”

“Don’t worry!” Shelly said again. “But I don’t want to talk about Mom. I wanted to tell you what Jake said about you last night.”