Wildflowers (25 page)

“Thanks.” She took the plate he held out to her and showed Steven. “How do you like my new wildflower plates?”

“Nice. And that’s a good looking pizza, too.”

“We just happen to have a slice with your name on it,” Gordon said. “You wait right here, and I’ll bring it to ya’.”

“You better not look too experienced at waiting tables,”
Steven called out to Gordon. “Gena happens to be looking for someone to replace Leah. She might hire you, if the preaching thing doesn’t work out.”

Genevieve wasn’t sure how to take her husband’s jesting. She quickly looked to Leah, who stood a few feet away, and then at Gordon, who was in the middle of the rest of the group.

“Now you’ve got a winner of an idea there,” Gordon said, unruffled by Steven’s comment. “I’ve even got experience as a waiter. Did you know that? I would love to come in here on my day off and wait tables. What do you think, Teri?”

Gordon’s wife, Teri, didn’t get a chance to comment. At that moment, Gordon turned with a plate of pizza and bumped into the edge of the booth. He lost his balance and appeared to be trying not to collide with Brad and Alissa’s youngest, who had plopped down in the middle of the floor with her plate of pizza in her lap.

With his arms flying into the air, Gordon tilted to the side, caught himself, but lost the plate of pizza. It soared across the room like a Frisbee and landed with a crash on the floor next to where the fireplace was to be installed.

The room went silent. All Genevieve saw were the broken pieces of her beautiful wildflower plate smashed on the bare floor. Ami burst into tears and held up her arms for Alissa to take her. No one spoke.

“It’s okay.” Genevieve drew in a breath of courage. “I’ll clean it up.”

“I take back my suggestion that you start working here,
Gordo,” Steven said. “Stick to the preaching.”

Gordon apologized to Genevieve. She swept up the broken pieces and saved them in a small box under the kitchen sink. The plate was in too many pieces to glue back together, but she couldn’t throw it away.

Returning to the party, Genevieve told herself it was a good thing her husband was on such friendly terms with the pastor and that they were ribbing each other like buddies. The others were teasing Gordon as well, saying that everyone was fortunate he had a strong wooden pulpit between him and the congregation when he preached on Sundays. At least the pulpit could break his fall and protect the people in the front row if he had a clumsy spell in the middle of a sermon.

The broken plate was soon forgotten. The pizza was soon devoured. The marking pens were distributed, and the blessing party went into full swing.

Genevieve knew what she wanted to write on the floor. She had found the verse at the end of the book of John during her recent reading. Getting on her knees by the front door, she drew a rectangle like a large welcome mat. Inside the rectangle she wrote,

“Jesus saith unto them, ‘Come and dine.’ John 21:12.”

That small part of the last chapter of John had jumped out at her because she understood more fully than ever what it meant to hear Jesus’ voice and to respond to His kind invitation. She wanted everyone who entered this café to feel invited and to find a deeper level of friendship, as they gathered around a warm fire or with a cold glass of lemonade.
Jesus had invited His closest friends to “come and dine” around a small fire on the beach. She wanted her friends to know they were welcome to “come and dine” at this café.

She finished her welcome mat with a few flowers in the corners and then walked around, eager to see what the others were writing.

Anna had created a darling outline of a house that Mallory was helping her decorate with curls of smoke from the chimney. In the center of the house, Anna wrote:

“This is My commandment, that you love one another. John 15:12.”

Teri and Gordon were kneeling in front of the booths where Teri was writing, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Their twin boys were lying flat on their stomachs, coloring a picture of a beach scene complete with palm trees and whales jumping in the curling waves. Little Malia slept in a baby carrier, blissfully unaware of all the activity around her.

Leah leaned against Seth. She had just begun to write on the floor by the opening that separated the Dandelion from the Wildflower.

A Dutch door had been installed so that the two businesses could close off their sections from the other if they wanted. The door could be locked if they needed it to be, or it could have the top closed while the bottom stayed open, inviting short visitors to enter. The other option was for the door’s bottom section to be closed while leaving the top open.

“We already wrote our favorite Zephaniah verse on the
floor in there,” Leah said, nodding into her new Dandelion Corner. “Can you guess what verse we’re going to write here?”

Genevieve took a guess. “Is it the verse you told me about the other day? The one that refers to how God knows the plans He has for us?”

“Exactly.” Leah flipped her silky, summer-blond hair behind her ear. “Jeremiah 29:11.”

Shelly and Jonathan couldn’t come because they were swamped with the large group they had at Camp Heather Brook that week. Friday nights were always their biggest night because all the campers gathered in the outdoor amphitheater after the sun went down. They sang under the stars and campers told what God had done in their lives that week. Shelly had said more than once at their Wednesday Bible study that it was her favorite time of the week.

Since Shelly and Jonathan couldn’t join the pizza party, they had sent their blessing via Alissa. Shelly’s sister, Meredith, had e-mailed a verse to Alissa and asked her to include it on the floor for her and Jacob.

“This one is from Shelly.” Alissa pointed to where she had written out, “Sing to God, sing praises to his name; lift up a song to him who rides upon the clouds. Psalm 68:4.”

“And this one is from Meri and Jake.” Brad put the finishing touches on his stick letters. In all caps he had written, “DEEP CALLS TO DEEP IN THE ROAR OF YOUR WATERFALLS. Psalm 42:7.”

Lauren had gathered Alissa’s daughters along with her daughter, Molly Sue, and Jessica’s two daughters. The five
little girls were barefooted and giggling as Lauren drew around their feet. They were scattered around the room, frozen in place until Lauren traced their feet. Then they hopped to a new location and froze, waiting for Lauren to come trace more footprints.

It kept the little ones involved without letting them loose with a bunch of permanent markers. Lauren’s husband, Kenton, was holding their son, Michael, and helping to direct the little foot models. Kenton had written beneath the first set of footprints, “Ephesians 5:8, Walk as children of light.”

Genevieve loved it. She knew that every time she trotted from the kitchen into the dining area, she would remember that beneath the flooring were dozens of miniature footprints and the reminder to always walk in the light.

Jessica and Kyle were kneeling by the entrance to the kitchen. Jessica was helping their precocious five-year-old son draw a picture of a building on fire and a stick figure fireman putting out the flames with a shooting fire hose.

Kyle was writing, “He has sent me … to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Isaiah 61:3.”

Genevieve began to choke up. God had done exactly that. He was giving her beauty for ashes and joy for her mourning. And more than anything, she felt as if she had exchanged a spirit of heaviness for a new life of praise.

“Thank you,” she whispered to Kyle and Jessica.

Jessica looked up and smiled. Genevieve noticed in the direct lighting that Jessica had a scar in the shape of a half
moon above her right lip. Genevieve wondered if this quiet woman, who appeared so at home on her knees, also knew a little bit about beauty and ashes.

Only one person remained whose artistic endeavors Genevieve hadn’t viewed yet. Steven.

Genevieve gingerly approached the corner booth where her husband knelt on the floor. He held his new Bible in one hand and a black permanent marker in the other.

“This is it,” Steven said to her. “This is all of it, right here.”

Genevieve couldn’t imagine what he meant. Steven hadn’t written anything yet. She saw that his Bible was turned to Zechariah 13.

Standing beside him, Genevieve watched as Steven wrote, “They will call on My name, and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are My people,’ and they will say, ‘The L
ORD
is my God.’ ”

Steven looked up at Genevieve. “I get it. This is it.”

Genevieve didn’t get it at all. She considered calling Gordon over to this private alcove. If Steven was about to comment on some deep spiritual truth, he would want to discuss it with a pastor, wouldn’t he? Especially if he was wanting to debate some obscure point in a part of the Bible Genevieve had never read.

Steven didn’t debate. He didn’t make any profound comment. He didn’t even speak. All he did was reach for Genevieve’s hand and draw her down to the floor where she knelt beside him. He bowed his head and held her hand tightly.

Is he praying? Is my husband praying? Or is he waiting for me to say something? Does he want me to pray? What is happening?

Genevieve knelt in silence while the sounds of their friends echoed around them. The barefooted little girls were still giggling; Josiah corrected his twin brother on how whales held their breath underwater; Leah called across to Anna and asked if she had any more blue pens. The rest of the room, the rest of the world continued to whirl in an unaltered orbit.

But in this tiny corner of the world, this secluded corner of the café, all of life seemed to have stopped. Genevieve closed her eyes and prayed for her husband like she had never prayed before. Somehow she knew at this moment her husband was calling out to God. With all her heart, she begged God to answer him.

Steven’s grip on Genevieve’s hand suddenly let up. She fluttered open her eyelids and turned to look at him. For more than two and a half decades she had watched his face but never had she seen this expression before. He wore his surprise like a banner across his broad forehead. A glow like the steady embers of a campfire lit his eyes. His lips were pressed together, and his jaw was tipped upward, setting his face like a flint toward the verse he had just written on the floor.

“This is it,” he said in slow, even words.

“This is what?” Genevieve knew something powerful had happened inside her husband, but she couldn’t discern what it was.

Steven drew in a deep breath. His nostrils flared. Pointing at the words on the floor he said, “I called on God.”

Genevieve still didn’t know what to make of all this. Steven, her calm, steady husband, wasn’t following any pattern of logic that she recognized. If he had just surrendered his life to the Lord, it certainly wasn’t the same way Genevieve had turned her life over to Christ.

“Steven,” she said softly, “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

He looked at her with a calm, almost humored expression. “You don’t?”

Genevieve shook her head.

Steven took both her hands in his and kissed them. “It all made sense to me.” He got up off his knees and drew Genevieve up with him. He sat on the bench, and she sat beside him, the two of them tucked in their private alcove while the rest of the guests splashed their artistic blessings all over the floor and continued the party in the Dandelion Corner.

“I saw a repeating theme as I was reading the Bible. God wants His people back.”

Genevieve nodded. She had never heard the entire Bible reduced to such a simple theme before, but in a general sense, that was what she understood to be the essence of God’s redemptive message.

“I never understood that we’re separated from God. He wants us to come to Him, but we’re a mess.” Steven shrugged and smiled at Genevieve. “That’s why God sacrificed His Son. That’s how we can come to God. Through Christ only.”

Genevieve nodded again. Steven had it all figured out. “How did you get all that?”

“From you. You released something deep in me when you forgave me, Gena. I’m sure of it. This morning, do you remember how you held out your arms to me while I was working in the yard?”

“Yes.”

“You looked so beautiful, fresh, and clean with the light in your hair and your arms open. I wanted to go to you and embrace you, but I couldn’t come close because I was such a mess. That’s when I started to get it. I always thought I was good enough to come to God because I’m a pretty decent, hard-working fellow. But all that hard work only made me sweaty and dirty.”

Genevieve smiled. He was pretty smelly this morning.

“Gordo told me the last time we went golfing that when he first proposed to Teri, she turned him down and boarded an airplane. He told her he would wait for her, and he did. He stood right where he had left her, waiting. Teri actually made them stop the taxiing plane so she could get off. When she entered the terminal, Gordo was standing right there, waiting for her.”

“I hadn’t heard their story before,” Genevieve said.

“Gordo compared that to the way God waits for each of us to come back to Him.”

Steven reached over and touched Genevieve’s face. “The reason I was so taken with you this morning was because you said you would wait for me, just like Gordo’s example of how God has been waiting for me. All day I’ve been
thinking that it was time to stop this plane, so to speak, and get right with God.”

“And is that what happened when you were kneeling just now?” Genevieve asked.

“Yes.” His voice was steady and sure. “I called on God. I asked Him to forgive me. I know He did, Gena.” With a nod of his head, Steven said, “I’m one of His people. He is now my God.”

The tears chased each other down Genevieve’s cheeks. Her pulse pounded in her ears.

Jesus, You just resurrected my husband, didn’t You? You gave him new life. You told me to untie him, and look what happened. I let him go, and he went right to You. This is a miracle!

“I am so, so happy,” Genevieve whispered.