

NEW HEART CHURCH

BY

JIM BARRINGER

Part One

Chapter One

December was a decent time to move to Texas, I decided, as I shot one more glance at the numbers on the brick-and-concrete apartment building and wrestled my Chevy Tahoe into one of the parking spaces out front. As someone accustomed to Midwestern winters, I couldn't complain about the sunny skies and 50-degree air that embraced me as I opened the driver's door.

Relocating to Fort Worth definitely hadn't been high on the list of things I thought I would do when I graduated from college, but here I was, a freshly-minted English major with a degree from a college no one outside of the Midwest, and even most people in Indiana, had never heard of. The only reason I was here at all is that my aunt had recently moved, but was still paying rent on the apartment I was about to move into. My parents had hastily put the kibosh on any thought of having me move back home to look for a job, but I'm not sure I could blame them. Naturally they wanted me out of the house and gone, so that I would stop eating all their food and clogging up their driveway. I also think, though, that deep down they were ashamed at what they had become: dead-end employees in dead-end jobs, unhappy with life, just killing time until the next weekend when they would scratch out a couple days' worth of happiness before going back to the job they hated. I knew they wanted better for me than that.

That said, my current situation was not an ideal alternative. I would be moving to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, a city – a metropolis – with which I was not the slightest bit familiar, and in fact had never even been to. I would know nobody, have no support system, and have no job lined up, although I had a substantial savings that would last me through the first month. Even an English major ought to have a job in a month, right? And the people in the apartment building had known my aunt, or maybe they hadn't, since she was well known for being the quiet, mousy one in the family.

It may not have been an ideal alternative, but it was, at the moment, the only one.

Taking a long breath, I spun the key out of the ignition and threw my backpack over my shoulder. Someone wearing a name tag had come out to the curb to see what was taking so long, and she half-smiled nervously at my approach.

"I'm Eli Radak. I'm here to move in."  
Some of the apprehension melted off her face. "Oh, Helen's nephew? We've been expecting you for several days now."  
"Oh. Good, I guess. I mean, I'm glad somebody knew I was coming."

"We sure did," she chirped, with the kind of patronizing smile that made me want to dislike her instantly. "Well, your apartment is number 305. Would you like some help with your bags?"  
"What? No, no. I'll get them." I wasn't in the Midwest anymore; back in small-town Indiana there was no way a woman was going to carry a man's bags. The woman wouldn't offer and the man wouldn't let her. I was a little surprised it had even happened here, in the heart of the south, but this was big cosmopolitan Fort Worth, and I had the feeling that I was only beginning to be surprised by the way things were done here.

I lugged the first of my bags up the long staircase, my thudding steps echoing in the uncarpeted passageway. The apartment building was old, maybe 1960s vintage, and sat in a not-really-upscale but not-really-rundown area just west of downtown. From the looks of it, it might have been an old warehouse, haphazardly redone as the factories fled the city. Sure enough, opening the door and pushing open the door to 305, I could see that it was a single-room studio, decked out with plain walls, bare hardwood floors, and huge windows, the telltale signs of a converted factory. The winter sun poured in the window, and with my nose pressed against the glass I had a pleasant view out onto the street I was parked on, the name of which I couldn't remember to save my life. I spent a few hours unpacking my things, although I felt it really shouldn't have taken that long given how little I owned. The sun was just beginning to dip below the trees to the west when a quiet knock on the door surprised me, and I half-jumped.

"You white people, always scared of the black man," the visitor chuckled.

"Just wasn't expecting anyone."  
"I know, son. I was just playing." He came in and extended a dark hand. "Stanley Raines. You're Helen's boy?"  
"Nephew, yeah. Eli Radak. Nice to meet you, Stanley." His tall, lean frame spoke to a life of working with his hands, and his calluses felt like they'd have been more at home with a rake or hoe in them. If I'd had to guess his age, I'd have put him somewhere near 55; the patches of gray in his close-cropped hair lending him a distinguished aura.

"What brings you to Texas, Eli?"

"I'm not sure. Nowhere else to go, I guess."  
"Well, there are worse places to be, that's for sure. I think you'll like it in this building. Lots of good things are happening here."  
"I could use a few more good things in my life. Right now it seems there aren't many of them."  
"We'll deal with that in due time," he chuckled, stroking his chin. "For now, can I help you with your bags?"  
The offer of aid caught me on the hop. "Uh, sure, I guess. If you want to."  
"I'd be delighted. I never pass up a chance to help a brother in need."  
"Hey, I'm not the brother here; you are." I wished I could suck the words back into my mouth. What a feeble attempt at racial humor – not a way to make a good first impression.

But Stanley guffawed, slapping his knee. "I like you already, Eli. You're quick."

I smiled nervously, still not sure how my faux pas had been taken as genuine humor, but before I could even think twice Stanley was out the door and on the way to the stairs.

A few minutes later we had brought the rest of my bags upstairs. The mound of four suitcases sat forlornly, pushed up against one wall of the cavernous apartment. I had no covers for the bed – I would have had no bed at all, had Aunt Helen not left hers – no silverware, no dishes, no furniture, no television. I had a computer but no desk to put it on. No telephone, no dinner table. No food. An indignant yowl from my stomach reminded me that I'd been putting off that particular necessity for a little too long.

"I heard that," declared Stanley. "You're thin enough as it is, boy. Don't let that stomach go empty."  
"Fine. What's a good place to eat around here?"  
"I guess you don't have nothing in the fridge? Well, then, you're always welcome to come eat at my place. I make a mean chicken casserole."  
"Thanks, Stanley, but no thanks. I'd kind of like to get out, see the neighborhood. Get a feel for the local scene." I didn't want to be imposing on people in the very first day I was here. I was grateful for Stanley's overtures and all that, but if it was all the same to him I'd rather fend for myself.  
"Yeah, sure. Couple blocks down that way you'll find an Italian place called Leonardo's. They've got decent stromboli and sandwiches."

"It's safe to walk around after dark?"

"It's pretty safe. There's always some bad eggs anywhere you go, you know."

"Right. It's just...well, I've never been to a city before. All I know is what I've seen on TV."

Stanley chuckled. "Lord have mercy. Well, Eli, it was good to meet you. Come say hi sometime."

"Will do, Stanley. Thanks for introducing yourself."

"My pleasure, son. See you around."

In the fading twilight, the streets were already mostly empty. Here and there the streetlights began to flicker on, blanketing the road in a patchwork quilt of light. Away from the apartment, I finally had a moment to breathe slowly and digest what had happened to me so far.

Living in a city I was totally clueless about? Check. No job, no friends, no family to call on? Check. No possessions, including food, in my apartment? Check. That was a recipe for a winning life, right there. Basically the only perk was that my aunt was paying for my rent, which was a couple hundred bucks a month that I wouldn't have to worry about – but I would still have to pay for everything else, which necessitated getting a job post haste.

I let my legs go on autopilot while I envisioned my resume in my head. Nondescript major from a nondescript college, meager job experience, nothing really outstanding. I truly was the jack of all trades and master of none.

Forget it. I'd worry about that tomorrow. At least tonight I'd have some good Italian to keep me company.

I strolled into Leonardo's and picked up a stromboli and a Coke, then sat down in a corner booth. The crowd and the laughter, sparse as it might have been for eight in the evening, only served to remind me of everything I'd left behind. Swallowing the stromboli along with a lump in my throat, I took my Coke and headed back. The night had descended quickly and the darkness seemed to hover low, like a canopy I could almost reach out and touch. To my east the skyscrapers of downtown loomed, and I could distantly hear the roar of Interstate 30, a mile or so to the south. The road I was on – Sixth Street, I saw, from a glance at the street sign – was completely deserted. So were the sidewalks.

I couldn't explain, in that moment, the feeling that came over me, but it was something like profound loneliness. I felt more alone than I'd ever felt. Here I was in a city of nearly a million people, part of a metroplex that was home to more than six million, yet I was all by myself. There was no one I even go share this feeling with. I could hear all around me the sounds of people living and moving, the vibrant noise of a city, but I felt none of that in my own life. I had never been so surrounded by people but so totally isolated. A lump rose in my throat, making it hard to breathe, while I stood, not even sure what to do with the emotions I was feeling.

Chapter Two

Finally I couldn't take it anymore and walked back toward my apartment. Stanley opened the front door for me; I was surprised to see him there.

"Good to see you made it back safely," he said with a broad smile.

"Yeah. It was uneventful."

"How was Leonardo's?"

"It was good. Thanks for the recommendation."

"I do what I can, brother."

Speaking of which, why are you out and about?"

"Oh, I make the rounds every night, visit some of the older residents, make sure they took their medicine, say the evening prayers, all that sort of stuff."

"Do you get paid for it?"

He held up his hands. "Oh, no, no. It's volunteer. Something I do for God."

I was momentarily at a loss for words, surprised that a world-wise and intelligent guy like Stanley had mentioned religion. I hadn't known too many people in life who took that stuff seriously, at least not until they turned eighty. Most of the guys back home who went to church on Sundays were pretty much just like me the rest of the week, so I never really saw the point.

Stanley picked up on my hesitation and smiled. "You're more than welcome to come along with me, if you don't have anything else going on."

Of course I didn't, but I dodged the invitation. "I'd like to maybe start unpacking, or something. I appreciate the offer, though."

"No, you don't."

We stood in awkward silence; I wasn't sure I'd heard him right. "I'm sorry?"

He smiled again, a warm and genuine smile. "I said no, you don't appreciate the offer. I can see it in your eyes. But that's fine, it was just an offer. We'll talk some other time."

Feeling painfully uneasy, I nodded to Stanley. "Sounds good." Before I had the chance to cram my foot down my mouth again, I made a beeline for my apartment and shut the door behind me.

As I lay in a sleeping bag on my aunt's bed, staring at the ceiling with the streetlights shining into the windows next to me, I felt more painfully out of place than I thought possible. Everything I owned was crammed into boxes, which sat forlornly in the corner. If my room caught fire during the night, I and all my belongings could be incinerated, and it would be like I'd never existed. The lump in my throat from earlier in the evening returned, and I tried to choke it down, tears of helplessness springing to my eyes. Unable to hold it back, I covered my face with my pillow and muffled the crying as best I could.

A gentle patter on the windows told me it had started to rain.

The morning dawned just as dreary as I felt, and I laid in bed for a long time before summoning the strength to get moving. I knew that I wasn't going to get a job by laying around feeling sorry for myself, and I was mad at myself for losing composure the night before. I wasn't the only person who'd ever moved to a new place, and all the others had handled it just fine. I just had to maintain control, approach things logically and rationally, and it would all work out.

Somewhere in one of my boxes was a folder with about 25 resumes in it, and a few minutes of searching was all it took to locate it. Armed with that and a copy of the newspaper classifieds, I was set to start the job search.

Immediately, though, I ran into a substantial problem. I didn't know where anything in the city was. All the jobs that gave their addresses might as well have been in foreign countries. I had no computer with which to get directions, and even if I had, my aunt was one of those strange people who didn't believe in using the internet, so I'd have been out of luck unless I could tap into someone else's wireless network. Sitting back on the hardwood floor, I blew out a long breath, rethinking my options. I guess I could always drive around and look for places that were hiring. That might not be ideal, but might also be all I could do until I knew the area better. Reluctantly I pulled on a blue button-up shirt and dress pants, grabbing my folder of resumes off the counter and heading out the door.

I didn't really have a strategy for finding a job. Obviously it would have been ideal to find a spot at a newspaper or something, a place that wouldn't pay minimum wage, but I wasn't opposed to finding a placeholder job that I could work for a few months while trying to find something better. With that in mind, when I passed a Walgreen's with "Now Hiring" on the sign out front, I pulled in and asked for a manager.

The manager was a cordial lady of around 50, with ancient horn-rimmed glasses that didn't look good on anyone even when they first came out. She looked over my resume without any expression on her face while I sat across from her, hands folded, trying to mask my nervousness.

Finally she looked up, giving me the same kind of smile she might have given an eight-year-old who asked her for a quarter to buy a lollipop. "Have you ever worked retail before?"

"Not retail as such, but you can see that I spent several years as a substitute teacher and as a community living assistant for the mentally handicapped. I feel confident in my ability to deal with people and to learn whatever I might have to in order to work retail." It was the standard answer I'd given, almost word-for-word, every time I'd applied for a retail job in the last four years. I hoped it would work better on my current audience than on the past ones.

But the patronizing smile told me that I was to be disappointed again. "Our clientele does not consist of students or the handicapped, I'm afraid. We're really looking for people who have at least six months of experience working in retail already."

Resisting the urge to bury my head in my hands, I forced myself to return her smile. "With all due respect, every place I go seems to tell me the same thing. How am I expected to get any experience if no one will take a chance on me to begin with?"

"Oh, I'm sure someone will, Mr. Radak. I'll keep your resume on file just in case, though."

"Thank you," I told her, more sarcastically than I intended, and made haste for the front door.

The rest of the day went much the same. I stopped at perhaps a dozen places, ranging from drug stores to grocery stores to clothing stores to even a warehouse, of which there were a ton within a fifteen-minute drive to the south and southwest. About half of them gave me applications to take home and fill out, and the other half let me speak with the hiring manager. Almost every conversation was the same as the first one I'd had. It was as if I reeked of failure or something. There had to be some reason that I'd now struck out on almost two dozen face-to-face interviews, if I counted the ones I'd had toward the end of college, and had yet to even get a call back from one of them. It was absolutely mind-blowing, and the more I thought about it, the more furious I got.

Storming up the staircase to my apartment, I pushed open the door and slammed it behind me. What I really wanted was to shut down my mind and watch a movie, but my aunt had taken her TV. I had no connection with the outside world at all, except that I could look out the long row of windows and see it. In frustration I pounded the wall with my fist, and the pounding echoed three or four times.

No, scratch that, the last few thuds were a knock at the door. I made my way over and glanced through the peephole, seeing Stanley standing relaxed on the other side. I undid the lock and invited Stanley in.

"Rough day?" he asked. "I heard you coming all the way from the other side of the river."

"Yeah, 'rough day' pretty much sums it up," I snapped.

"Want to talk about it?"

"Thanks but no thanks. I just need a minute to calm down."

"I know that feeling," he nodded, eyes wandering around the apartment and settling on the pile of boxes in the corner. "That a guitar?"

"Yeah." I went and pulled the case out from behind another box, opening it up and handing the guitar to Stanley.

"An American Strat. Nice piece," he said, rubbing the word "Fender" on the headstock.

"Thanks. Dad gave it to me for Christmas a few years ago. You play at all?"

"Naw, not for a long time."  
"They say it's like riding a bike," I offered. "That you never really forget. Go ahead, give it a try."

He stood, handing the Stratocaster back to me. "Thanks but no thanks. How long you been playing?"

"Oh, five years or so. Started at the end of high school, wanted to be in a band and all that. It never happened."

He smiled amusedly, looking like he was recalling some fond memories. "Yeah, it never really does. But at least it got you playing."

"Mind if I ask you something, Stanley?"

"Shoot."

"Why are you paying attention to me? Why bother introducing yourself, why bother coming over to chat?"

He weighed the question, looking out the window at the trees blowing in the crisp December breeze. "I can tell when people have needs, boy. I've seen enough in my life to know when something's not right with someone. And if you don't mind me saying so, something's not right with you."

"Like what?" I snapped defensively.

"You really want to know?"

"No," I admitted. "But you've got me curious."

"Well, you've got no confidence. I can see it in the way you carry yourself. You slouch, you stand ten feet away from people when you're talking to them, you just move like someone who's not sure of himself."

"Way to be superficial."

"Look, I just call them like I see them. You were the one who asked."

"Yeah, alright. I think that's enough for now." It stung because I knew he was right, and I'd known it for years. Confidence wasn't me. But I didn't know how to build it, or even how to fake having it. I also didn't think it was that obvious, but Stanley had straight-up called me out.

"Plus there's the obvious," he continued, "you being in a new town and all, not knowing anyone, not having any friends. It's tough to live like that. So I see the need, and I go to meet it."

"Well, thanks for that. It has helped."

He waved me off. "It's just what I do, son. Course, I've got some other friends here in the building I could introduce you to."

"Who are they?"

"People I know, some of them about your age. Danny Tucker's the one guy's name. He's got a sister, Elizabeth. Pretty neat people."

"How many people live in the building?"

He did some quick math. "About a hundred and fifty, I guess. Got a hundred or so rooms, some people living alone, some together."

"And where do you know Danny and Elizabeth from?"

"Oh, I know pretty much everyone in here, except the ones who avoid me." He chuckled, and I wasn't sure if he was joking or not.

"Interesting. Hey, while I'm thinking of it, do you know anyone who might could give me a job?"

He pondered. "Not off the top of my head. I'll rattle some bushes, though, see if I can do anything for you."

"I appreciate it."

"Anything for a brother in need," he said easily. I wanted to know why he kept calling me brother, but wasn't sure it would be politically correct to ask, especially after the joke I'd made yesterday. He stood to his feet. "Hey, you eaten yet? I've got some casserole left over, and I need some help finishing it off."

"Thanks, Stanley, but I really can't. I've got to go grocery shopping sometime and fill my own fridge."

"Suit yourself. The closest grocery store is down White Settlement Road a ways."

"Thanks again."

He shook my hand. "Anytime."

As I pulled the Tahoe into the grocery store's parking lot, the feelings of loneliness from the previous night were beginning to make a comeback. Grocery shopping for one was always hard on me for some reason, for the same reason that I always felt a tinge of sympathy when I saw someone sitting alone at a nice restaurant. Food was useful, sure, but it was always more fun when shared, and not having anyone to share it with only brought home just how empty the whole exercise was.

Even under better circumstances, I thought as I pulled a cart from the corral and began my circuit of the store, grocery shopping could be fun. On a budget, though, it was quite the opposite. I was fortunate that I'd spent most of my college career poor and living off bland foods; hot dogs and frozen dinners had long since ceased to offend my taste buds.

A few minutes later I ended up in the frozen food aisle, pushing a cart loaded up with two loaves of white bread, two baggies of chopped ham, two packs of hot dogs, and a box of Kroger-brand crackers that was half-off. That would be all I had to live on until I got a job and could afford better. No cookies, no candy bars, not even milk or soda. Sure, the stoic side of my brain chattered away with the whole "starving kids in China" deal, but I bet even a starving Chinese boy would get sick of having hot dogs wrapped in bread twice a day for a month.

That was just my life lately, I figured, as I pushed my items over the scanner at the self-checkout. Things other people took for granted – friends, entertainment, a decent diet – were all things I was having to learn to do without. Surely a little emotional instability was understandable, perhaps even expected, right?

So I hoped, anyway.

Chapter Three

By the time the next morning came, I had no desire at all to head out and look for jobs again. The hammering I'd taken the previous day discouraged me, and it seemed pointless to even apply as long as I didn't know what was causing employers to blow me off. Besides, maybe Stanley would come through for me, and if he did, then any driving I did today would just be a waste of time and gas.

But it wasn't like I had anything better to do, so I joylessly showered and donned my nice clothes again before shuffling out to the parking lot.

Three hours later, I came roaring back into the parking lot, tires screeching, door slamming. Seven more failed conversations with hiring managers will tend to have that effect on a person. I don't know if Stanley heard me coming or if he just had some irritating omnipresence, but he was waiting at the top of the staircase.

"Seems life's not cooperating with you," he observed lightly.

"Like it's the pigeon and I'm the statue."

"Some days it's like that. The question isn't whether you'll crash, but where and how hard."

"I don't get what you mean, 'crash.'"

"What I mean, son, is that life lets you down sometimes. When it does, it's important to have a soft place to land."

"Why does every conversation with you sound like a sermon?" I snapped, instantly sorry I had done it, because I wasn't mad at Stanley; he just happened to be around while I was mad at other things. But before I had the chance to apologize (and honestly I'm not sure I would have, anyway) he already had his hands up.

"Didn't mean to rub you wrong, Eli. I just thought you could use a little encouraging."

"Well, I could, you're right, so thanks, I guess." My words hung awkwardly in the air, as I fumbled for what to say next, and eventually Stanley shrugged.

"I still got some casserole in the fridge if you want to drop by for dinner tonight."

I couldn't explain why but for some reason it felt very important that I take him up on his offer this time. "You're going to keep saying that until I actually come by, aren't you?" I asked.

"Well, yeah. That's why I offered, you know."

"Thanks, Stanley. I think I just might take you up on it tonight."

He smiled paternally, and this time it didn't feel condescending.

On my way across the hall that evening, I realized that I would probably not be able to carry on a good conversation. Truth be told, I almost never ate with other people, because I didn't know what to say. Most of the friendships I'd ever had were built by doing things in common – I was friends with my ultimate Frisbee team, with my musician buddies, and a few other groups of people because we could always do those things and never have to worry about conversation. I wanted to ask Stanley about himself and where he was from, but he struck me as the kind of person who didn't talk about himself. He acted like he was just a big walking set of ears and hands who only cared about other people. That was fine, for him, I guess, but it would make for an awfully dull dinner.

Even as I stood in the hallway about to knock, the aroma of baked chicken made the air thick. It had been long, almost out of memory, since I'd last had a meal that someone prepared by hand. When Stanley did swing the door open, the smell burst out and stormed into my lungs. It was so rich I thought I might suffocate. I'd never really liked casserole; we had it a bunch growing up, when dad was working in the tomato canning factory and mom was at home all day and we didn't have much money to buy things that actually tasted good. Maybe that association, with being poor and not being able to do any better, was what made the flavor of casserole sour to me. It didn't really matter anyway.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Stanley's apartment. Everyone else his age whose house I'd ever been in had spent a lifetime accumulating garbage, furniture that looked like Jesus might have made it, and antiques that were useless before they were even made. I wondered if those people ever bothered to think that "antiques" were only in antique shops because nobody had ever managed to find a good use for them.

And the smell. The overpowering, musty, heavy odor of old people and old things. That smell alone was the reason I'd always dreaded becoming old. I often told my friends, only half-jokingly, that if they ever caught me smelling like that, they should go ahead and finish me off before I had a chance to start buying antiques.

Even had it not been ripe with the scent of dinner, I doubt Stanley's apartment would have fit the stereotype. For one, I'd never actually seen him in, or anywhere near, his apartment. Something about that made me doubt that he was the kind to stockpile worthless possessions. Second, Stanley was way too practical to be bothered with any of that. His conversation was always precise and to-the-point, and I couldn't imagine his home being any different.

I was right. As I stepped in the door and took stock of the place, I was surprised by how stylishly the place was decorated. The walls had been painted an earthy tan, and paintings and sculptures in other browns and burgundies adorned the place. Black-and-white photographs were all over, huge photos that had been blown up to poster size and small five-by-sevens. In them were dozens of people, black people, white people, Asian people, smiling and enjoying themselves. I knew that, between the artwork and the pictures, I had plenty to ask Stanley about.

He waved me over to the table, set for two with earthenware plates and glasses. A huge glass dish with steaming casserole sat in the middle, and smaller dishes of mashed potatoes, green beans, and bread formed an honor guard around it. I sat down, instantly ravenous and grateful for Stanley's hospitality.

"You want to say the blessing, Eli?" Stanley asked, sliding easily into the chair opposite mine.

"Er...not really. I'm a bit out of practice. Would you mind?"

"Sure thing," he smiled, bowing his head. "Father God, thank you so much for this night and for the company you've given me for dinner. Please send your richest blessings on this food as we eat it and on this conversation as we enjoy it. In the precious name of your son Jesus we pray, amen."  
"Amen," I echoed.

"Dig in," Stanley told me, and I didn't need any more encouragement than that. In under a minute my plate was overflowing and I was shoveling casserole into my mouth. Stanley chuckled at me, clearly amused. "You'd think they never fed you back in Indiana."

After a few moments I regained my composure and looked up from my plate. "So Stanley, I noticed all these photos when I came in. Where'd you get them?"

He glanced around the room, as if he'd momentarily forgotten what I was talking about. "Oh, they're from places I've lived, churches I've been in. They're memorials to friends. Friendship is a beautiful thing, and it deserves to be celebrated."

"Of course."

"That one," he said, pointing to one of the few pictures that he was in, "was from our missions trip to Seattle a few years ago. It was a good time. The people on both sides of me lived downtown and were just miserable with their lives. They had no hope, no nothing. Life was just drudgery. Danny Tucker, the guy I told you about the other day who's about your age, he gave them the gospel message and they got saved. You should see them now, Eli. They're so full of joy it's not even recognizable."

"That's nice."

"It's a beautiful thing. There's an awful lot of pain in the world, and there's only one source of healing."

"Sure." I'd been to church before, so I was pretty sure I had an idea of what he was talking about.

He looked at me harder for a moment, as if he was talking about me and wanted me to know it, but then smiled again. "A lot of the other ones are my family, too. But enough about me. Tell me about yourself."

I'd predicted that he wasn't the type to talk about himself, hadn't I? I was worried that he was going to start preaching at me the way he sometimes had, and I really didn't want that. But as I told him where I'd come from and where I hoped to go, I got the sense that he was listening, really listening, without trying to look for an opportunity to launch into a sermon. In fact, for the whole rest of the night we made conversation, and he never once mentioned confidence, or the fact that I slouched, or anything else. He just listened. I went home sometime after midnight with the feeling that he really cared about the situation I was in. I'd been a loner for so much of my life, worrying about myself and my problems with the understanding that no one else would. For some reason I couldn't fathom, it seemed like Stanley was genuinely interested in my problems, that he was willing to enter my life and be concerned about me, with no hope of receiving anything in return. That was foreign to me, and while I was grateful for it, I didn't quite know how to handle it.

Being a loner was comfortable to me. It felt good to know that I could talk to Stanley and he would listen, but it was also unnerving. What if he decided I wasn't that interesting, or that I wasn't worth spending time on? Why was I even bothering him and spending his time if I couldn't give anything back? I didn't understand what he was getting at, and that bothered me.

It didn't bother me enough to keep me from sleeping, though.

Chapter Four

The next day was a Saturday, and I had just finished showering and getting dressed when there was a knock at the door. It didn't sound like Stanley's, so I wandered over and opened it to find a man, who looked to be a couple years older than me, with dark hair and light eyes. He extended his hand.

"Hey, you're Eli, right? I'm Danny Tucker. Stanley Raines told me you were new here, and I wanted to come by and introduce myself. This is my sister, Elizabeth."

She stepped forward and shook my hand strongly, with an easy smile. The way she held her body gave me the impression that she was sure of herself, that she didn't struggle with her self-image or with the desire to impress people, the most of the girls I knew in college did. I'd never seen a girl – excuse me, a woman – carry herself that way before, and it was at once attractive and intimidating. "Pleased to meet you," I told both of them, before turning to Danny. "What do you do for a living?"

"Oh, I write a lot, and sell my work to various magazines. CD and book reviews, opinion pieces, interviews, that sort of thing."

"Sounds fascinating."

"It is. I'm a blessed man, that's for sure. Speaking of which, I also pastor the house church that meets here, in room 501 on the top floor, on Sundays. It's called New Heart Church."

"What's a house church?"

"Pretty much what it sounds like. It's a church that meets in a house instead of in a church building. A lot of the people from this building come, and a few from the community nearby."

"Does Stanley?"

"Yeah, he comes. He was instrumental in getting it off the ground, actually." He looked at Elizabeth. "Hey, are you doing anything for lunch? Elizabeth and I would like to treat you."

Why did people keep trying to do stuff for me? "Really, I appreciate the offer, but I ought to get out and try to find a job."

"On a Saturday? Suit yourself. It'd be great to see you at church tomorrow if you can make it. We just meet up on the fifth floor, there's a big room that we rent to use as our meeting place."

"Thanks for the invitation. I'll have to see how I feel tomorrow."

"Cool. Well thanks, man; it was good to meet you." Danny shook my hand again, and Elizabeth gave me another smile, as they turned away and I closed the door.

I hadn't been totally lying to them when I talked about hunting for a job. Well, I had at the time, because I had no intention of applying for more jobs; it was just that I didn't want to keep spending time with people I didn't know. It was kind of like what I'd thought last night about Stanley. I appreciated them spending time on me, but part of me wished they would just stop.

I did grab the classified section again, though, and flipped through it idly. I wondered if there was a reason for my failure at finding a job. Perhaps I should have been looking for something actually related to my degree. I laughed a little at that; every job I could apply for would have something to do with English, right? Still, though, perhaps I was selling myself short. Maybe I should look for jobs at a newspaper, or maybe I could ask Danny later about writing for some of the magazines he wrote for.

Almost as soon as I had that idea, it began to seem like a very bad idea. What newspaper was going to hire someone with only a bachelor's degree and no experience in the field? All they were going to do was tell me exactly what I'd heard from every other job I'd ever applied for, namely that they were looking for someone who already had experience and that I could go take a hike. Anger overwhelmed me and I tried to throw the classified section across the room, but it was a newspaper so it didn't fly very far. I kicked it out of the air, and it landed on the corner of my bed, as if to mock me. Whatever. I decided to go for a walk.

The sun shone cheerfully, laughing at my frustration, as I pushed open the front door of the building and listened to it click shut behind me. I started out going west, making a mental note to remember where I was going since I still didn't know this side of town that well.

The first few streets in any direction from my building were relatively quiet semi-residential, semi-commercial city blocks; at least they were quiet during the day. Further west, the scenery became more industrial, with the warehouses and auto parts stores and such that I had driven past the other day. To the east, not too far away, was what passed for the Fort Worth skyline. Between here and there was the southeast side of downtown. Somewhere in this monstrosity of a city were half a dozen professional sports teams, aquariums, zoos, and the city block where Kennedy had been shot – none of which I had laid eyes on. I could claim I was living in Dallas-Fort Worth, but really, I had no experience with what that really embodied.

I don't know why that thought seemed so significant to me, as I wandered northwest for a while into a nicer suburb of large houses set back from the manicured sidewalks. I kept my head down as I wandered, hands in pockets, making a big loop that finally led me back home.

I arrived to find Stanley waiting outside, t-shirt and sweatpants on, holding a basketball under his arm. "Bout time you showed up. Get changed. We're going to play ball."

It was a pretty audacious thing for Stanley to assume, that I would have any skill at or interest in basketball, but I found that I couldn't be offended at him. Part of that probably had to do with the fact that I'd been a varsity basketball player all four years of high school and all four years again in college. If he had tried to railroad me into playing golf or something, I might have been upset.

Five minutes later, we were walking to the park, just a few blocks to the west. I had passed it a few times, both in car and on foot, but had somehow never noticed it, probably because of all the internal monologuing I tended to do while I was meandering.

"I think you'll like these guys," Stanley told me as we wandered toward the basketball court, where four black men about my own age were laughing and practicing, waiting for us. "Introduce yourself. Don't slouch. Look them in the eye."

"Thanks, dad," I snapped, but I took his advice, greeting the others with a firm handshake. Jarrius, Julius, DeRon, Willy. I knew I was awful with names, but I made it a point to remember theirs. Something about them, both the way they talked to me and the things Stanley had said, gave me the impression that they could become the good friends I had been looking for. I took a few practice dribbles with Stanley's ball, the crisp sting of the December chill jabbing my lungs, the sun hanging in a cloudless sky overhead.

Jarrius and DeRon picked teams, and predictably, I was the last one chosen. Jarrius and Stanley, my teammates, let me take the ball first.

I bounced it to Willy, who was guarding me, and he bounced it back; that was a "check," to make sure the defending team was ready to do their job. As soon as I got the ball back, I planted, jumped, and uncorked a soaring three-pointer. The ball dropped straight through the hoop, barely ruffling the bottom of the net, as five pairs of eyes turned toward me.

"That's three-nil," I said nonchalantly, smirking.

The point had been made; I had let the others know exactly what they were dealing with, and had established myself as the guy to beat. It was risky, sure; no one can guarantee that a three-pointer will go in, but I knew I could make it, and I did, and I'd earned the right to strut a bit.

The others were fairly good as well, and that coupled with the fact that I hadn't played since the end of the summer made for a closer game than I would have thought. They were good sports, congratulating even the other team on plays and shots that were well done. It was an interesting environment, and I couldn't remember the last time I had ever played with people who weren't super-competitive and out for blood.

We were trailing 19-18, playing to 20, when I caught a pass on the edge of the three point area, pivoted to my right, found Willy all up in my face, pivoted to my left, and jumped to shoot.

"Travel," three voices chorused.

I hadn't yet shot, so I landed with the ball still in my hands. "That wasn't a travel. I pivoted."

"You changed your pivot foot," Willy told me, pointing.

"I did not. I did like this," and I demonstrated the maneuver that I had just done.

"I'm afraid not," Julius said calmly. "It was for real a travel, Eli. We're not messing with you."

"It wasn't a travel," I protested, raising my voice. I knew I hadn't done what they said I had done, and I wasn't about to back down. "It wasn't, was it, Stanley?"

He shrugged. "Couldn't see it from here. Willy was in my way."

I looked to my other teammate. "Jarrius?"

He looked me right in the eye. "Pretty sure you traveled, Eli."

Disgusted, I flung the ball behind me, and it bounced to the far corner of the court. "Fine. You want it, you go get it."

There was a shocked silence, and then Stanley, of all people, slowly walked to the corner and tossed the ball to Willy. I was furious at him; I wanted someone from the other team to go after it. They were the ones who had cheated me out of a shot, and that would probably make us lose the game.

Willy got the ball and gently checked it to me. I threw it back at his chest, and he caught it, dribbling twice before jumping up and firing off the same three-pointer that I had shot to start the game. Just like mine, it drifted right through the center of the net, whiffing the net like the gentlest December breeze. "That's game," he said quietly.

"Whatever. I'm out of here." I stormed off the court and was almost half a block down the road before Stanley caught up to me.

Actually, he grabbed me by the shoulder and hauled me around to face him. This unexpected show of violence out of him so surprised me that I didn't even resist when he put his finger in my face. "You listen to me, son. That was ridiculous and childish. There is no excuse for you acting that way, throwing a temper tantrum and tossing their ball to the other end of the court. If you had half a brain in that head of yours, you would march right back there and apologize to each one of them for the way you treated them."

"I didn't travel, Stanley, and I'm not going to apologize to cheaters."

"That has absolutely nothing to do with it. Do you realize how you just made me look? I told them I had a new friend for them to play with, a cool cat who they would get along with real well, and you go and act like a baby? I haven't been that embarrassed in years, Eli, maybe decades."

That, at least, tore through my self-righteous anger, and I felt bad for shaming Stanley. "Look, I didn't mean to make you –"

"I don't care what you did or didn't mean to do." Stanley wiped his face, glancing up at the skyscrapers on the horizon, then staring right into my eyes. "I know you feel alone in this town, Eli. I can read you clearer than a book. I invited you here thinking you could make four friends, good friends, who would drop everything to help you no matter what you needed. And this is how you repay me."

"I didn't know –"

"Oh, shut it, Eli. Just accept that you acted the fool in front of all of us. You could have had four brand new friends today. Instead you just made five people lose respect for you." He elbowed past me and stomped back toward our apartment.

I stood there, stung, watching him go. My anger over being cheated was crowded out by regret for my inability to see the big picture and for the way I had, unknowingly, trashed Stanley's attempt to help me. He was right: I needed friends, and I had just been unbelievably rude to four potential friends – and now Stanley, the one person in the entire state of Texas who had been decent and kind to me, was mad at me too.

I sank to the ground, so full of anger and sorrow and aloneness that it caused me physical pain, and the tears that sprang to my eyes were partly from the emotion and partly from the feeling of my heart pounding on my sternum. The sound of children laughing on the swingset behind me was salt in my wound; how I wished that it could be me at that moment, sitting in a swing without a care in the world, pushed back and forth by someone who loved me and would make sure nothing bad ever happened to me.

A shadow blotted out the sun, and I opened my eyes to see Jarrius, my teammate standing over me. "You alright, man?"

I sat up, squinting at him, trying to blink away the tears. After a few seconds of trying to figure out what to tell him, I finally just told him the truth. "No."

"Look, I know how you felt back there. The other guys, they're not mad at you, just surprised, is all. You're welcome to come back anytime."

I squeezed my eyes closed again. That was worse than what I had been expecting. I expected, even wanted, to be yelled at, to be told that I was out of line, but Jarrius came to me gently and with kindness. I didn't even know how to react.

"Thanks," I offered, eyes still clenched shut.

"I mean it. We'd love to have you back." I felt a reassuring pat on my shoulder and heard Jarrius' footsteps grow fainter as he walked back toward the park.

It's hard to describe the feeling of being crushed by undeserved kindness, but "crushed" comes pretty close. I laid back on the ground again, breathing slowly, opening my eyes to stare at the sun overhead, the canopy of the park's trees on the edges of my vision, a few clouds lazily floating from west to east.

What was happening to me? I had always been calm and reasonable, but for the handful of days I had been in Fort Worth, I'd been crying like a little girl. Surely the simple stress of moving couldn't have messed with me that badly? Surely the lack of a job and friends couldn't be the only answer, either, because I'd had no job and few enough close friends in Indiana, and it had never bothered me there. What was wrong?

Chapter Five

I don't even know how long I was there, but finally I stood and went back home. Stanley wasn't in the building; I didn't know where he had gone. I made it back to my room and had just strapped on my guitar when there was a knock at the door.

It's hard to say which of us was more surprised: Danny and Elizabeth Tucker at being greeted by a man wearing a guitar, or me at seeing the two siblings holding a plate of chocolate chip cookies.

"Oh hey, guys. Want to come in?" I asked. Immediately I regretted doing so. I was ashamed at how empty my apartment was – I didn't even have any furniture for them to sit on while we talked.

"Yeah, that'd be great," Elizabeth said, as I groaned inside. "These cookies are for you."

"Thanks," I told her, taking the plate and heading to the kitchen with it, before coming back in and taking a seat on the floor. "You guys can sit on the bed, if you want."

Without a word, they sat on the floor, across from me.

"I didn't know you played guitar," Danny said, closing the door behind him. "What kind of stuff do you play?"

"Mostly classic rock. Some AC/DC, Metallica, Journey, Van Halen, that kind of stuff."

"Our church could use a guitar player," Danny told me. "Ever played praise and worship before?"

"Can't say I have."

"You'd probably pick it up in no time. If you can play Van Halen, you can play anything we sing."

I didn't want to tell him no right away, so I opted for a subtle topic change. "You know Van Halen?"

"I was big into that kind of stuff back when I was a teenager, sure. I don't listen to it much anymore, only when I get a craving for it. Who doesn't love driving fast with 'Panama' cranked up?"

By this point, I was surprised and intrigued. A pastor who openly admitted listening to and liking Van Halen? What kind of man was this, and what kind of church did he lead? Part of me genuinely wanted to go the next morning and find out what he was going to say. In fact, I didn't really have any good reason not to go, other than that I didn't really want to.

"So what do you say," he asked, "do you want to play?"

Whoops. He had undone my topic change. "Uh, well, not tomorrow, no. That's a little soon."

"Maybe you can come tomorrow, get a feel for what it sounds like, then come to practice some night this week."

I didn't want to, but I also didn't want to tell him no. "Yeah, okay," I heard myself saying.

"Excellent. Hey, is there anything I can do for you in the meantime? I know you're new here in town, and Stanley tells me you don't have any family or friends here yet. That's got to be rough on you."

I chewed the inside of my lip, debating how much I should tell him. On the one hand, I sensed that he and Elizabeth were trustworthy people. On the other hand, there was no way I was going to pour my heart out to people who were still, apart from two minutes worth of conversation, total strangers. That just wasn't how I rolled. I preferred to play my cards closer to my chest, make my needs known when I thought it was the right time. But there was definitely one thing I could safely tell him.

"I need a job. Like bad. I moved down here with about a thousand dollars in the bank, and that's not going to last long. My aunt's still paying the rent, at least until her lease expires in June, so all I really have to pay for are food and gas."

Danny and Elizabeth glanced at each other. "What kind of job are you looking for?" Elizabeth asked. "What did you go to college for?"

"I was an English major. Really, I'd do pretty much anything. I'd like to avoid factory work, if I can, but if that's what pays the bills then whatever. Retail, sales, even something in writing would be great."

"Any experience in writing?" Danny asked.

"None formally. College profs complimented my papers, but that's about it."

"Do you have any of them you could send me?"

That caught me off guard. I hadn't owned a laptop, and hadn't brought my desktop down with me, since I hadn't anticipated needing it. "Uh, let me see if I have any of my data backup CDs. Or if you have a computer, I could check my email and see if I still have any of the ones I emailed to myself."

Danny nodded. "Let me know. If you're any good I might be able to hook you up with some writing assignments. It wouldn't be enough to pay the bills, not at first, but it might be something."

"Hey, something is everything right now."

"I'll ask my boss if they need anyone else at the real estate office," Elizabeth added. "Probably not, cause we only have a few people working there at a time, but it doesn't hurt to ask."

"Thanks, both of you. I really appreciate it."

"That's why we're here," Danny said. "If you think of anything else, you let us know. I mean it."

"Thanks, really."

"Anytime. See you tomorrow morning. Enjoy the cookies." With a pair of handshakes, the two departed.

I kept sitting there on the floor, still trying to process what happened. At that point, I realized that I couldn't figure myself out. I wanted people to be nice to me, but when people came to my door and were nice to me, it made me feel awkward to be the beneficiary. What I really wanted, I realized, was to be found worthy of kindness, to earn the kindness on my own merit, rather than to receive it simply because I was a charity case, or because giving it was habit on the part of the person who gave it. It wasn't that I didn't appreciate Stanley's kindness, or Danny and Elizabeth's; I did, but I didn't understand it, and if I didn't understand it, then I didn't really want it at all.

When I went to bed that night, I still wasn't sure whether I was going to take Danny up on his offer. The decision was made for me at around six in the morning, when I woke up and immediately ran to the bathroom, sick to my stomach. Several hours later, when I was awakened by a knock on my door, that's still where I was, having dozed off a few times but not been able to crawl back to bed.

I let my eyes droop closed again, hoping that whoever was knocking would go away, but I should have known better. A few seconds later, a more insistent knock made me open my eyes again, and I staggered to the front door.

It was a woman I'd never seen before, fortyish and Hispanic. I had been expecting Danny or Stanley, so I half-hid behind the door, ashamed of my appearance – bed-headed, baggy-eyed, still in my pajamas.

"Oh, I – sorry," I stammered.

She smiled gracefully. "Are you Eli Radak?"

"I am. I'd shake your hand but I'm afraid I've been ill for several hours."

"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you anyway, Eli. I'm Esperanza Nunez. I came to see if you wanted to come to the house church this morning, but if you're ill, then I don't want to trouble you."

"Thanks. Hopefully I'll have a second chance to make a first impression."

She laughed. "I'm sure you will. Be blessed."

I watched her walk away, and noticed only belatedly that she was wearing jeans and a pullover hoodie. Who went to church in clothes like that?

I shut and locked the door, then collapsed back on my bed for several hours, only to be awakened once again by a pounding on the door.

This time I pulled on some pants and a hat before answering, only to see one of the men I had expected to see the first time.

"Heard your diet of hot dogs and ham sandwiches finally caught up with you," Stanley said. "How do you feel?"

"A little better now, thanks. Want to come in?"

"Naw, just wanted to check on you. And I wanted to apologize for yesterday."

I wasn't sure I'd heard him right. "Excuse me? What do you need to apologize for?"

"I spoke harshly to you. The words I said were accurate, but the way I said them was out of line, and I want you to forgive me."

"Stanley, you were absolutely right. I was being a child, and I deserved to get called out on it. There's nothing that requires forgiveness. It hurt, sure, but I brought it on myself."

"That's not the point, Eli. I know I was right; I just told you that. And I could care less about hurting your feelings, because sometimes the truth does that. I'm just telling you that I didn't say those words to you with kindness in my heart. I said them out of anger, in the heat of the moment, and I need you to forgive me for treating you with anger."

I didn't understand what he was getting at; he seemed to be talking in circles, but if it was so important to him that I forgive him, then I would tell him what he wanted to hear. "Well, fine, I forgive you."

He seemed to relax a bit. "Thanks, Eli. I try not to go to let the sun go down on my anger, so to speak; I like to ask forgiveness before I go to bed. Last night, though, I was out way late talking to a friend of mine who's having some problems, and it looked like you were already in bed by the time I got back. I was hoping to catch you at church today, so that I could ask forgiveness before I worshiped, but you were too busy upchucking, so this is the first chance I've had."

I stood there leaning on the door frame, looking at Stanley with his hands in his pockets there in the hallway, and we stared at each other for a long time. He thought and acted on such a totally different level from everyone I'd ever met. I couldn't remember the last time someone had stopped by to ask forgiveness. I also couldn't understand why he was apologizing for telling me the truth. He had explained it, but his explanation didn't make any sense to me. Finally I pushed my hat back and ran my fingers through my hair. "Thanks for stopping by, I guess."

"Not so fast. I'm taking a group of people to the Dallas Aquarium on Tuesday, and I want you to come along."

"How much does it cost?"

"Don't worry about the money."

"What do you mean, don't worry about it? Is it cheap?"

"I'm really tempted to lie to you and tell it's free, just so you don't have the opportunity to do what you're about to do."

"What do you mean, what I'm about to do?"

"The way you're about to flip out and try to turn me down when I tell you that it's seventeen dollars, but that I know you don't have money, so I'm going to have it taken care of for you."

"Don't do that, Stanley. I don't need to see the aquarium that badly." I'd never been to one, and actually I wanted very badly to go, but I didn't want him or anyone else to be out seventeen dollars just so I could go.

Stanley rubbed his temple for a moment. "Eli, how much are you worth?"

"I don't understand the question."

"Do you believe that you, as a human, are worth less than seventeen dollars?"

I blinked a few times. "I don't know how much I'm worth."

"Would you sell yourself for seventeen dollars?"

"No..."

"So you believe you're worth more than that. So do I. That's why I'm willing to pay seventeen dollars for the privilege of hanging out with you for a few hours. Your friendship is worth it to me."

What friendship? We'd known each other for less than a week. Just the day before, I had made him look like a fool in front of four of his friends. Why was he so convinced that I was worth spending money on?

He chuckled. "I'll take your silence to mean you agree. I'm going to go across the hall and bring you some orange juice. Drink it and rest up, because you're not going to puke your way out of this one. See you at 10 in the morning on Tuesday."

As he disappeared into his room, I frowned. I truly didn't understand him. Nobody in my life, even the ones who I would call best friends, had ever been as kind to me as Stanley. It was as if he had just determined that he was going to like me, and that nothing I did could slow him down. Why? He himself had told me there were a hundred and fifty people in the apartment building. What had I done to deserve his attention?

He came out a few moments later with a half-empty jug of orange juice. "Drink up, now. I'm going to get out of here and wash my hands." With a paternal smile, he went back into his room, and before I closed the door, I heard the kitchen sink running.

Chapter Six

I spent Monday filling out more job applications, and hearing the standard round of rejections. I was tempted to ask a few employers, "If I can predict word-for-word the way you're about to tell me you're not interested, will you give me the job?" I would probably have had my pick of several different jobs, because the subtle "Thanks, but we're not interested" message was basically the same every place I went.

On the way home, I had to stop for gas. The Tahoe was a thirsty truck, and as I stood at the pump watching the numbers ring up, mentally doing the math to figure out how much would be left in my bank account once the debit transaction went through, a pang of fear and worry gripped me. Would I find work in time? What would happen if I couldn't? I was sure that Stanley or someone would offer to give me some money, would buy me groceries, would fill my car up with gas – but how humiliating would that be? There was no way I could accept their charity. If I couldn't find a job, I deserved to bear the consequences of that; I didn't need to be a burden on other people, as well as myself. I would find some way to get by. Always had, always would. If all else failed I could always go down to the day labor center where the illegal immigrants waited. I could do manual labor for fifty bucks a day. It wouldn't be pretty, but it would get me by.

Maybe that's why I didn't sleep well Monday night, but whatever the case, I woke up Tuesday feeling like I'd been hit by a bus. It wasn't the illness kind of fatigue that I'd felt on Sunday morning, merely an aching weariness from the mental strain of everything I'd been dealing with. I was pretty eager to see the aquarium, as long as I didn't dwell for too long on the fact that Stanley was going to be paying for it.

I met him outside his apartment shortly before ten and we walked downstairs. Out in front of his car were a couple of guys who were going to go with us. Two of them turned around: it was Willy and Julius, from Saturday's basketball game. Neither was smiling.

I looked sideways at Stanley, who was pulling his cellphone out of his pocket. "Oops," he said. "I have to send a quick text. You go on ahead."

I paused for a moment and looked back at Stanley, who was tapping, or pretending to tap, keys on his phone. Head down, I covered the dozen steps to the waiting crowd, raising my head at the last minute.

"I'm sorry for the way I acted on Saturday." I wanted to say more, but the words just wouldn't come.

Julius smiled. "Man, it's alright. Everyone has a bad day." He put out a hand, which I took, attempting to shake it, before he yanked me close to him and hugged me. Out of all the things I'd experienced so far in Texas, that was by far the strangest. I'd never encountered hugs as a sign of friendship before. I hugged my parents a couple times a year and that was pretty much it. But if that was the way Julius wanted to do things, I wasn't going to protest – not yet, anyway.

I turned to Willy. "Are we cool?"

He nodded, smiling. "We cool."

"Is DeRon around here? I owe him an apology too."

"Nah, he's sick, stomach virus or something. Jarrius isn't coming, either; he has class on Tuesdays."

I hoped I hadn't been the one who got DeRon sick. "Where does Jarrius go to school?"

"Tarrant County Community College, same as all of us. He's the first in his family to ever go to school."

"Wow, that's awesome for him."

"He's a good dude," Willy agreed.

Stanley came over, slipping his phone back into his pocket. "Let's have ourselves a day, gentlemen."

We carpooled to the train station just north of the interstate in downtown Fort Worth, hopping the Trinity Railway Express to Dallas. I had never been on a train before, so I was wide-eyed as we gently lurched into motion, rocking back and forth as the train picked up speed, taking us through the heart of the metroplex.

We offloaded at the station in Dallas, as rowdy and boisterous as any elementary school field trip. There was no line at the aquarium at eleven in the morning on a Tuesday. I stood behind Stanley at the ticket window.

"I need two adult tickets, please," Stanley told the attendant, a girl a few years younger than me.

"Coming right up."

"One of them is for this man right here," Stanley added. "I'm paying for him to come because he doesn't have the money. Do you think there's anything wrong with that?"

"What are you doing?" I snapped under my breath. I didn't want him telling people about my money problems; it was none of their business.

"Erm...no," the girl said, confused. "I think that's very nice of you."

"Do you think he should be ashamed of it?" Stanley continued.

"Not really, no. I think he's lucky to have friends who would help him out like that."

"Thanks, dear. Just wondering." Stanley took the two tickets from her with a wink, and turned back toward me.

I was livid. "What did you think you were doing?"

"Testing your reality, son. You seem to think accepting help is something you should be embarrassed about. I hope to show you how untrue that is. What you just saw was Exhibit A."

"You had no right to tell her I'm short on money! I could have paid for this myself if I wanted to, but you told me not to!"

He stopped for a moment, looking off into the distance as if to gather his thoughts before turning back to me. "I don't know why it's so important that you think of yourself as someone who is self-sufficient. I also don't know why it's so important that everyone else see you that way."

"Because I am self-sufficient! I can take care of myself just fine. I'm glad you helped me out, but if you think I needed it, you're wrong."

"Would you have come if I hadn't paid for your ticket?"

I hesitated. "No."

"Because you wouldn't have wanted to spend the money?"

"Well...see, it's –"

Stanley put his hand on my shoulder. "Independence is not the measure of how successful you are in life, Eli. Here's your ticket."

Quietly fuming, I took it from him. "Thanks."

"The ticket isn't what you should be thankful for. Hey, Willy!" Stanley took a few steps over toward Willy and Julius, leaving me to ponder what he had just said.

Still bitter, though, I wasn't about to do any pondering at the moment. I followed sullenly as Stanley led the group, eight of us total, through the turnstiles and into the aquarium.

The next few hours were a blur of fish, alligators, sloths, manatees, and the like. It was mesmerizing; I don't mean to make it sound like it wasn't, and I had fun with Stanley, Willy, and Julius. I didn't know any of the other people, but that was fine; I had no problem being genial with strangers. I just had a nagging question in the back of my mind, and it came back to my reluctance to accept Stanley's money, or at least, to have my need for it widely known.

The question, and I had no idea where it came from, was this: is that the way you really want to be? Of course it is, I insisted stubbornly. I liked being able to provide for myself, and I liked it even better when I could be in Stanley's position and help out a friend who needed it.

The problem was, if everyone was like me, I would never be able to help them out, would I? They would be so reluctant to accept help or admit the need for it that I would never have the opportunity to be generous. But that was their prerogative, right?

We arrived back in Fort Worth around midafternoon, and I asked Stanley if I could borrow his basketball for some practice down at the park. No one else was out on the courts. As I stood there taking free throws, with the sun streaming through the tree branches overhead, I found myself wondering what exactly I was hoping to accomplish with my life.

I was in Texas looking for a job, so that I could make money and support myself, but that wasn't a "rest of my life" kind of statement. Making money was a means to an end, not an end itself. Who did I want to be? What did I want to accomplish? What did I want people to say about me when I died?

I didn't know why I was thinking about death, and it was kind of morbid. My grandfather had only died the year before, at age 88. My own father wasn't in great health, but he was only 55. But what was I hoping to do before I reached 88? I had heard someone say once, "If you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to get where you're going." What I was doing right now was treading water, killing time. Even once I got a job I wouldn't be doing what I wanted to do. The problem is that I didn't really know what I wanted to do.

"Hey, man." I turned around and saw Jarrius there, backpack still on his shoulders, a fat textbook under his arm. "I'm looking for Julius and Willy. They still at Stanley's place?"

"Yeah, they were all there talking when I left."

"Cool, thanks. You working on your dribbling so you don't travel again?"

I laughed. "You'll find out next time, I guess. Bring your A game."

"Consider it brung. Peace, man."

I could feel Jarrius' eyes on the back of my head as I took a few steps back and put up a long three-pointer, which banked smoothly off the backboard and into the basket. I couldn't explain why I felt the need to showboat for him; I knew I was a good basketball player, and it was important to me that other people knew it. There weren't very many things in my life that I felt really exceptional at, and I wanted respect for the things that deserved it.

After a while I had worked up a sweat, even in the December chill, so I started to head back to the apartment building. I went to return Stanley's ball, and as I came up to his room, I could hear excited chatter coming from the open door.

I peeked in before knocking and saw Jarrius, Willy, and Julius sitting around a table, leaning in, and Stanley leaning on the wall behind them. Whatever they were talking about definitely had their attention.

Julius was gesturing. "How crazy is it that there's all this stuff in the universe, you know, stars and nebulas and galaxies and all that, and humans are just now able to see it? It's always been out there, shining God's glory for everyone to see, even though we couldn't see it."

"And he knew we'd be able to one day, so he put it all out there anyway. Man. He was just showing off." This from Jarrius.

I didn't know whether to knock or just return Stanley's ball later, so I started to sneak back to my room. "Get in here, Eli," Stanley called from inside.

How had he seen me? He hadn't looked up from the table. I slinked into the room anyway, holding the ball out in front of me. "Thanks for letting me borrow this."

"Just set it on the ground," Stanley told me. "You want some juice?"

It was either that or lukewarm tap water in my own room. "Yeah, juice would be awesome."

Stanley looked down at the table, where the other guys were looking up at me expectantly, as if unsure whether to keep talking. "Back to what you were saying, boys," Stanley instructed them.

"Well anyway," Julius continued, "that really changed the way I looked at creation, you know? I'd never really noticed sunsets before, I mean I saw them and all, but I never thought too hard about them. But once I realized they were God's way of showing himself off, and the fact that he designed the world in such a way that it would have a sunset every day and the sunset would be beautiful to us, man, that just changed everything."

The others were nodding vigorously, and I felt like I should join them, but I didn't know what he was saying and I didn't want to pretend lest they ask what I thought about it.

Thankfully, Stanley came around the corner with my juice, and I downed it quickly, feeling as if my presence was making the other guys self-conscious. Stanley took the glass when I was finished and I rushed back across the hall to shower off.

Chapter Seven

No sooner had I finished then there was a knock on my door. The people here didn't believe much in privacy or quiet time, that was for sure. I cracked the door and saw Danny Tucker, hands in his pockets, smiling.

"Hey, you mentioned something about checking to see if you had any writing samples still in your email inbox. Want to come up to my room and take a look?"

"Oh yeah. I completely forgot about that. Thanks." I followed Danny up to his room, on the top floor of the building, next door to the large meeting area where his house church met on Sundays. It was neatly decorated, a sizeable two-bedroom suite. The furniture looked like Salvation Army vintage, but as I sat down on one and sank into it, I couldn't complain about how comfortable it was.

"Elizabeth and I share this place," he told me, standing over the desk and turning his computer on. We've been on our own together for the last twelve years or so."

"Twelve years? How old are you?"

"Twenty-six. It's a long story, I'll fill you in sometime. The short version is that God is good. God is very good." His computer chimed a start-up greeting, and he waved me over. "Come see what you can find."

I pulled up my long-neglected email account, scrolling back through the messages that had attachments till I finally found a paper I had written the year before. "Are you sure any writing sample will be good enough? This is a paper about Lewis and Clark."

"Yeah, that's fine. It doesn't matter what you're writing about. I just need to see your style, how you use words, that kind of stuff. If it's decent then I'll ask you to write a review of a book or CD, probably one of the ones that I got recently that I don't plan on reviewing, and see what you can do with it. If my editors like it, then you'll get a review or two a month in the magazine. It won't pay all your expenses, but it might open the door to other stuff, feature articles, or whatever."

"Man, I don't know if I'm good enough to write features. I just like messing around."

"I guess we'll see. Here, scoot out of the seat for a second." Danny took the keyboard, forwarding the paper to his own email address.

"I really appreciate your help with all this."

"It's the right thing to do. We're all a community in this building. When one of us is hurting, we all hurt."

"Hey now, I didn't say I was hurting."

He looked up from the chair. "Aren't you? You're frustrated that you can't find a job, short on money, probably worried about that."

"Sure, I'm struggling a little bit to find my feet after moving to a new city where I know absolutely nobody. I wouldn't say that's the same thing as hurting."

"I, on the other hand, would say that being frustrated and worried counts as hurting. Either way, you need help, I can help. End of story."

"I don't mean to make it sound like I don't appreciate it. I'm just not used to people going out of their way to help me, is all."

He smiled, moving from the chair onto the couch. "Maybe you should be."

"What?"

"Maybe you should be used to people who make you a priority. Maybe you should be used to receiving love from the people who are close to you. That's not the kind of thing that should be a rare treat, in my opinion."

I didn't know what to say to that; I just stood behind the computer chair, hands on the back of it, and we looked at each other.

"I've never heard that before," I admitted.

"Eli, let me ask you a blunt question."

"Shoot."

"Where are you, spiritually speaking?"

"Hm." I didn't have an answer prepared, so I stalled, trying to sum up what I believed. "Well, I believe there's something out there, you know, God is out there. I believe in right and wrong. I don't know what else you're looking for."

"Oh, that'll do for now. I was just wondering. Want to stick around and watch a movie? Elizabeth is coming back from work in a few minutes; we can make you some dinner and have a quiet evening in."

I started to answer, but Danny held up his hand to cut me off.

"Actually, hold on a second. Let me try this again. Stay here, because we're going to make you dinner. See, I've been talking to Stanley, and he told me that I can't give you a choice, cause you'll find some reason not to take me up on it."

I wanted to be offended, but looking at it from Stanley's point of view, I could see where he came up with that. "I would like to think I'm less susceptible to peer pressure than that."

"But you're not. Go turn the oven to four-fifty so it can start warming up."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Since you asked me so nicely, I have no choice but to obey."

"See? You get it."

The next night, I clumsily lugged my guitar and amplifier up the stairs to the big room where the church met. Danny had been persistent in pressing me to come back for praise band practice, and finally I had caved. I still wasn't all that excited about playing praise and worship music, but I hadn't gotten the chance to play with anyone since moving, and late hours alone in my room, with the volume down to keep from bothering Stanley and my other neighbors, just weren't cutting it.

I wasn't sure exactly what to expect, maybe an organ set up on one corner of the stage, perhaps a tambourine if they really wanted to cut loose. But as I pushed the door open, I saw a well-used electronic drum kit in the back, a violin sitting in a stand near the front, a keyboard pushed up against the wall, and room for me off to one side. The chairs between the doors and stage were still set up like they probably had been on Sunday, and a few seats toward the front were occupied by heads that swiveled to face me as I maneuvered my gear through the doors.

"Hey, do you want any help with that?" One of them stood and came over to me, reaching for my amp. "I'm Jake Davies. Are you Eli?" Long brown hair fell over his box-frame glasses; he looked like he belonged in a Calvin Klein catalog rather than on a stage singing for Jesus.

"That's me. Good to meet you, Jake. What do you do in the band?"

"I hit things. They couldn't get me to stop so they put me on drums."

"You know what they say, you gotta do what you love."

"I do love me some drums." He hauled the amp over to the stage and set it down facing the spot where I would be standing. "This work out for you?"

"Yeah, it's good."

By this point Danny was coming toward me. "Thanks for coming, Eli. We've got a pretty small band right now. Elizabeth plays the violin, and I sing. Hopefully we'll get some more musically talented people in here soon, but for now, we're making do."

"You sing and then preach?"

"Yeah, I do. It's not ideal but you do what has to be done, you know?"

"Who plays the keyboard?"

Danny chuckled. "Nobody yet. But we bought it anyway, as a show of faith. We believe that God will provide."

"That's admirable."

"Yeah, you know, we like to give him chances to come through for us. The whole church sees this keyboard sitting empty, and when he finally gives us someone who can play it, they'll all see that evidence of answered prayer."

I wasn't sure whether to say what was on my mind, but while I was trying to decide, it slipped out anyway. "Don't take this the wrong way, but aren't there more important things to pray for than whether your church has a keyboard player? Like world hunger or poverty or whatever?"

The others didn't seem put off by me asking, and Danny just shrugged. "We pray for those things too, and we do what we can to help poverty and hunger. God's got plenty of time for all of those things."

"Then why – you know, never mind. Let's just go ahead and practice."

The songs were all new to me; I'd never heard them before, but they were pretty simple from a musical point of view. That made sense, once I thought about it, since the whole point was to make it easy for people to sing along and musicians of any skill level to be able to lead them, but I really despised their simplicity. I could almost play them on autopilot. The band sounded good, although I really wondered how they had gotten along without something to hold the melody down. Elizabeth was a tremendous violin player, but having only the violin must have been awkward.

We broke camp for the night satisfied with how rehearsal had gone. We had a good sound together; the guitar and violin meshed in a way I hadn't anticipated, and I was actually looking forward to Sunday.

The next four days went by quickly. I spent two of them handing out job applications, although it was probably obvious to the hiring managers that I was merely going through the motions. I had lost confidence in my ability to land even the most elementary job. My college diploma was a forty thousand dollar paperweight. I still had no idea what about me was poisoning people, making them reluctant to even give me a chance. I had gone by a couple of the places I had applied, like that CVS whose manager had blown me off without a second thought, and the guy they hired to replace me was a pimply-faced seventeen-year-old. I could have done his job, for the same salary, and I had a college degree. What was the problem?

Stanley had been gone a lot the last few days, and I kept sensing that he had something important he wanted to tell me, but he hadn't yet done it. I couldn't guess at what it might be. He arrived back in town Saturday night, but immediately went to his room and closed the door – a rarity for him. I didn't want to disturb him, so I went to bed early, hoping to get plenty of sleep and be on top of my game for Sunday morning.

I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful morning when my alarm went off around 8. The slightest hint of frost clung to the outside of my window, dusting the leaves and branches of the trees I could see outside my window. Sunlight poured down from a cloudless blue sky. I didn't know what exactly to wear, so I pulled on jeans and hoodie like I had seen Esperanza Nunez wearing the previous Sunday.

My knees shook as I pushed myself up the two flights of stairs, and I paused to steady myself. Taking a deep breath, I walked through the doors of a church for the first time in a decade.

Part Two

Chapter One

I noticed one overpowering thing as I stepped onto the stage and strapped on my guitar: I was nervous.

I'm sure that Danny was only trying to do me a favor when he told the whole crowd of nearly seventy-five people that I was new and was going to be playing guitar, and I'm sure that they all meant well when they clapped enthusiastically for me, but all it really did was drive home the fact that I had never played for a crowd this big before.

Everything went wrong. I came in two beats too early on the very first song, sending Elizabeth and Jake into a tailspin as they tried to catch up with me. Danny, unsure of where any of us were, chose a random moment to begin singing. We caught up with him quickly, but by then the rest of the congregation was confused, and seemed really hesitant as they sang along. The next song should have been easy, but I was so rattled that my hands weren't obeying me, and I dragged the tempo down. What should have been an upbeat, happy song ended up plodding along. By that point, I was ready to just set the guitar down and walk away.

The one time I looked up, embarrassed, I almost made eye contact with Stanley. I say almost because his eyes were closed, and he was singing, loudly and passionately, obviously believing whatever he was singing. Somehow, I was reassured by the idea that even my colossal mistakes weren't enough to throw him off, and that calmed my nerves enough to let me settle in and focus.

The last two songs went as well as they could have, but when Danny told everyone to bow their heads and pray at the end of our set, I couldn't get off the stage fast enough. Slinking toward a seat at the back of the room, I plopped down miserably, angry and embarrassed at myself. I'm sure that Danny preached a great sermon, but I didn't remember most of it. The only thing I remember was a few sentences toward the end.

"There is no greater love than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends," Danny said, looking up from the Bible he held in one hand. "I think most of us could get behind that. There's something great and noble in laying down your life for a friend. The question I want to pose is this: are you willing to be the friend in need? Are you willing to let someone else lay down their life for you?"

That reminded me of what Stanley had asked me, about whether I thought I was worth less than seventeen dollars. The thing is, I thought he was wrong. I didn't think there was any harm in wanting to provide for myself. I couldn't go around accepting handouts my entire life, could I? That wasn't the way the world was supposed to operate, not the way I understood it, anyway. But Stanley obviously believed something quite different, and here was Danny spouting the same idea, while seventy-five people listened, nodding their heads in agreement. What did they know that I didn't?

I was determined to burn off as quickly as I could at the end of the service, and when Danny asked everyone to bow their heads and pray again, I quietly stood, making for the door. Somehow, impossibly, Stanley had preempted me, and stood just outside the doorway. As I passed, quietly because people were still praying, he gently took me by the shoulder. "I'm proud of you, Eli."

The earlier anger and embarrassment surged up in me again, and my face turned red. "Don't talk like that. I played terribly."

"God used you anyway. It was a good morning for worship."

"Well, tell God to settle me down next time so I don't embarrass him in front of dozens of people." I pushed past Stanley and stomped down the hall to the stairs, thudding down the two flights to my bedroom.

I kicked off my shoes and flung myself on the bed, suddenly exhausted. I had publicly flopped in front of people before, several times while giving speeches and once during a play in high school, but never had I been quite so furious at myself. I felt, even more so than I had after that basketball game in the park, like I had let my friends down, that I should have done much better.

Of course, infuriatingly, a polite knock sounded on my door a few moments later. I glared at the ceiling, silently willing the person to go away, but of course that never happened around here. After another round of knocking I hauled myself off my bed and swung the door open.

It was Jake. "Hey, man. I just wanted to say thanks for playing with us this morning. You want to jam later tonight?"

"Tonight? Er..." I didn't have anything else planned – obviously. So why was I hesitating? "Yeah, alright. What do you play?"

"I was trained on blues, but I'll groove with anything. How does seven o'clock sound?"

"Sounds good. See you then."

As I watched him walk away, I was perplexed and annoyed both. I didn't understand why everyone here – Stanley, Danny, now Jake – seemed determined to like me, determined to think the best about me. In any of the other bands I'd ever played with, if I'd flopped as badly as I had this morning, the drummer would have been banging on my door just the way Jake did, only he would have been chewing me out for playing so terribly. Jake, on the other hand, had not only thanked me, but had wanted to play with me again. Stanley, after I made him look like a fool in front of his friends on the basketball court, paid my admission to the aquarium. I deserved so much worse than what they were giving me, and it was infuriating to me that they wouldn't simply be angry at me, the way I felt they should be.

More than that, I didn't understand why they were doing it. Maybe it's just that they were genuinely nice people, but it felt like more than that, like they had made it their life's mission to hammer me with kindness. But for what purpose? I was perfectly happy to hang out in my apartment and be anonymous in this building, but the people I had met refused to let me. Why?

After a few hours of solid moping, I headed up to the big room on the fifth floor, where Jake was already waiting, warming up with a bluesy cadence. When he saw me come in, he started to stand up, but I waved him back down. "Keep playing," I told him, pulling my guitar over my head and adjusting the strap on my shoulders. Closing my eyes and breathing in, I swayed back and forth with the rhythm before cutting loose with a solo that any of the great blues players would have been proud of. We played in the same groove for about ten minutes, trading solos, before bringing our improvised song to a close.

"Man, that was great," Jake said, wiping his face. "No one around here plays like that."

"I didn't know I could," I laughed. "I haven't ever played the blues before."

"Sounded like it came naturally to you. You know what they used to say, either you have the blues or you don't."

"I guess I do, at least lately."

"Heh. Well, what else can you do?"

"Lay down a groove; we'll go from there."

Five songs and a little over an hour later, I sat down on a stool, hands aching, unused to the strain since I hadn't been practicing as much lately. Clenching and unclenching my fist, I looked up at Jake. "How long have you been doing this?"

"What, drumming? Pretty much my whole life, that I can remember. Parents had me in lessons by the time I was seven, and I kept going through high school. I did marching band, did drum corps, and just kind of stuck with it."

"That's cool."

"I like it," he said with a shrug and a grin. "How long you been playing guitar?"

"Seven years now, I guess. Started on bass, went to guitar, never looked back."

"Pretty cool. Man, I feel like I've known you for months, and all we did was play together."

I suppressed a laugh. "Yeah, music is pretty awesome like that."

"Yeah, it definitely is. What brings you to the area?"

"Graduated from college, parents wanted me out of the house. Maybe you knew my aunt Helen; she used to live here, but recently got transferred and is still paying on her room. So here I am."

"Where do you work?"

"I'm currently holding auditions for the role of Eli's employer."

Jake smiled. "I'd offer to help if I could. I don't think my company has any openings at the moment, but if anything comes available, get me a resume and I'll put your name in."

"Thanks, that's really nice of you." It wasn't until later that I realized I didn't know what he did, and had totally forgotten to ask.

"Yeah, man, anytime. Hey, what do you usually do on Friday nights?"

"I've only been here for a couple of weeks, so I don't really have a 'usual' anything yet."

"Why not make your first one? Fridays are when we have our mens' Bible study up here. Danny teaches and then we do something manly."

"Like what, grill in your boxers?"

Jake laughed so hard he nearly fell off his drum stool. "We haven't yet, but you never know."

"Well, thanks for the offer, but I probably won't take you up on it. I'm not really the Bible study kind of guy."

"Why not?"

"I'm not into the whole Jesus thing. I'm not against it, you know, no disrespect to you or what you believe. I'm just not really interested."

"Have you ever heard what Christianity is all about?"

"Yeah, sure, I've been to church a couple dozen times."

"Is your life the way you want it to be?"

"Well...I mean, no, not really. But I don't see what that has to do with Jesus."

"Everything, man. You should talk to Danny or Stanley about it sometime; maybe you'll be surprised what they could tell you."

"What, you can't tell me yourself?"

He shrugged. "They're the ones who are gifted speakers and thinkers. Me? I just hit stuff really hard."

"Well, thanks. It was fun playing with you."

"Want to do it again later this week?"

"Sure. Come by anytime. I'll probably be there, unless some sort of miracle happens and I land a job in the next few days."

"Will do. You know, if it's miracles you're after, Jesus might not be a bad person to ask."

"I'm sure he's got better things to do than help me find a place to work, but who knows, maybe I'll give him a shot and see what happens."

"You know what the Bible says, man. 'Taste and see that the Lord is good.' Psalm 34:8."

"Thanks, Jake. You take it easy."

"Peace, man."

I don't know exactly what prompted me to try, but as I lay in my bed that night, staring at the ceiling, watching the moonlight dance through the trees and cast wobbling shadows on the far wall, I decided I would take Jake's advice. "Uh...dear Jesus," I began, hesitatingly, feeling silly. "I need a job. So please...you know, help me get one. Thanks."

I didn't know what else to say, and honestly, I didn't even feel any better as I closed my eyes and let sleep overtake me.

Chapter Two

If I had been a praying man, the hours between eight and ten in the morning the next day would have been perfect for it. I awoke at eight to the sound of the garbage trucks at the dumpster outside, and went through the motions of showering and shaving and getting ready to face the day. The problem was that there was no day to face, nothing that would require my attention or effort. I could, if I was so inclined, clean the apartment, or get a haircut, or go on another fruitless run through Fort Worth distributing applications to employers who would never call me back. Unsurprisingly, I had no eagerness to do any of those things, so for two hours, I simply sat on my bed, looking out the window at the big, wide, beautiful world outside, breathing in and breathing out.

It was Danny who broke the monotony, thudding on my door a few minutes after ten. I think he was surprised to see me already awake and dressed, which offended me for a moment, till I realized that I probably wouldn't be if the garbage trucks hadn't awakened me.

"Hey, I'm going to go for a walk around downtown," he told me. "I was hoping you'd come along."

"You're getting better at not phrasing things as a question, so that I don't have the chance to tell you no."

"Correct. So come on."

I laughed to myself, stepping back in to get my shoes, when the phone on the kitchen counter rang. "Hang on," I called to Danny.

I don't know why I answered the phone; that was the first time it had rung since I moved in, and I knew it was probably just a telemarketer calling for my aunt. I still held out hope that perhaps it was the first fruits of a job application.

"Eli Radak," I answered.

"Hi, Eli." I was surprised to hear my mother's voice.

"Oh, hey, mom. How's life?"

"It's good, Eli. Listen, I just called to let you know that we decided to borrow a little money from your checking account. We found a great lawn tractor on sale at the store down the road, discounted since it's not lawn season right now, and we just couldn't pass it up."

"Mom, what do you need a lawn tractor for? We have a quarter of an acre. It takes thirty minutes to mow it with the push mower we have." I was trying to sound calm, but I was furious at her financial foolishness, and equal parts angry and worried that she had plundered my already-beleaguered checking account to fund it.

"It's just a good deal, Eli, and it'll help us around the house with you gone."

"I don't have any money, mom. You have to put back what you took the next time you get paid."

"Well, it might take a few weeks..."

"I don't have a job. If I don't have that money, I don't eat. That's not your money to take."

There was a short silence on the other end. "I'm going to put your father on. He wants to say hi."

My father's gruff voice came over the line. "Morning, son."

"Hey, dad."

"How's life treating you in Texas? Where are you working these days?"

"I'm still on the job hunt. I've put in about fifty –"

"You don't have a job yet? What's wrong with you?"

"Must just be a tough market. I don't know."

"Well look, you get it figured out. People are starting to ask how you're doing down there and I'm not happy at what you've given me to tell them. I expect better the next time we talk."

"I'll do what I can, dad."

"Enjoy Texas."

"I have so far. Later on."

I held the phone for a few moments, fighting the urge to break it over my knee, before setting it back in the cradle. Danny was waiting for me outside the door, pretending he hadn't heard my end of the conversation.

"Who was on the phone?" he asked.

"Parents. They wanted a new toy for the yard, so they raided my bank account."

He raised an eyebrow. "Don't they both have jobs?"

"Yeah, but they don't know how to spend or save. They're always within twenty bucks of not having enough money every month. They get a raise or a bonus, they buy something new, so the money disappears again instantly. And now they're pillaging my finances to pay for their stupidity."

"Do they know you don't have a job?"

"Of course they do, but they wanted the money. I told them to pay it back as soon as they can. Even if I were to get a job today, I still wouldn't get my first check for a couple of weeks. I need to make it all stretch till I've got some income."

"How much money do you have left?"

"Ah, well, I don't know exactly how much my parents took. Maybe..." I did some quick math. "I dunno, a couple hundred dollars. Two or three hundred."

Danny nodded, scratching his chin. "Alright. Well, let's walk."

We did, and I was grateful to have Danny's conversation taking my mind off what had just happened. The air was brisk this morning, cold enough to see our breath as we took a left turn out of our building and moseyed toward the towers of downtown, which thrust into the December blue. Idly I kicked a rock down the sidewalk, while Danny watched, amused.

"What's your favorite thing about yourself?" he asked abruptly.

His question threw off my stride, and I tripped over the rock, catching myself before I fell over. "What kind of question is that?"

"I'm just curious."

"What does it matter?"

"If you really don't want to answer it, you don't have to. I just wanted to know."

"Well, I don't know. I've never thought about it before."

"Alright." I could tell that Danny was thinking through whether to say something else or just leave it alone. He opted for a quick change of topic. "I'm thinking about planning a hiking trip this weekend. You into that sort of stuff?"

"Yeah, sure. I grew up in the sticks, spent all kinds of time outside. I'm always down for stuff like that."

"That's cool. It won't be a big group, probably just you, me, Elizabeth, maybe Jarrius if he doesn't have to work. There's a place about an hour west of here, Mineral Wells, where we can go hiking and bouldering."

"Sounds great to me."

"Hey, by the way, I read your paper about Lewis and Clark. It was pretty good. You said you wrote it a couple of years ago?"

"Yeah. I don't know if I've gotten any better since then, but maybe."

"Do you want to take a stab at an album review? I've got a couple CDs that the magazine sent me that I don't plan on reviewing, and I can pass them to you if you want."

"I'd really appreciate that."

"Alright, remind me when we get back."

We went a quarter-mile or so in silence, Danny staring up at the endless blue of the sky and me examining the buildings and shops along this stretch of road that I'd never walked before.

"Who was your best friend back in Indiana?" Danny asked, out of nowhere.

I chewed on the inside of my cheek. "Why do you keep asking these questions?"

"I'm just trying to get to know you, Eli. You've lived in my building for almost two weeks and all I really know is that you used to live in Indiana and you don't have a job. And you seem to keep both Stanley and me at arm's length. So if I had to guess at the answer to the question, I'd say that you probably didn't have anyone that you'd consider a best friend. You didn't see the point in letting people get close to you, so you kept to yourself and tried to handle everything on the inside."

He might as well have known me my entire life; he couldn't have been more right. I didn't tell him so, but my silence, which was half anger, and half surprise, said all that needed to be said.

"You're right," I said finally. "That's who I am. And I don't understand why you and Stanley are so insistent on not letting me be that person. I wish you'd stop trying to change me. I like who I am, and I don't want to change."

"Really?" Danny asked quietly. He stopped walking and I turned to face him, while his green eyes searched my face. "You don't wish you had people who cared about how you were doing? You don't think your life would be more enjoyable if you had friends who would celebrate the successes with you and help you through the failures? You don't ever feel even a little bit lonely, and wish there was just one person who you hadn't held at arm's length, so you could tell them everything?"

"No," I said quickly, but it was obvious to both of us that I was lying.

"Do you really want to know why we're doing these things for you? It's because we believe that's the way the world should be. We believe that God made all of us to love each other, to treat each other like brothers and sisters. We were created to show that kind of love, and to receive it, as well. I don't think any one of us was meant to be an island. We were made for community. And, as much as you might protest with your mouth, I'd bet any amount of money that you enjoy and appreciate the way that we've intentionally befriended you, tried to help you find a job, given you the chance to play in the band, and made you feel like you really belong in our building."

I hadn't realized there was a systematic reason behind the way they had been treating me. I thought they were just genuinely nice people, and by asking that question, I was hoping to corner Danny into admitting that he was a people person and I was a private person, and that we were each entitled to our own way of doing things. I had no idea how to respond to what he had just told me.

With a shrug, Danny started walking again toward downtown, and I fell into step beside him. "You want some coffee?"

"Sure." We headed into a local coffee shop, where Danny ordered a black coffee and I ordered the chocolatiest mocha I could get my hands on. Back on the sidewalk, warm drinks chasing away the crisp chill, we strolled toward the tall buildings of downtown.

I wondered what Danny was going to say next, and indeed, part of me was very curious to hear more about this idea of community. It was so different from anything I'd ever heard that I wanted to probe it more deeply, examine it, test it, see if I could find flaws in it. I didn't think my own self-sufficiency had worked out all that badly for me, to be honest. But I had to admit that Danny was right about one thing: I had been profoundly thankful for the friendship he and the others had showed me. That didn't make him right, of course; it just meant that his ideas were worth hearing again.

Much to my surprise, though, all he did was make small talk. We walked around downtown, looking up at the tall offices and apartments ringing the one-way streets, without saying anything. I was glad for the silence, and the company; it sounded like a strange combination, but I appreciated that Danny didn't feel the need to fill every waking instant with words. Eventually we turned and headed back toward our apartments.

"I'll get back to you about that camping trip," Danny said when we were almost there.

"Yeah, definitely."

No further goodbyes were needed, and Danny went inside, while I lingered outdoors, enjoying the cool breeze. I was still thinking about the things he had told me, about the way people were made for community, and it seemed to me that I had heard something very important. I almost wanted to go upstairs and ask Danny if I could hear more, but I hesitated. Coupled with the eagerness was a lingering fear. It didn't make very much sense, but it made enough to dissuade me. Instead, I went upstairs, where I found a handful of CDs slid under my door. I made a mental note to thank Danny and sat down to listen to them on the ancient CD player that my aunt had left behind.

The phone rang again, and I ran over to it, hoping that it would be my parents telling me they were putting money back into my bank account, or else someone calling to invite me to a job interview.

"Eli Radak."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I was looking for Frederick." Click.

I knew that I should be used to that kind of disappointment, but I still couldn't reel in the feeling of helpless despair that tugged on my heart.

Chapter Three

A few hours later, someone knocked on my door. I turned down the CD player, and found Stanley there, wearing an apron and holding tongs in one hand.

"Are you here to grill me?" I asked.

Stanley guffawed, slapping his knee. "You think black folk are cannibals? Well, I never."

"Er, no, it was...never mind."

"You're hilarious, Eli. Get a jacket on and come downstairs."

"What for?"

"It's dinner time."

He really hadn't answered my question, but I ducked into the room and tugged on my winter coat and sneakers, dashing down the stairs and out the front door.

Right there on the sidewalk, three grills stood, bags of charcoal on the ground next to them, the scent of meat wafting though the clean evening air. Dozens of people stood around talking and laughing, most of whom I hadn't seen before. More continued to gather, wandering down the sidewalk toward the impromptu party.

Stanley was back at one of the grills, spinning cubes of steak on skewers, so I strolled over to him. "What's happening here?"

"We're grilling for the community," Stanley told me, expertly flicking the meat onto the uncooked side. "It's something the church tries to do every couple of months."

"Why?"

Stanley looked down at me quizzically. "What kind of question is that? Cause they like it, that's why. Cause it's a great way to make an impact in our community. Cause there are some people around here who don't have jobs – not just you either, son – and this might be the best meal they get all winter. It's just the right thing to do." He flipped a skewer of beef onto a plate and passed it to me. "Eat up. You're too scrawny."

"I'm wiry," I corrected him, biting into one of the cubes. Flavored marinade exploded out of the meat and into my mouth; it had been months since I had anything so tasty. "What is this stuff?"

"Spiedies. It's a special kind of sauce they only sell in New York. I have to order it online." Stanley swept the rest of the skewers onto plates, which promptly disappeared into the hands of grateful eaters. Watching the people mill around, and seeing the joy that was brought to them by something as simple as a free meal, I was really moved. I had never done anything like this to help people, and I was almost jealous of the satisfaction Stanley had to be getting from being able to bring happiness to his neighbors' lives.

"I didn't know you lived in New York," I told Stanley.

For a long moment he didn't answer, almost pretending as if he hadn't heard the question at all. Finally he opened his mouth to say something, but his answer was cut off by a hand on my shoulder.

"Are you Eli?"

I turned to see a girl, about my same age and height, confident green eyes and an easy smile, holding out a hand. "That's me," I told her, shaking her hand. "Pleasure to meet you, whoever you might be."

She laughed. "I'm Abbie Grant. I live a little ways from here, but Stanley invited me to the cookout tonight. He seemed to think we'd make good friends."

I shot Stanley an upraised eyebrow. Was he trying to hook me up? He kept his face intently on the meat, although I swore there was an irrepressible smile on his face. He had to have been laughing on the inside.

"Abbie Grant?" I asked. "Weren't you that singer from the '80s? 'That's what looooove is for,' wasn't that your song?"

Embarrassed, but unable to hold back a giggle, she covered her face. "That was Amy Grant. Not even close to the same person."

"Don't lie. I want your autograph."

"Stanley told me you were funny, but I had no idea. This is too much."

"Just sing 'Next Time I Fall' for me once, please. I'll sing Peter Cetera's part."

To my surprise, she actually did. "Darling I / put my heart up on a shelf / till the moment was right, and I tell myself..."

Her voice was amazing, and I hoped I wouldn't ruin it when I joined her for the chorus. "The next time I fall in love / the next time I fall in love / it will be with you..."

By this time we had attracted a small crowd, curious about the spontaneous singing, so on a whim I decided to keep going with the song. We had the parts reversed – I was singing the woman's part, and Abbie was doing Peter the man's – but our voices blended well. Even more surprisingly than the fact that she sang it was the fact that she did it with passion, the mark of someone who enjoyed singing and took even a joke-challenge seriously.

"The next time I fall in love, it will be with youuuuu..."

The dozen or so people around us applauded vigorously, and I high-fived Abbie. "Your voice is incredible."

Smiling, she looked down. "Thanks. You're not too bad yourself. You're no Peter Cetera, but you're decent."

I burst into laughter. "Ouch!"

She shrugged, adding with a smirk, "That's what you get for calling me Amy Grant."

"I see how it's going to be, Amy. That's fine. You're modest about your fame, and that's alright by me."

She rolled her eyes, but the huge smile on her face told me she wasn't genuinely offended. "I think this is a new record for me."

"How's that?"

"We went from strangers to duet in about twenty seconds."

"So we did. Anyone who has no problem busting out an impromptu song surrounded by total strangers is a-okay by me."

"Good to hear it. Are you going to eat that food or just hold on to it all night?"

I looked down, startled to see that I was still holding the plate of meat that Stanley had given me. "Whoa. This is the first time steak has ever almost escaped from me. Normally it doesn't stand a chance. Want a piece?"

She shook her head. "Stanley packed me full when I first got here. You know that man; he tries to fatten everybody up."

Stanley, still only a few feet away from us, nodded approvingly. "Except myself," he added, patting his flat stomach.

"So how do you know Stanley?" I asked Abbie, strolling away from the grill so the people who hadn't eaten didn't have to push past me on the way to get food.

"My parents and I lived in this building a couple years ago. Stanley really drew us in and made us feel wanted, you know? So we started going to the church that meets upstairs, and that was really good. My parents moved out a couple of years ago, dad took a promotion and headed to Chicago, but I wanted to stay here with the people I knew. A couple of friends and I got a house near here, and I stay in touch with Stanley pretty regularly."

"Chicago, huh? I came here a couple weeks ago from Indiana. You couldn't pay me enough to go back to the Midwest."

"That bad?"

"It's wonderful if you enjoy six months of winter."

Abbie made a face. "Gross. I'll keep Texas, thank you very much."

"What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a teacher, actually; I teach English in a Christian school about ten miles from here."

"No kidding. English was my major in college."

"Marketing was mine. I have no clue how I ended up in teaching, except for God's providence."

"Heh. Well, life is funny sometimes."

"It is definitely that."

There was a pause as I made short work of the Spiedies that Stanley had given me, and when I looked up, Elizabeth Tucker was coming toward us. "Hey, you two," she said. "How's it going?"

"Eli serenaded me," Abbie bragged.

Elizabeth looked at me, confused, and I shrugged. "The serenading was mutual, actually."

This just perplexed Elizabeth even more, and she shook her head, as if to say she didn't want to know. "Abbie, can I borrow you for a while?"

"You got it." Abbie extended a hand to me. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Eli."

I took the hand and gave it a firm but gentle shake. "Likewise, Ms. Grant. Hopefully we'll talk again sometime soon."

"I'd like that." With a parting smile, Abbie followed Elizabeth off into the crowd.

I wandered back toward where Stanley was, threading my way through what were by now several hundred strangers. I wondered where the church came up with the money to feed them all.

I found Stanley, but he was deep in conversation with a crowd of perhaps ten people. Jarrius was one of them, but I didn't recognize the others. Rather than butt in, I backed off a few paces and sat down on the sidewalk, watching the people, half-listening to snippets of conversation that drifted to me on the evening's breeze. It was about 6:30 by now, and the sun had almost disappeared behind those giant trees to the west, streetlights doing their best to chase away the navy blue of twilight.

I wanted to freeze the moment, take a snapshot of it and hang it on the wall of my memory so that I would always remember how it felt to be here with my friends on a beautiful evening, enjoying good food. Right now it seemed like there wasn't a care in the world – although the second I had the thought, all those cares came back to me, crashing into my mind like a city bus. I could never get away, for too long, from the fact that my bank balance was ever dwindling, my resume might as well have had "don't hire me" in capital letters across the top, and I still had no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I was making friends – more accurately, friends were making me, as Danny had pointed out this morning – but even that was merely a band-aid over a gunshot wound. I felt a little better for a little while when I was hanging out with Stanley or Danny, but that was no remedy for all the things about my life that still just plain sucked.

I saw movement off to the side, and looked up to see Abbie standing over me. "Hey again," she said. "I'm about to head out, but I wanted to say bye." She looked over her shoulder, to where everyone else was still talking and eating. "It sure didn't take you long to get by yourself."

"Welcome to my life," I smiled. "I'm more of a watcher and listener most of the time."

"I'll leave you to your watching, then, but I wanted to say that it was great to meet you. What floor do you live on?"

"Third. Room three-oh-five."

"Maybe I'll drop by sometime."

"Better bring a lawn chair. I'm afraid I don't have any furniture."

She laughed, but stopped when she saw I was serious. "I'm sorry."

I waved off her apology. "It was good to meet you, Abbie. Take it easy."

"You too, Eli. God bless you."

I watched her vanish into the dark, then pushed to my feet and headed over to where Stanley stood, still grilling and chatting.

"Hey hey, Eli. You came back for more food?"

"Nah, I think I'm going to head upstairs. I might take another skewer for the road."

"Stick around, son. Meet some people."

"Some other time. I'm going to go practice the guitar a little."

"Are you playing again this week?"

"People keep asking me to, so maybe. I'll find out tomorrow night, I guess. That's when practice is."

"Well, good. You know what they say, if you fall off the horse, you gotta get right back on it."

"So they say."

But I didn't go up to the meeting room, only as far as my own room, where I sat on my bed, numbly looking out my window into the parking lot where hundreds of friends mingled and laughed. I felt like I had slipped through the cracks, like if there really was a God who was supposed to love and take care of everyone, he had somehow forgotten I was down here.

An empty ache filled my heart, and even though it wasn't yet seven o'clock, I pulled my sleeping bag over my head and sought the only place where the pain wouldn't follow me.

Chapter Four

The next night, I found myself at worship band practice again. Danny and I had eaten dinner together, but I hadn't told him anything about what had happened to me the night before. As it had the last few times, it seemed so silly in the morning. I hoped it would be the last time I felt that way, the final hiccup before all my problems sorted themselves out and I was free to live carefree.

Practice, just like it had the week before, couldn't have gone better. The band was tight, we were jiving well and it felt like we were familiar with each other. We went over the songs three or four times each, making doubly sure (for my sake, I'm positive) that we knew what we were doing. Danny prayed, and we dismissed, but before I could make myself scarce, he blocked my way to the door.

"Want to come over and watch a movie?"

"Which movie?"

"Elizabeth and I are thinking _Aladdin_. Classic Disney."

"Man, I haven't seen that in forever."

"So come on over. We'll make you some popcorn. Maybe afterward you can type up those album reviews you told me you started on."

"Hey, good idea. Alright. Let me go get my notebook and I'll be back."

"If you're not back in five, I'm sending a search party."

But there was no need, because I ran down the stairs, stomping like a stampeding elephant, and then ran back up, breathlessly pushing Danny's door open. He and Elizabeth were parked side by side on the couch, leaving the recliner to me. The lights were already down and the garish blue of the television bathed the room.

"It's not often you see a brother and sister sharing a couch," I observed offhandedly.

"Really?" Elizabeth asked. "What makes you say that?"

"Oh, I don't know. I just thought it, so I said it. I don't have any brothers or sisters, so I don't really know, but I don't share a couch with my parents."

Danny and Elizabeth looked at each other, and Danny shrugged. "Well, we've been through a lot together. We've had to stick close, physically and emotionally."

"What have you been through?"

"You really want to know?" Danny pressed.

I shrugged. "Why not?"

Elizabeth breathed out slowly. "Our family was in a car accident when Danny was fifteen and I was fourteen. Dad was killed. The rest of us were completely fine."

"At least physically," Danny added. "Mom was never the same. She didn't work, at least not outside the house; she was a writer like I am, but once dad died, she didn't want to write about anything. Without dad working, there was no money, and finally mom just sent us out on the streets, told us she couldn't pay to keep us alive anymore."

"Oh no," I said, horrified.

"So we bounced around to a few friends' houses," Elizabeth said. "Stay with one of them for a week, another for two weeks, but they couldn't keep us long-term. After a couple months we ran out of places to go. So we became homeless. Two teenagers, living on the streets."

I imagined the two of them, young and wide-eyed with fear, huddled together under a threadbare blanket, doing what they could to chase away the cold on a night like tonight, and a lump wedged itself in my throat. "What did you do?" I demanded.

"We did what we had to do," Danny said simply. He pointed to the TV, where _Aladdin_ was still on the title screen, waiting for someone to push play. "You know that line where Aladdin sings, 'I steal only what I can't afford, and that's everything'? That was us. We stole everything that wasn't nailed down. Spent the nights in people's backyards, in alleys, in the lobbies of buildings when we could get away with it. You point to a place in Fort Worth and I bet we slept there at least once. I couldn't get a job because nobody was interested in hiring someone who didn't have a car or a driver's license. But somehow we always had just enough food to stay alive, just enough clothes to stay warm."

"We stayed in school," Elizabeth chimed in. "We didn't tell anyone what was wrong. A few of our friends knew, but we didn't let on. We took combs and bottles of hair product to school, washed our hair in the locker rooms or in a sink, shaved wherever we could. We were so embarrassed."

"But it wasn't your fault."

"Nobody cares whose fault it is, Eli," she chided. "Once they know you're homeless, they look at you funny, and nothing's the same. It's humiliating. Dehumanizing. So we put on our best happy faces and tried to make it through."

"For three whole years?"

"Most of high school," Danny confirmed. "Nobody can possibly explain what it's like, Eli. To wake up each morning already thinking about food because you didn't get enough the night before, but not having anyplace to get your food from. To hate yourself for having to steal from people, but not having any other option because if you didn't then you'd starve. Every. Single. Day. Nine hundred days in a row. Nine hundred days of waking up hungry, either too cold or too hot, washing our clothes with a garden hose and laying them out to dry in a stranger's driveway after they left for work." He clenched his jaw, shaking his head in the pale glare of the TV screen, the memories obviously hitting way too close to home. Elizabeth reached over and put her hand on his shoulder, and they were both quiet for a long time.

"What happened next?" I persisted, not wanting to break the silence, but needing to know how the story ended.

Danny looked up. "It was Christmas eve, eight years ago. I still remember it like it was yesterday, Eli. Cold night, like tonight, dark out, maybe eight or nine o'clock. The church was all lit up, there were people all inside it. I was waiting outside, working up the courage to go in and steal what I could. I figured the offering plates would be someplace where I could get to them, or there would be purses on the floor I could steal while people were praying. Elizabeth was out behind the building, shivering, and I was furious, you know, that she had to go through all that. I was positive there was no God at all, but I hated him anyway. I went into the building, made for the first purse I saw, and an usher stopped me. He took me into a side office and asked what I was doing."

"Did you tell him?" I asked.

"I told him everything. I don't know why, because I'd never told anybody everything before. But he kept nodding, kept encouraging me to talk, and no one had ever cared before, just wanted to hear what I had to say. I had so much inside of me, so much anger and disappointment, that it all just came gushing out. I don't know how long I cried there, and finally Elizabeth came in looking for me."

Elizabeth nodded. "I saw them there in that office, Danny crying like that, and I thought the guy had threatened to call the police on him. I thought Danny was fake-crying to get out of criminal charges. I couldn't imagine that he was actually in tears. But when the man saw me, he told us both about the reason they were there on Christmas Eve, to celebrate the birth of Jesus and the way that Jesus could give us hope and peace, and I couldn't handle it. I had to have what he was offering. We'd lived so long on our own, trying to be self-sufficient, trying to take care of ourselves, trying to comfort ourselves. Eli, the human soul wasn't meant to exist like that. We need hope and comfort from somewhere else. Danny and I accepted Christ that night and our lives have never been the same."

Again Danny interjected. "One of the first things that usher did – his name was Greg O'Brien, I still talk to him – was to show us this verse in one of Paul's letters about people who were stealing not stealing anymore, but doing honest work with their hands instead. He talked to all his friends and got me a job at the UPS distribution center, making great money for an eighteen-year-old. I graduated high school in May, and by then I had enough money to pay for a place for Elizabeth and me, and clean food. You wouldn't believe how much those church people helped us, Eli. They gave us everything. Clothes, bedding, places to sleep, food, money."

"That's amazing," I whispered.

"And now here we are," Danny said. "I'm a pastor. Elizabeth plays in the praise band. We're both college graduates and we have careers doing what we love. God has turned everything around for us."

"Wait a minute, though," I protested. "Where was he while you were on the streets? Why did he take so long to help you?"

"Do you think we would have appreciated what he gave us, if we hadn't been through a time where we didn't have it?"

'That's stupid, though. What kind of God would look down on you while you were homeless and starving and not feel anything, not lift a single finger to help you? Why do you think this is somebody worth worshiping?"

Elizabeth looked offended, and Danny held up a hand to keep her from lashing out. "I don't think he felt nothing, Eli. And I don't think he didn't lift a finger to help us. He kept us safe, prevented us from being robbed or worse, prevented the police from arresting and separating us. He showed up a lot of times when restaurant owners threw out perfectly good food that we could scrounge. We just didn't know it was him providing for us."

"But you were stealing. Why would he bless your stealing?"

"The Bible says he has special mercy for the fatherless and the widows," Elizabeth told me. "It's not that he was blessing our thievery. He was blessing us in spite of our thievery. Everyone sins, but the strange thing about God is that he's more concerned with loving people than with punishing them."

"And it wasn't that God was ignoring us, Eli," Danny clarified. "We were the ones ignoring him. I could have walked into a church at any point during those three years and heard the same message. But I was the one who was too stubborn to give God a chance. What did you want him to do, track me down on the street and have it out with me?"

"How about not letting your father die in the first place?" I snapped.

"I've yelled at him for that," Danny said flatly.

That was not at all what I was expecting to hear, and the quiet calmness of the answer threw off my angry accusation. "You have?" I managed.

Danny nodded.

"I didn't know you could do that. I thought you as a pastor weren't supposed to get angry at him."

"The Bible doesn't say that, Eli."

"Oh."

The wind gone from my sails now, I had nothing else to say, but Elizabeth did.

"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us," she quoted. "Paul wrote that in one of his letters two thousand years ago, and it's been true for us."

"So the end justifies the means?" I asked skeptically. "God can do whatever he wants as long as it ends well?"

"He can do whatever he wants, period, because he's God and we're not," Danny corrected. "But think about it, Eli. Elizabeth and I have this amazing testimony about the way that God provided and cared for us, led us to faith in him, and turned our lives around. What kind of testimony would we have if our lives had been hunky-dory and we'd never have problems? How would I be able to stand in front of my church and preach to people who have problems? How would I be able to sympathize with, or extend my hand to, people who have problems? What, do you think God should save everyone from every little problem they have, that he should never let pet cats die or car tires go flat or anything else that will cause people a little grief?"

"His purpose in life is not to protect us from pain, Eli," Elizabeth said firmly. "It's to have a relationship with us. Like Danny said, we were the ones running from him. We were the ones ignoring him. Yet in spite of that he was still waiting for us when we came running into his arms. You can be skeptical all you want, but you don't know what you're talking about."

What could I say to that? "It is a good story," I admitted. "Thank you for sharing it."

"I'm glad you asked," Danny told me. "Now, I think there's a movie waiting for us."

Oh, how I wanted at that moment to get up and run out of the room. I was so embarrassed at the way I had attacked their faith, and I wanted to be gone, to take my miserable cynicism and be out of their lives forever. But I couldn't make myself stand. "Sure," I said. "Can we sing along to the songs?"

Danny and Elizabeth laughed, a sound of joy that filled the room. "Go right ahead," Danny said. "Maybe we'll get Abbie up here so you can do a duet."

Thankfully the lights were off, and they couldn't see me turn red.

I only half-watched the movie, thinking about the things Danny and Elizabeth had said. I wanted so desperately to believe that there was hope, that I could have peace, all the things they talked about, but those things seemed too wonderful for me. Even the prayer I had offered on Monday had gone unanswered or unheard. But I sighed, eyes on the screen, mind a million miles away.

Was it possible I was wrong about everything?

Chapter Five

My phone rang at eight-fifteen the next morning. I opened my eyes, taking a second to fully realize what was going on, then leaped out of bed and charged across the room.

"Eli Radak," I answered breathlessly, one ring before the answering machine would have picked up.

"Hello, Mr. Radak. My name is Chase Pierce, and I work at the Wells Fargo bank downtown. I received your job application and I'd like to know if you can come by for an interview today."

"Yeah, absolutely. I'm free all day, so just let me know what time works for you."

There was a slight pause, and the sound of rustling papers – hopefully not a large stack of other applications that they'd gotten. "Ah, yes, how about one o'clock?"

"One sounds just great to me. I'll be there."

"Great. See you then."

There was no need to rush, as I had five hours to get ready and get to the bank, but I hurried anyway, jumping into the shower, coming out, putting my dress clothes on, and then feeling a bit silly as I realized it was still not even nine o'clock yet. I decided, somewhat on a whim, to grab a book, head down to the coffee shop Danny and I had gone to, and spend some time there reading.

I'd been reading an old Robert Ludlum novel, the original "Bourne Identity," and it only took a minute of digging through one of my boxes to find it. Book in hand, looking so sharp I could pop a balloon, I strode out the door and almost ran into Stanley coming out of his own door.

"Looking swanky," he said, eyeballing me up and down. "You getting married or what?"

"Next best thing," I told him, "job interview."

"Well, hey. That's great news. Do you mind if I pray for you?"

"Sure," I said, thinking that what he did in his room was his own business.

But he grabbed my shoulder and started praying right there on the spot. I glanced both ways down the hall, embarrassed, but Stanley was oblivious. I was actually so distracted that I didn't even listen to most of what he said.

"Thanks, Stanley," I told him when he was finished. "The other prayers about my job seem to have gone unanswered, but who knows, maybe God will actually listen to you."

"What other prayers? Did you pray?"

"Yeah, I tried a couple nights ago. Didn't know what to say, and it didn't sound anything like what you just said."

"Well I'll be, son. You keep surprising me. Let me know how it goes. And hey, what do you say to dinner tonight at my place? A certain friend of mine, Miss Abbie Grant, is going to be there."

"That sounds great. She's a neat girl. I'd enjoy getting to know her better."

"And so you shall. Six p.m. Don't be late. You can show up wearing that, if you'd like."

"I just might. Thanks, Stanley. I hope to be back with good news."

The morning was cool and brisk as I strode down the sidewalk, unfamiliar clopping of my dress shoes echoing off the buildings. In about twenty minutes, I came to the coffee shop, taking a seat in a chair by the front windows, and opening the book.

I found, a while later, that I wasn't reading at all. My eyes were skimming over the words, but I couldn't remember a single thing that had happened in the book. My mind was still off in another galaxy.

Somehow, something had to go right for me.

A few hours later, I strode into Chase Pierce's office. "Mr. Radak," he said, looking up from his desk. "How are you this afternoon?"

"I hope that I'll be better when I leave here," I said with a nervous smile. "How are you?"

"Oh, it's been busy, but good. Sit down. I see from your resume that you don't have any experience in banking. What makes you think you'd be a good teller for us?"

I stumbled over the question. "Ah, well, you can see from the fact that I've had educated – I mean, that I've been educated. I'm capable of learning almost anything, given a little time and someone who's willing to give me the chance."

Pierce nodded, neutrally. "And what makes you a better candidate than the other thirty people we're looking at?"

Thirty people? That rattled me. I knew I wasn't the best, the most qualified, the anything-est out of thirty people. The unluckiest, maybe; the most insecure. But those wouldn't land me a job. "Well, like I said, I think I can learn the job easily. I like dealing with people. I'd like to think that I can be a teller, can do something like that quickly and accurately, can bring a smile and good humor to the customers."

"Can you give me an example of a time when you've learned a job quickly?"

I paused, nodding slowly, thinking of the best example. "Well, if you look at my resume, you'll see that I had no experience doing most of those things before I actually started the job. All of the jobs I learned on the fly and in very little time."

"I see." He fiddled with his pen and I had the sinking feeling that I was about to get some very bad news. "Well, Mr. Radak, I'm afraid I can't offer you the job today."

"Oh. Thanks for your time," I said, standing.

"Have a seat for a second," he told me, looking me in the eyes, then breathing out, long and slow. "Look, this isn't a part of the interview, but do you mind if I give you some constructive feedback on why I didn't hire you?"

"Okay," I said, shrugging.

"I believe you when you say that you could learn this job in a hurry. I believe you really could excel at it."

"So what's the problem?"

He fiddled with his pen again. "I believe you...but you sound like you don't believe yourself. It's almost like you expected bad news before you ever sat down here. Your handshake was limp and weak. You didn't look me in the eye while you were talking. You just ooze insecurity."

I stared at the stack of papers on his desk, digging my fingernails into my palm. "What am I supposed to say to that?"

"I don't expect you to thank me," he said, with a thin smile. "I'm just bringing it to your attention so you can work on it for the future."

I blinked a few times. "Well, thanks anyway. For your time and for the advice."

"I wish I could do more for you, Mr. Radak. Blessings to you as you continue your job search."

I walked out of the bank, head down, cheeks probably red, and out into the cool afternoon. Disappointment and anger squeezed my heart, and I lingered on the street, unsure of what to do next. I wanted to go home as fast as I could and shut myself in my room, but I had a feeling I was going to run into Stanley; either he would catch me on the way in or come knocking in a little while. I resented him for caring so much; I was so embarrassed, and I didn't want to explain what had just happened, but I knew I would have to sooner or later. Why couldn't he just leave me alone?

I went home anyway, and was surprised and relieved to make it all the way to my room without anyone haranguing me. Mentally and emotionally exhausted, I crashed onto my bed and closed my eyes, not bothering to change out of my dress clothes.

I was still there when a thudding on my door roused me a few hours later. I ducked into the bathroom to see if I looked alright; I was still in my dress clothes, which thankfully hadn't wrinkled during my nap. Even my hair was still as it had been. Satisfied, I pulled open the door.

Abbie's eyes widened. "My gracious. If I'd known you were dressing up, I'd have worn something more than a sweatshirt."

"Don't take this wrong, but it's not entirely for you. I had a job interview earlier today."

Even as I said the words, I groaned inside, wishing I could take them back. Mentioning the interview would prompt her, or else Stanley, to ask how it went. I should never have raised the topic. But it was too late.

"Stanley made steak for dinner," Abbie told me cheerfully. "What do you say we head on over?"

"Yeah, let's do that," I said, faking a grin. As I stepped inside Stanley's apartment, I looked once again at the rows of pictures on the walls, all the happy and smiling people. For a moment I lingered on them, jealous of those nameless strangers and whatever they had that made them so happy.

"You can't eat the photos, Eli," Stanley announced from the kitchen, as he came out holding a steaming plate of steak and mashed potatoes in each hand. Expertly he laid them on the table, then turned around for the third plate and some barbecue sauce. "Get to the table."

I obeyed him, slipping in to the chair nearest the door. Abbie took the seat on my right, leaving Stanley across from me. Momentarily, Stanley reappeared, laying his own plate on the table and glancing at Abbie. "You want to say the blessing, sister?"

"I'd love to." She bowed her head solemnly. "Good food, good meat, good God, let's eat."

Stanley and I stared at each other, baffled, then burst into laughter. "What was that?" I asked.

"I got it from a movie," Abbie said with a mischievous giggle, slicing her steak apart. "No sense wasting God's time when there's dead cow to be had."

I shook my head in amusement. "Where have you been all my life?"

"Speaking of which," Stanley said, "how did the job interview go?"

"What does that have to do with beef?"

"I guess if you want to be particular, it doesn't. What, are you dodging the question?"

"I'd like to. I didn't get the job."

"Why not?"

"I just didn't get the job." I glared at Stanley, hoping he would get the signal: please don't press this further. Don't make me explain what happened.

Whether he missed the signal or deliberately ignored it doesn't much matter, but he did indeed press further. "What did they tell you about why you didn't get the job."

I stuffed a forkful of meat and potatoes into my mouth, buying myself some time.

"You're only making it worse for yourself," Stanley scolded, taking the opportunity to spear himself some green beans from a bowl in the center of the table. Abbie sat mutely, looking at her plate, looking as if she was equal parts curious about the answer and sorry for how awkward I felt.

I swallowed and then met Stanley's eyes again; he looked back impassively, a slight smile on his face, as if he knew what he was going to hear. "You really want to know it all?" I asked him.

"Sakes alive, Eli, I asked if they told you why you didn't get the job. Why are you being so evasive?"

"Alright. He told me that I had a weak handshake, that I didn't make eye contact with him, that he felt like I doubted myself and didn't believe in my ability. He told me I didn't have any self-confidence."

"Do you think he's right?" Stanley inquired.

"I don't have anything to be confident about. Nobody's given me the time of day in this job search so far. Why should I walk in there like I expect him to hire me?"

"You're making your confidence a prisoner to your current circumstances," Abbie observed. "You're basing your opinion of yourself on other people's opinion, whether or not they'll hire you."

"What else am I supposed to go on?"

"Look, Eli," Abbie said gently, "I like you a lot. You're funny, smart, and I'd enjoy getting to know you more, maybe even date you. But you don't know who you are, and I can't date a man like that. You're missing something crucial at your core. You can't give yourself to me, or any other woman, if you don't believe that you have something worthwhile and valuable to give."

I pointed angrily at Stanley. "Did you bring her here to tell me this?"

He shook his head. "Eli, what do you see when you look at me?"

"What does this have to do with anything?"

"Answer the question, please."

I sat back in my seat, flinging my fork onto my plate. "Fine, I'll humor you. I see a fiftyish black man, who spends a lot of time helping people, who's friends with pretty much everybody, who takes his faith seriously."

"Okay, so I'm someone who helps people. The times when you've refused my help, has that changed the way I treat you, or the way I think of myself?"

"No..."

"Because I know who I am, even if you don't agree with me. That's what you don't have."

"How do I get it?"

Abbie leaned in. "You can't tell yourself who you are. Someone else has to tell you."

"But I thought you just told me that was my whole problem, me letting other people tell me who I am."

"Not other people. One person. God. He's the one who made you, so he's the only one who knows what you're really like, who you're really supposed to be."

I scowled, not expecting God to be brought into the conversation. "I'll think about that."

"Alright," Abbie said, not wanting to push too far.

"You need to know," I told Stanley, "that if it weren't for all the kindness you've shown me, I wouldn't be listening to you right now. You obviously believe in this God business. I don't, but I have to admit that your actions make me wonder."

"That's how it's supposed to be," he said. "Now, why don't you and I finish this conversation some other time. I think we need to enjoy each other's company, get some laughter up in here."

"I would like nothing more," I agreed.

With that, Stanley launched into a hilarious story about some of the misfortunes he'd had while traveling the world on missions trips. Abbie and I were nearly in tears we were laughing so hard, and at one point I actually fell out of my chair and lay on the floor, in the fetal position, unable to even breathe. Abbie chimed in with a story of her own, and I shared a few from college. Several hours later, refreshed and full of good food, Abbie and I took our leave, and stepped out of the apartment.

"I had fun with you tonight," Abbie said, brushing her hair back behind her ears.

"I always have fun with me."

She laughed, looking up at the fluorescent lights in the ceiling and shaking her head. "Hey, are you coming on the hiking trip this weekend?"

"Yeah, I am. I didn't know you were."

"Surprise! I guess I'll see you then."

"Take care of yourself, Amy."

Abbie winked, then moved in for a tentative hug, which I returned, unsure what was happening, but not wanting to offend her. "See you, Eli,"

I stood, leaning on my door, watching her disappear down the hallway. I could hear Stanley still banging around in his apartment, hauling dishes into the sink, running the water to rinse them off. Part of me wanted so badly to go back and ask him what he had been talking about. Yet a bigger part of me was still hesitant, scared maybe, unconvinced that what he was saying could possibly be true.

I stared at the door of his apartment, which was still cracked open. Going in to talk to him would be as easy as that. Two steps forward. But I didn't go. I turned around and went back into my own room. Try as I might, though, I couldn't get his question out of my head.

Who was I?
Chapter Six

Saturday dawned bright and clear; it couldn't have been a more beautiful day. The cool temperatures of earlier in the week had gone, and the weather reports were calling for a high in the sixties. At around nine, we stood outside my Tahoe, which Danny had asked me to drive. I had attempted to protest that there wasn't enough gas in it, but he had waved me off, insisting on paying for it, and I hadn't argued. There was one change from earlier in the week; Jarrius wasn't going to be able to join us, having something he had to attend to before noon.

Elizabeth, Abbie, and I made small talk as we waited for Danny. "How did you get started guitaring?" Abbie asked.

"I was in high school and wanted to be in a band," I explained. "You have to understand the town where I grew up; there was absolutely nothing to do. A lot of my kids were into drugs, not because they really liked it but because it was the only interesting thing happening on the weekends. I wasn't really into all that, I was more of a loner –"

"I have a hard time picturing you as a loner," Abbie interjected playfully, layering on the sarcasm.

"Most people do; it really comes as a shock to them," I said, playing along. "Anyway, music was more my thing, listening and writing, and I wanted to be in a band. I picked up a bass because my friends were starting a band and didn't have a bass player, taught myself how to make noise with it, and transitioned to guitar the next year. And look at me now."

"How cool is that," Abbie marveled. "I've always wanted to play."

"It's easy to learn."

We were cut off by Danny bursting out the front door with a plastic bag in his hands. "Alright, guys. I made us some sandwiches, and packed a few chips as well. Anyone have a backpack?"

"I do," I volunteered.

"Want to carry some bottled waters?" he asked. "We'll want them when we're out hiking."

"Yeah, sure. Load me up."

In a matter of minutes we were headed west, further west than I'd ever been in my life. I was amazed how quickly, once we were out of Fort Worth, all signs of civilization disappeared except for a road, and all we could see in either direction was scrub brush and almost-desert.

After a turnoff that took us through a few small towns, we turned in to Lake Mineral Wells State Park. Danny directed me on a winding road that took us to what appeared to be the back corner of the park, near the campgrounds.

"This isn't the back of the park," Danny corrected me when I asked him. "The park itself goes back a long ways past here. There's about a thirteen-mile loop we could walk, if we wanted to, that would bring us out on the far side of the park. But we're going for something a little less ambitious today."

"My feet thank you in advance," Abbie told him.

"I'm sure they'll be complaining regardless when they see what I have in store for them," Danny grinned deviously. "Actually, it's not too harsh. We're going to go about two and a half miles out to the primitive campground. I'm thinking about camping there next time I come, and I want to see what it's like."

"Sounds decent," I agreed. "Let's hit the trail."

Elizabeth led, with Danny behind her, Abbie third, and me bringing up the rear. I was struck, as I walked, by the incredible beauty of the place. Thinking back on it, I'd lived in beautiful places all my life. Indiana was world-renowned for the stunning change of color in the fall, when the trees abandoned green in favor of a million shades of orange, yellow, and red. I could almost see, in my mind's eye, the late fall sun pouring through the trees into our backyard, where I played in the leaves. I didn't even know whether that event had ever happened or whether I just dreamed it, but it seemed as clear as day to me. Lost in thought, I tripped over a branch and barely caught myself before I went down.

"Do you walk often?" Abbie teased.

"It's a new thing for me," I replied, wobbling my knees and taking a few exaggerated, hesitant steps. "Can't for the life of me see what it might be good for."

Laughter filled the woods, bouncing off the trees and coming back at us from every direction. "Actually," I told her, "you just caught me daydreaming."

"About what?" She glanced back at me, curious.

"Keep your eyes on the trail," I cautioned.

"Thanks, dad."

"You're welcome, Amy."

"Ohhhhh, you..."

"Amy?" Elizabeth asked, perplexed.

"He keeps calling me Amy Grant," Abbie protested.

Danny and Elizabeth burst into laughter. "That's terrible, Eli," Danny chuckled.

"Seriously, though, what were you daydreaming about?" Abbie demanded.

"Just about the beauty of this place, you know? About all the beauty I should see in life, but seem to miss. It's like I'm so busy thinking about other things that I don't appreciate what's right in front of me."

"Truer words have rarely been spoken," Danny affirmed, testing his footing on a place where the trail sloped down.

"You got it?" I asked, wanting to make sure he didn't trip.

"I'm fine. Keep talking."

"Well, that's pretty much all I was thinking. Just about beauty."

"It's a beautiful world," Elizabeth agreed. "All the colors, the shapes, the blue of the sky. God's really an artist."

"Thank goodness he's a better one than Picasso," I shrugged.

Abbie giggled. "You're too funny."

"Well, I'm serious. If I had arms coming out of my ears I'd be a little upset."

We lapsed into silence after that, content to just walk and enjoy the weather. The overhanging trees shaded us from the sun; it was probably under sixty degrees in the forest. I was perfectly comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt, breathing in the cool air and sighing gently.

Walking quietly was, of course, something I was quite comfortable with, but I was surprised that the other three didn't feel the need to fill the time with banter, or even continue the earlier conversation about beauty. To me, it seemed as if there was something that one of them wanted to say, but for whatever reason hadn't.

Gradually the trail wound away from the lake and into an odd savannah of grass, runty trees, and abundant small cactus plants. Danny still led, confidently. Nobody spoke; it was almost as if there was an unspoken agreement not to spoil the beauty around us with the clumsy sound of human words.

Abruptly the trail made its way back into woods and over a small wooden bridge, and we were at the primitive campsite, a small circle of dirt patches. No grills, no benches, no parking spots; this was the closest people could get to being back in the stone age, except for whatever gear they brought with them. Danny led us into one of the clearings, and we sat in a circle, waiting for Danny to extract our lunches from his backpack.

I passed out bottled waters from my own bag, looking up through the canopy of leaves to where the blue sky hung above us. "What do you think of this place?" Danny asked me.

"It's nice," I nodded, looking around at the trees and rocky dirt. "Lot different than Indiana, that's for sure."

"I don't really get why you hate that place so much," Elizabeth said.

I shrugged, unwrapping my sandwich. "I don't know. I just didn't like being there. The winters were long and brutal; we couldn't go outside. Even during the summer I couldn't wait to get out of there."

"Yeah, but why?" she pressed.

"I'm not sure I can say. I just didn't like being there."

Silence descended on us once again as we made short work of our sandwiches. Finally Abbie turned to me. "What do you want most in life?"

"What is it with you people and your deep, philosophical questions out of nowhere?" It came off harsher than I wanted; I wasn't angry, merely annoyed.

"I don't think it's out of nowhere at all," Abbie retorted, defensively. "It's the kind of thing everybody should have thought about, and everybody should have an answer ready whenever the question comes up. How are you going to be happy in life if you don't even know what you want?"

"Who says you have to want something? Why can't you just be happy with whatever life gives you?"

"Are you happy with what life has given you?"

I looked down and mumbled, "Not really."

"Have you ever been happy with what life has given you?"

"Maybe."

"Obviously not, since you just finished explaining why you hate Indiana so much. I'm guessing you probably didn't have very many friends there, nothing to make it worthwhile for you to stay. So now you're here, and you're living life the exact same way you always have, the way that made you miserable in the first place, and it's going to keep making you miserable unless something changes."

There was anger in her words, but it seemed like it wasn't directed at me. I didn't know how to respond, so I kept staring at the dirt, waiting to hear what she would say next. She was right. I knew she was right, just as I had known Stanley was right the night before. I just didn't know what that meant for me.

"Do you think we're happy with life?" Danny asked me gently.

"You sure seem like it."

"So what's different between us and you?"

"You have a job, for starters."

"Is getting a job going to magically make you happy?"

I hesitated. "No."

"Then let me ask you again. What's the difference? Why are we happy and you're not?"

"I suppose you're going to tell me that your faith has something to do with it."

"More than something. Everything." Danny waved his arm at the trees over our heads. "Where do you suppose all this came from?"

"God, I guess. I have no problem with that."

"Yeah, but why did he create it?"

"I don't understand."

"Unless you believe that God does random things for no reason, then he must have had a reason when he created the universe, and again when he created us as individuals. If he had a reason for creating us, then that means he created us with a certain purpose. If we're not living out that purpose, then we're going to feel in our hearts like something is wrong, and we're not going to be happy."

I wanted to argue with Danny, but the words just wouldn't come out. I was thinking about Wednesday night, about his testimony, about all the crazy things that had happened in his life – and now, at the end of them, he was happy. What did that mean?

"Fine," I said. "For the sake of argument, why don't you tell me what this purpose is."

"The purpose is to worship him, and to love each other," Elizabeth said instantly – not like she was reciting a memorized answer, but like she was simply putting into words something she already had deep in her heart.

"And that's what makes you happy?" It sounded a bit boring to me, to be honest.

"Not totally," she admitted. "But it makes me satisfied. It makes me feel like I'm being who I'm supposed to be."

"You can see the proof of it," Danny observed. "Look at the way we've treated you since you moved in."

"I've noticed. It feels good to be treated that way. But you're also the only people I've ever met who have done it, and I've met a lot of Christians."

Danny put the plastic bag from his sandwich back in his backpack. "That's a discussion for another day. There are a lot of Christians who don't really live the way we do, but that doesn't diminish the truth of what we're saying. I bet if you were to ask them, they'd feel like there was something missing in their lives too, because they're not doing what they're supposed to do."

"Maybe." It was possible they had a point. I did have to admit that the four of them – Danny, Elizabeth, Stanley, Abbie – certainly looked like they were satisfied with their lives. Whether or not they were right, they obviously believed they were, and it really made a difference that even I, unspiritual as I was, could see clearly.

We spent about an hour scouting out the primitive campground for a future camping trip, then headed back to the Tahoe. We walked in silence again, just as we had on the way out, and in a matter of a few hours we were back at the truck, which seemed to be leaning back a little.

I circled around to the driver's side, and sure enough, the rear tire was flat. Discouraged, I dropped my backpack onto the ground, and set about retrieving the spare. Danny chipped in, helping me jack up the car, wrestle the lug nuts off the flat, and hoist the spare onto the axle.

I said nothing as I changed the tire, but my mind was spinning. That would be another hundred or hundred and fifty dollars down the drain. I couldn't keep hemorrhaging money this way, but things kept happening, and I kept losing money.

Silently I got behind the driver's seat and pointed the truck back toward Fort Worth.

Chapter Seven

I pulled back into the apartment parking lot a few hours later to see Stanley, Jarrius, Julius, DeRon, and Willy coming out the front door, decked out in shorts and basketball shoes. Stanley saw my truck coming and said something to the others, pointing, and they stopped, obviously waiting for me to disembark.

Saying a hasty goodbye to the others, I headed toward Stanley. "Hey hey, son," Stanley told me. "Want to play some ball?"

"Always," I answered. "Give me a minute to change."

It was maybe four in the afternoon by the time I bounded out the front door again, the sun about even with the tops of the trees in the west, and the six of us headed toward the park.

"How was the hiking today?" Jarrius asked. "Sorry I missed it."

"It was good. Great weather for it."

"Good. Maybe I'll get out there with you guys next time."

"Yeah, that'd be nice."

We arrived at the park, the floodlights illuminating the basketball courts and playground. "Jules and I are captains," Jarrius announced. "I want Eli first."

Surprised, I didn't move at first. Why was he picking me, after the way I had behaved the last time out? Okay, I had apologized, but surely he couldn't have forgiven me that quickly. I wouldn't have, if someone had treated me with that kind of disrespect.

But as I looked at the others, it seemed like I was the only one who was surprised. The others just watched me expectantly, waiting for me to move to Jarrius' side, which I did, giving him a smile and a slight nod.

"I'll take DeRon," Julius said.

"Willy."

"Stanley."

"And that's teams," Jarrius said, rubbing his hands together. "Let's do this."

I guarded DeRon, and I played very well, but my heart wasn't really in it. Something really unnerved me about the way these guys were determined to include me. It wasn't unwanted, just so alien that it made me uncomfortable. People weren't supposed to just forgive people who had disrespected them. Trust was supposed to be earned back. Yet here it had been freely given.

DeRon blew past me and put in an easy layup. I put my hands on my hips, frowning at the ground. "You alright?" Stanley asked. "You didn't even try on that one."

"Yeah, man, I'm just tired. Walked a good five miles already today."

"Sounds like an excuse to me," DeRon said, tossing me the ball. "Your move."

I got the ball from him and instantly drove to the basket, drawing DeRon and Stanley toward me, then passed the ball back out to the free-throw line where Jarrius was waiting to put up an easy shot. The ball sank easily through the hoop, barely brushing the net on its way down.

"That's more like it," I said, satisfied.

"Luck," dismissed DeRon. "Guard this, if you can."

He tried a feint down the left side, but I backtracked, staying between him and the goal. I gave him too much space, and he put up a jumpshot, which just drifted over my outstretched fingertips, clanging off the rim before dropping in.

"Also luck," I insisted. "My turn again."

"You know there are four other people playing this game," Julius reminded us. "It's not the Eli and DeRon show."

"Yeah, yeah," I said, taking a stutter-step toward goal and getting behind DeRon, dropping a late bounce-pass between Julius' legs, which Willy scooped up and converted to a layup.

DeRon took the ball, and tried to get past me, but I was too close to him. He swung his elbow, trying to switch hands and go the other direction, but his elbow caught me in the face and I dropped to one knee, holding my nose.

"Sorry, brother," he said, kneeling next to me. "You alright?"

"I'm fine," I said insincerely, feeling blood drip between my fingers, anger rising in me. Yet along with the anger came a strange sensation, like something else inside of me was second-guessing me. I wanted to lash out, to hit DeRon back, "accidentally," just to get even, but for some reason I found myself thinking about the mercy they had shown me during our last game, and about the questions I had asked myself at Stanley's apartment just the previous night, about who I was, and why it wasn't who I wanted to be. I made a decision in that moment, that I wanted to be a friend to these men, that I wanted to repay their kindness. I stood up, looked DeRon in the eye, and extended my left, non-bloody hand. "Cool?"

He stared at it for a long moment, as if he was surprised at what was happening. But he took my hand, looking back at me. "We cool, man."

"Good." I hunted around the court for a stray napkin or paper towel, but couldn't find any, so I stepped off the concrete and sat down on one of the benches that lined the courts, letting blood spatter onto the hard ground.

The others started playing Horse, waiting for me to come back, but my nose wouldn't stop bleeding. I leaned forward, squeezing it and breathing through my mouth, but the blood seeped through my nostrils and fingers anyway.

Five minutes later, it looked like I was done bleeding, but I still wasn't about to go back on the court and put my face in the way of anyone's elbow again. "I'm heading home," I told the guys. "Thanks for the game. Maybe we can finish another day?"

"Yeah, we'll come get you next time we're going to play," Julius said. "Thanks, bro."

"Peace." I headed back toward my apartment, glancing up at the row of streetlights, then down at the patchwork quilt of light they spread on the sidewalk where I walked. Light, shadow, light, shadow. Another half mile or so and I was pushing in the front door of the building and thumping up the stairs.

After fumbling with my keys, I opened the door to my bedroom, which made an odd scratching sound, like it was dragging something on the ground. Cautiously, in case the door was broken, I pulled it closed, and found a fat envelope on the floor. I kneeled and looked it over, perplexed, wondering where it had come from and how it had gotten through the narrow space between the door and the floor.

Was it even mine? Could I open it? The envelope was plain, unmarked. I stared at it for a few moments before finally deciding that I might as well see what was inside it.

I slowly tore the top off it, peering inside, at a huge wad of money and a plain piece of paper. There had to be some mistake. I unfolded the paper and turned on the light to read it.

"Dear Eli, we know you're short on money, so please accept this gift. Love in Christ, your friends from New Heart Church."

I sat back on the floor, staring in disbelief at the letter, then picking up the money and flipping through it. There were tens, twenties, even a few hundreds – it had to be at least a thousand dollars. They couldn't do this for me. I didn't need the money. Part of me wanted to take it, because it would definitely help me stop stressing as much, but I couldn't. I couldn't accept a thousand dollars. I had to give it back.

I didn't know exactly who was responsible for this, but I had a feeling that Danny would know something. I thudded up the stairs to the fifth floor, pounding on his door.

Elizabeth answered. "Oh, hey, Eli. Danny's gone. Can I tell him you came by?"

"Maybe you can help me. I found an envelope with money in it under my door. I wanted to ask him about it."

"Money?" She frowned, confused. "I don't know anything about that."

"Danny didn't tell you he was putting something together for me?"

"No." I would have assumed she was lying to me, but she seemed genuinely caught off-guard. "I don't think he did it, Eli. I'm sure he would have told me about something like that."

"Alright. Well, if it's not a big deal, can you send him to talk to me when he gets back?"

"You got it."

I made my way back to my apartment, tossing the money on the kitchen counter as if to distance myself from it. Maybe Stanley would get back so I could accost him. I was sure that either he or Danny, if not both, had something to do with it. Maybe I could take the note out and slip the envelope back under Stanley's door.

More than anything, though, I was completely baffled that anyone from the church would even think to collect money for me. Surely there had to be more important things they could do with that kind of money, some people truly in need who could have benefited more. Why, with all the needs they must have known about, had they picked me?

Perhaps Stanley knew that I was going to be waiting for him, or perhaps he was genuinely delayed in getting back, but either way, by midnight he hadn't showed up yet. Neither had Danny, for that matter. At that point, I decided I'd better go to bed. I was pretty tired, and I would have to get up in the morning anyway to play the music in church. There would be time to clear things up with Stanley and Danny soon enough.

The morning dawned bright and cold, frost on the inside of my window, the kind of morning where anybody with half a brain would rather just stay hibernating under the covers until spring comes around again. Strange as it was, though, I was almost looking forward to church, or at least to playing my guitar again. I showered and, feeling snazzy, even shaved, before heading upstairs again.

As I walked down the long hallway toward the meeting room, it struck me just how much had happened in the last week. It seemed like my life had begun on the day I had moved down here; all the things that had happened since then were vivid memories, strong emotions, and all the things from before were like they'd happened to a different person. I had been to the depths of frustration and helplessness in that first week, and lately, I'd known kindness and acceptance like I'd never felt before. Something was happening here. I just didn't know exactly what yet.

For the second week in a row, I took a deep breath and walked through the door into New Heart Church.

Part Three

Chapter One

"Good morning," Danny greeted the eighty or so people who faced him. "Isn't it a beautiful day in God's house?"

Murmurs and nods answered him, and he smiled. "Great. Please stand and worship with me."

Jake rapped his drumsticks together four times and we launched into an upbeat song. Practice had gone well; we had felt like we were together, and I was beginning to feel more confident with the music. Danny had told us in practice that how good the music sounded wasn't the point, but whatever, I didn't want to play if I wasn't going to play my best.

Thankfully, though, we were able to play with energy and precision, treating the church to a display much better than the one they had witnessed last week. I made eye contact with Stanley partway through our set, and winked at him, letting him know I was glad to be up there.

At the end of the fourth song, we left the stage, and I sat next to Jake a few rows from the back. Danny was talking about blessings, and about how the best of God's blessings were reserved for the people who knew him and did what he wanted. It was a decent enough talk, and I didn't quite get why Jake was scribbling notes to himself so furiously. I was content to just listen and appreciate Danny's way with words.

We took the stage one final time for a slower, instrumental song at the end of the sermon, giving me a chance to fiddle around a bit and play some ambient, ethereal-sounding riffs. When Danny was done with that, we played an energetic instrumental piece as people filed out of the meeting room, talking and laughing.

After we finished, I was putting my guitar down when Jake said, "Hey, Eli."

"What's cracking?"

"A couple of us are going to go out for lunch. Want to come with?"

Indecision grabbed me, and I chewed on my tongue, not sure what to say. The old excuse that I didn't have any money wasn't going to fly anymore, not after last night. Of course, I was still going to give that money back the second I had the chance, but even if I kept it, I wasn't going to spend it on stuff like fast food.

"Wait a second," Jake said. "Stanley told me how to do this. I should have said: come on, we're going."

"Stanley's sharing his tactics for strong-arming me now? That's good to know."

"Yeah, well, it's going to be good food. If you make me strong-arm you, then I'll do what I have to do."

"Grand." I wanted to be annoyed, but it just wouldn't come. "Mind if I ride with you?"

"Heck no you can't ride with me. We're going to buy you lunch, but we're going to make you drive yourself." He burst out laughing. "Follow me."

On our way down to the parking lot, I asked, "What's your story, Jake?"

He turned toward me, flicking his hair out of his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Where are you from? How'd you end up here in this building?"

"Heh. It's kind of funny." He pushed open the front door of the building, and I followed him toward the parking lot. "I grew up in North Carolina, kind of a hillbilly actually. Hunting, fishing, hiking, four-wheeling, that was me. Dad got a great job offer in San Antonio; he's an investment banker and his firm was opening up a new branch office. We packed everything and moved out here, only to have them tell us they were changing their minds and that they weren't opening the branch at all, but that he could have a job at their branch in Fort Worth if he didn't mind taking a demotion. He said fine, and we lived here in this building since we didn't know how long we'd be here and didn't want to buy a house. Dad stayed here a couple more years, then took a transfer back to North Carolina just a few months ago."

"Why'd you stay?"

We were to his truck by this point; he unlocked it and we both climbed in. "I love Carolina, man, love it like you would never believe. But I haven't lived there in ten years. All my friends are gone. I love the mountains, but mountains aren't worth moving someplace for, not when I'd be leaving behind friends as good as the ones I have here."

"So you're willing to build your whole life plans around a couple of people you go to church with?"

"Yeah, man." He turned to look at me, starting the truck, which rumbled confidently to life. "That's what life is about. There's nothing more important than good friends and people you love, man, nothing. At all. That's the only thing worth planning around."

"Hmm." I didn't really know how to respond. "So...what do you do for a job?"

"Investment banking, same as my dad. I got a master's in finance from Texas Christian University recently."

"Sounds pretty neat."

"It's crazy tedious, unless you really like spreadsheets. But it pays well." Jake looked both ways and then pulled out of the parking lot. In the rear-view mirror I could see Danny, Elizabeth, and a few others coming out the front door.

"How well?"

"I make about a hundred grand a year."

My jaw dropped open. "And you still live in an apartment? That's absurd."

"I'm telling you, Eli, I wouldn't want it any other way. Even if I could have the biggest house on earth, I wouldn't want it, because it wouldn't replace the community I have in this building. There's nowhere else in the world I want to live."

I shook my head. "I still can't believe that."

Jake shrugged. "Besides," he added with a mischievous smirk, "having that kind of money gives me the freedom to be very generous with it. Know what I mean?"

"It was you! The envelope under my door yesterday, that was you!"

He chuckled. "Not all of it, no. Everybody pitched in a little, but most of it was mine. I bet you just about pooped your drawers when you saw it."

"Take it back. I don't want your charity."

"It's not charity, Eli. Besides, think of it from my point of view. I make a lot of money. God has blessed me with an amazing job. There's no way I could possibly spend all the money on myself. What am I going to do with it, if not use it for other people? Don't get me wrong; everyone in the building gives till it hurts. They buy cars for people, they pay rent for people who are short, they really go out of their way to shower everyone with love. But God has definitely blessed me with the ability to go above and beyond. I'm really grateful for the chance to use my money that way. Don't insult me by trying to give it back. Don't deny me my ministry."

I had no response when he put it that way, so I merely nodded once. "Alright." A long minute passed before I added, "Thanks. I really do appreciate it."

"I know you need it, Eli." I tried to object, but he cut me off. "I know you don't want to think that you need it. You're fine, you just need a job and then you'll be standing on your own two feet, etcetera. Everyone says the same words when they're in that position. But you can't tell me you didn't sleep better last night, without having money to worry about."

"You're right," I admitted. I'd never known anyone who thought of money the way he did. Part of me thought there had to be something wrong with him. He passed up a nice house and the rich life to live in a two-bedroom apartment in the ghetto of Fort Worth? Something was radically different about his decision-making priorities.

After a few minutes on Interstate 30, we exited and went south a few blocks, ending up at a place called Riscky's Barbecue. "These Texans know their barbecue," Jake confided as we pulled the front doors open. "Not as good as North Carolina, mind you. But it's good stuff anyway."

We got set up with a table for eight, and it wasn't long before the others filed through the door: Danny, Elizabeth, Abbie, Jarrius, and Julius. Oh well; seven was almost eight. Jake ordered some kind of family style meal for all of us, that ended up coming with a bunch of different kinds of barbecue, side items, and rolls. It was so good that conversation at the table ceased, by unspoken agreement, while the seven of us chowed down.

"Dear Jesus, thank you for meat," Abbie murmured.

"Amen," I added, winking at her.

She smiled back, barbecue sauce smeared all over her mouth and the end of her nose, and I couldn't help but laugh. It wasn't the mocking kind of laugh, more the kind that just acknowledged that we were sharing good times together. She grabbed my shirt sleeve, trying to wipe her face on it, and I fake-stabbed her with my fork a few times. "Back, foul sauce beast! Back, I say!"

She giggled, and we looked up to see that the others were staring at us. I broke into a wide smile. "What?"

"Y'all are weird," Elizabeth said, shaking her head and stabbing another piece of brisket.

"I don't think we ever claimed otherwise," I said, looking to Abbie for confirmation.

"Well, we might have," she said, grinning. "Who knows."

Once we were so full of barbecue that even moving to the front door seemed unlikely and dangerous, we sat back, making small talk for a while. Jake was keen on the idea of going to a Dallas Mavericks basketball game sometime in the coming week, when they would be hosting Jake's other hometown team, the Charlotte Bobcats. I was interested in going, too; despite growing up just a few hours from Indianapolis and Chicago, I had never been to a professional game, and I was curious to see how it looked in person.

Half an hour later, our stomachs had deflated a bit and we made for the exits. "Want to ride back with me?" Jarrius asked.

"Sure, man. I see you all the time but I feel like I barely know you."

Julius sat in the back seat of Jarrius' Escalade. "Everyone here has trucks," I observed.

"What, this thing? Got a good deal on it, our cousin sells cars. Plus every black dude drives a black Escalade, you know this."

I laughed. "Shows what I know. Indiana was all white hillbillies. This really might be the first time I've ever been in a car with a black guy."

"Serious?" Jarrius looked sideways at me for a long time, like he was waiting for me to say I was yanking his chain.

"I'm for real. I graduated high school with two hundred white folks and a Hispanic girl."

"Lord have mercy." He pulled out of the parking lot, shaking his head.

"That's one of the great things about this place, though. I've really never seen all these different races and cultures just meshing this way. I mean, my college had people from other countries, but the only time we all got together, the only thing we talked about was race."

"Kind of like you're doing now."

"Ha. I guess so. But it's cool. You guys, all of you, just enjoy each other's company."

"That's cause race isn't what our relationship is based on. The thing that binds us is Jesus, brother. That's what it's all about."

"Still, it's cool to see. And I appreciate you guys being willing to include me in your basketball games, too."

"We enjoy it, man. We really do. You've given us a chance to show you the love of Christ, so thanks for that too."

I nodded. "You guys gonna play again soon?"

"Maybe later tonight. We'll come get you if we do."

"Thanks."

Jarrius pulled up in front of the apartment building and I climbed out, waving to him and Julius, before going back upstairs. I unlocked my door, stepping inside, closing it behind me, and looking at the envelope of Jake's money on my counter.

How incredible it was that, of all the places I could have ended up, I had landed, by luck or by some bizarre form of providence, among friends like these. If Danny and Elizabeth weren't imagining things, if the testimony they had told me the other night really was the truth and God had been providing for them all along, maybe he was doing the same thing for me now. I couldn't imagine why he would want to do a thing like that, seeing as I hadn't given him the time of day in my life except to halfheartedly plead for a job last week, but clearly something was up. I could safely say that my curiosity was piqued.

Chapter Two

I felt industrious that afternoon, tired of being cooped up in my apartment with no money and nothing substantial to accomplish. With that in mind, I hunted down the CDs that Danny had given me to review, and sat down to listen to them.

The first was some kind of generic Christian pop-sounding music. It sounded happy enough, upbeat, and the singer's voice – a woman – sounded clear and confident. In terms of technical quality, it was very good; in terms of being "good music," the way I usually thought of good music, it couldn't have been further away. A trained monkey could play those guitar riffs, those drum fills. The rhymes were generic, obvious, and clichéd. I couldn't help but be annoyed. Part of me hoped, at that moment, that I never reached the point where I wanted to be a Christian, because I didn't want to devolve into the kind of person who was satisfied with that kind of music.

I tabbed through the other tracks on the CD, then wrote what I thought about it, tapping my pen on the page as I proofread what I had just written. It was a bit harsh, maybe, but I had been tasked with reviewing the CD, and that's exactly what I had done.

I ran the paper up to Danny's apartment, and he opened the door, seeming surprised to see me. "Oh, hey, Eli. Come on in."

I did, plunking myself on his couch. A football game blared from his TV, the Cowboys versus the Eagles. "You a Cowboys fan?" I asked him.

"Can't stand them. My favorite team is whoever's playing the Cows this week."

I snorted, amused. "I'm sure there's a good story behind that."

"It's not really worth telling. I've just known a lot of jerks who were massive Cowboys fans, and this is my subtle way of sticking it to them."

"I thought you were supposed to love everybody, Mister Pastor Man."

Danny shrugged. "Nobody's perfect. What are you holding?"

I held it out for him. "First draft of an album review. Can you take a quick glance at it?"

"Yeah, sure." Danny sat, turning down the game and reading down the paragraph. It only took him a few seconds, and at the end he looked up, an eyebrow raised. "A little harsh, yeah?"

"I didn't think it was very good."

He handed it back. "Alright. That's fair. The only problem is that people aren't really going to be reading the magazine for the opinion of Eli Radak. They're going to be reading to find out about the album. Maybe you can spend a little more time talking about what was objectively good about it and what was objectively bad. You did a little of that, but it needs to be the bulk of the review. The harsh bits were funny, so try keeping the humor but not making it quite so abrasive."

"So, basically, rewrite the whole thing."

"I would, yeah. Don't be discouraged, Eli. This is the first one you've ever written. Nobody's ever told you how to do it before. It's my mistake for not having this conversation before you tried to write it. Maybe you can explain who would like this album and who would dislike it."

"Fine. I'll give it another shot."

"I'm serious, Eli. You look like you're starting to sulk. Don't do that. Just go back and make it better."

I had been starting to sulk, because nobody likes to be told that something they created is garbage. Danny had done it in the nicest way possible, but he had still told me that what I had done wasn't good and that I needed to redo it all.

Back on my bed, frowning, still in a cloud of annoyance, I set about rewriting the essay. I did exactly what Danny said: list of pros, list of cons, people who like pop and dance will probably like it, people who like more intense music will not. I re-read it, and I could see where Danny was coming from. The new piece was a lot less angry, and would be a lot more enjoyable to someone who wasn't me.

I thumped up the stairs again; Danny's door was already open, the football game back at its previous volume. Just as I went to knock on the door, Danny jumped up, pumping his fist. "Ha! Eat that!" He caught a glimpse of me out of the corner of his eye, and half-turned to look. "Whoops. That was embarrassing."

"I never pegged you as the guy who would go nuts over sports, Danno."

"There's a little surprise in all of us. Got a new article for me?"

"I do."

Danny read over it, nodding. "This is much better. This is something I would want to read. If you want I can type it up and send it in to my editors. They'll let me know soon, probably tomorrow, whether they want to publish it."

"Wow. That would be great."

"Now get back downstairs and start reviewing the other CDs." Danny shooed me out of his room, turning his attention back to the TV, and I lingered in the doorway just long enough to see him start arguing with the referee about a blown call.

I made it to my room, and lay on the bed, and felt uneasy. I couldn't put it into words, but I had a very strong sense that my life was passing me by, that the second hand was ticking while I sat there doing nothing. I wanted to do something. But I had no money, and no ideas of where to go to pass the time.

In college I had lived for these lazy Sunday afternoons, but that was only because I knew that when Monday came my life would have purpose, action, and direction again as I pursued my learning. Today I had no such promise; tomorrow would only be another aimless day, fruitless job search, and joyless sunrise. I couldn't stand it.

I could feel something tugging at the back of my soul, a kind of creeping depression that I hadn't felt since those first miserable days in Texas. It seemed so long ago, but barely two weeks had passed since I first moved in and met Stanley. I had heard and experienced so many things in that time, that it was as if I had lived a whole new lifetime. Even college, which had been the last five years of my life, up until just six months ago, seemed like it had happened an eternity ago to another person.

Not really knowing what to do, I found my legs carrying me back upstairs to Danny's apartment. I at least didn't want to be alone. Even if all Danny and I did was watch football – and I rather hoped that was all it would be, rather than one of those deep conversations he and the others managed to pull out of nowhere – I would be around another human, rather than quietly losing my mind alone in my room.

Danny seemed surprised to see me again. "Oh hey, Eli. I'm sure you can't have another review for me so soon."

"I don't. I was wondering if I could hang out with you for a while and watch the game."

"Sure thing, bud. Come on in." He waved me over and I took a seat on the loveseat where I had been the night we watched _Aladdin_ , the night he and Elizabeth had shared their story with me.

We watched football for a while, and much to Danny's glee, the Cowboys frittered away a substantial halftime lead, succumbing in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter. Satisfied, he sat back on the sofa, grinning wildly.

"You take way too much pleasure from their misfortune," I observed.

"Sports are good for that kind of thing," Danny replied. "They're getting paid fat wads of cash. They can handle me laughing at them when they fail."

"That's one way to look at it, I suppose."

"I have a question for you." He looked at me, and I had the terrible feeling that he was about to ask something profound.

"Shoot."

"Why are you here?"

I frowned. "What, here on earth? In Texas? In this building?"

"Well, all of those, but here in my room right now. This is the first time you've sought me out, or Stanley unless he neglected to tell me about it, for the purpose of spending time with us. I'm curious what changed for you."

"Why should I have to have a reason? Can't a man spend time with his friends?"

"While I'm honored that you call me a friend, I think there's something else going on."

Sighing, I tossed my arms in the air helplessly. "There's really no getting anything past you, is there?"

"People do things for a reason, Eli. Everything that every person does is done for a very specific reason. They might not know what it is, but there definitely is one."

"Okay then. I was feeling uncomfortable being alone in my room. I didn't want to be by myself."

"And?" Danny looked at me, and it seemed to me that he was delighting in my discomfort.

"And I felt like I was wasting my life." In a way I couldn't believe I was saying those words, but they were coming out anyway. "I felt...I feel...like I don't have purpose or direction the way I used to."

"I can tell you why."

"Let me guess. It has something to do with your faith."

"Yes. And no."

I closed my eyes; I wasn't in the mood for wordplay. "Explain yourself."

"It has to do with my faith, and the fact that you don't have it. See, Eli, you're – how do I say this gently? – spineless."

I had heard the same thing from so many people lately that I wasn't as offended this time as I might have been. "Okay."

"See, from the moment you walked into this building, we've peer-pressured you into doing things with us. I straight-up told you that Stanley advised me not to give you a choice. 'Just tell him to come,' Stanley said, 'and he'll do it.' And he's been right."

"What's your point?"

"The point is that you've done exactly what we've told you to do, because you're weak and passive. Think about this, Eli: what if we had been bad people?"

"I don't follow."

"What if, instead of inviting you over for dinner, Stanley had invited you to his house to smoke a bowl? Cause you know that guy doesn't take no for an answer. You'd be a pothead right now because you wouldn't have bothered to tell him no. You just do whatever people tell you to do, and I don't think you understand why."

"So basically you've been manipulating me into doing what you want me to do. That's what you're telling me."

"Yes."

The answer was so shocking and straightforward that I wasn't sure I'd heard him right.

"Yes," he repeated. "We've had to manipulate you into doing beneficial things, because you weren't going to do them yourself. You weren't going to reach out and make friends, do things with us, accept our help, on your own. Please, tell me I'm wrong."

"You're right," I admitted, a bit annoyed but curious about where all this was going.

"You ever watch that show where they do interventions for people who have drug problems?" He leaned forward, ignoring the TV, looking right at me.

"I've seen it before, yeah."

"It's kind of like that. That's straight-up manipulation, but it's okay, because it's something that has to be done. If I saw a child playing in traffic, I'd scold him for it, because someone has to say something to him, but that's just another form of manipulation. It's only a bad thing if you think that all manipulation is always bad, which is really ignorant."

I said nothing.

"Everyone does everything for a reason," he reminded me. "You do things because you're weak and passive and you let people push you around. We as Christians do things because God tells us to show his love and kindness to the people around us. And we'll stop at nothing to do so. We're like a steamroller of love."

I laughed, looking up at the ceiling. "Nice one."

He smiled, shrugging. "It's true. I just want you to know that I know where you're coming from. I know that you're a passive person and that you probably don't want to be. I know this because you've just listened to me tell you so and you haven't bothered to argue with me or defend yourself. You know there's something inside you screaming out for a change. You're just hesitating. You're not willing to accept it just yet. That's okay. We'll keep doing what we do, and when you feel like the time is right, we'll be here."

"Okay," I said simply.

"Looks like the Colts are coming on next," he said, turning back to the television. "You a fan?"

"Love them. Who are they playing, Houston? Tough game."

We watched football and talked idly, the way that sports make men talk, not about important things but constantly nonetheless. A few hours later, I thanked Danny and went home, feeling like something important had happened.

In a way it had been nothing important. To anyone who wasn't me, it would seem hilariously trivial: all I had done was go upstairs and start a conversation. Not exactly the kind of event that makes a bestselling book or a box-office blockbuster. Yet as I lay in my bed falling asleep, it seemed like today was one of the most important days in my life.

Chapter Three

Morning wrapped its cold arms around me as I blearily threw a blanket over my face to keep the insistent sun out. Frost painted the outside of the window, and breaths of cold air snuck inside the window, trying to keep me company inside my sleeping bag. It was one of those mornings where I wanted nothing more than to fast-forward to the next important thing that was going to happen – in this case, the Mavericks game in the evening. For some reason, I got up and out of bed anyway, standing under one of the ceiling vents near my door as it belched heated air down into the room.

The phone rang, and I lunged at it, hoping that it might be another job interview, second-guessing myself almost immediately, wondering why I was so excited about the idea of something that I would inevitably botch. A little disoriented by this sudden and unwanted barrage of thoughts that clobbered me, I hesitated, letting the phone ring one more time before putting my hand on it. "Eli Radak."

"Don't get excited; it's just me." My father's gruff voice grated on my ears, and I cringed.

"Hey, Dad."

"Are you going to come home for Christmas, or can I save a few bucks on a present?"

"Ah, I think I'm going to come home. We've always had Christmas as a family." Even as I said the words, though, I was busy wondering where I would get the three hundred or so dollars that it would take to drive the gas-thirsty Tahoe eight hundred miles home. I didn't want to use Jake's money for that, but I could.

"Guess you're right," Dad grunted. "Well, what do you want me to buy you?"

"I don't know, Dad. I don't really need anything." Actually I did – I didn't have a computer or a cellphone, but he wasn't going to shell out the cash for a computer, and I couldn't afford fifty bucks a month for a phone yet anyway. "Maybe just a little cash would be nice. I still don't have a job yet."

"Still? Good Lord, son, what's wrong with you?"

Stung, I bit my lip before answering him. "You know the job market, Dad, it's –"

"Whatever, son, figure it out. Do something that makes it so I don't have to apologize whenever I tell people I'm your father."

"I'll try," I told him. "Bye now."

Equal parts anger and shame washed over me as I carried some clean clothes into the bathroom, cranking up the water hot enough to chase away the chill in my fingers and toes.

A few minutes later, fully dressed, I pushed out the bathroom door and decided to get breakfast at someplace nearby. I had never been heavy, even at the bulk of my basketball fitness, and I hadn't been eating much at all the last two weeks. I was almost out of the meager rations I had bought for myself that first lonely night at the grocery store, and even when I had things in the fridge, sometimes the thought of one more plate of hot dogs in white bread was so unappetizing that it was more worth it just to go to bed hungry. I hadn't been on a scale, but I was pretty sure I had dropped a few pounds that I would have been better off keeping.

As I was leaving the building, I ran into Stanley, coming back from who knows where. "What's cracking, Eli?" he asked, wrapping me up in a bear hug.

Surprised, I squeaked something incoherent, prompting Stanley to release me. "What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"

"I was on the way to get some breakfast," I told him.

"Stand up straight," he replied.

I blinked a few times, then did so, tensing my back and unslouching. "Why?"

"Now look me in the eye when you're talking to me."

I did this too, and stared at him for a few moments, while his coffee-brown eyes appraised mine.

He nodded, smiling. "Make a habit of doing that. Anyway, you were saying."

"I was saying," I continued, "I'm on the way to get breakfast someplace. Got any ideas for me?"

"In fact, I do. You haven't been to Whataburger yet, have you?"

"I don't think I have."

"We'll just have to fix that in a hurry."

He steered me into his car, a brown Nissan Maxima, and in a matter of moments we were on Interstate 30 heading west.

"There's a Whataburger right there," I said, pointing out the window.

"I know," he replied, eyes still on the road.

Confused, I lapsed into silence as Stanley kept going, turning north onto Interstate 820. Where on earth was he taking me?

"What's that?" I asked, pointing off to the right at a runway butting up to a lake.

"That's the navy/air force reserve base," he told me. "We'll be back here in just a minute."

I was even more baffled than before, but sat back in my seat as Stanley took the next exit and pulled into the drive-through of a Whataburger just off the interstate.

"What looks good to you?" he asked.

"I dunno. Cinnamon rolls, I guess. And a Coke. Here's some cash for it."

"I got it." He pulled out his own wallet.

I scowled out the window. "When are you going to stop paying for stuff?"

"Probably about the time it stops bothering you."

A few moments later, I clutched my bag of breakfast while Stanley pulled out of the parking lot. But he didn't get back on the interstate, sticking instead to the frontage road that ran alongside it. We had just gone under an overpass when Stanley slowed the car to a halt, looking up at the sky.

"Get out," he ordered, and I did, the crisp chill of the morning embracing me. The sun hung lazily in a cloudless sky, so brilliantly blue that I couldn't help but marvel at it. Winters in Indiana had been dull and dingy gray. This was spectacular.

"You asked about the reserve base a minute ago," Stanley told me. "You ever go to the airport and watch planes when you were a kid?"

"Yeah, sure. Everyone does."

"We're going to do it again." Stanley perched himself on the trunk of the car, feet on the back bumper, looking east across the lake.

As if on cue, a giant C-130 cargo plane thundered overhead, the roar of its four piston engines washing over us. It banked gracefully, defying its size and the pull of gravity, sailing over the water before dancing gently onto the runway.

"That was pretty awesome," I admitted.

"You know it."

We watched, fascinated, as the C-130 taxied off the runway, replaced by a pair of F-18 fighters. The screaming whine of the jet engines was audible all the way across the lake as the fighters throttled up, launching toward us, and tearing right over our heads so low that I could swear I felt the heat from the engines.

My ears still rang as I looked over to Stanley, grinning and giving him a thumbs-up. He nodded knowingly, then glanced back at the runway where a duo of F-16s were lined up for launch. Down the runway they blasted, banking up and away, chasing the two planes that had just taken off. For the next half-hour, the planes dodged and soared across the sky in a mock dogfight, while Stanley and I watched, necks craned toward the wall of blue that stretched from horizon to horizon.

The planes eventually worked their way further south, until they weren't visible or audible to us anymore, and I looked over at Stanley. "That was really neat. Thanks for bringing me."

"Anytime, son," he answered, stretching and putting his hands in his pockets. "I just thought you needed some reason to remember today."

"I don't get it."

"The Bible says, 'This is the day that the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it.' I think it's important to make every day memorable. Otherwise you're just wasting your life." He glanced at me, as if to see how I would react.

"I like the sound of that," I agreed.

"Everyone likes the sound of it. No one wants to live a life that doesn't mean anything, you know? But at the same time most people aren't willing to admit that they're living that kind of life right now."

"And you think I am."

"You've told me so with your own mouth, Eli. We talked about what was going to make you happy in life, and you said maybe a job. What's your goal for life? I don't know, you said, just to get by I guess. If your life was a movie, nobody would watch it."

I opened my mouth to snap back at him, but suddenly stopped, because I realized that he was telling me, in much nicer words, the exact same thing that my dad had told me earlier on the phone.

"Something wrong?" Stanley asked, seeing me suddenly go quiet.

"No," I lied quickly. "I was just going to say that I'm starting to get cold."

"So am I," Stanley replied with a warm smile, and I got the feeling that he knew I was lying but was going to let me get away with it this time. I never could predict that man.

We rode back to the apartments in silence; I was content to stare out the window at the houses and buildings where people lived and worked. I was still thinking about the things Stanley said, about it being really hard for a person to admit when his life wasn't what he hoped it would be. I could see subdivisions to the south, apartment buildings to the north, and I wondered how many of those people were really happy with what life had given them, if deep down in their hearts they weren't just a little bit disappointed with the way things had gone, compared to how big and bright and beautiful life had seemed back when they were five years old.

That was a really sad thought, and it made me want to burst into tears, thinking about all the people in the world who were discouraged but would never admit it to anyone, had just learned to live with the pain and the fact that all their best dreams had been systematically destroyed, replaced by mundane habit and a small house in a big city. And I was angry at God then, for letting so many people exist in such unhappiness, for allowing them to leave the big and beautiful dreams behind and settle for drudgery. I wanted to tell Stanley all this, because it seemed very important to me, too important to hold in, but I couldn't figure out what to say.

So I said nothing, balling my fists in silent frustration, as we pulled into the parking lot. "Here's your stop," Stanley told me, the car's engine still running. "I've got to go take care of some things. I'll be back in time for the game."

"What time are we leaving for that?"

"We're going to take the train again, so we'll probably leave here at 3:30. Catch the train around 4, be there by 5, game starts at 6. We'll figure out something to do till then."

"Cool. Thanks, Stanley." I started to shut the door, but I caught it, pulling it back open, leaning down inside the car and looking Stanley in the eyes. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," he told me, with a huge, white-toothed grin, before pulling out of the parking lot.

I watched him go, wondering about the thoughts I'd had and where they had come from. They seemed like things I should have thought before, things I should have known, things that were woven deeply into the fabric of life.

I climbed the stairs, brain still spinning a million miles an hour, and found a note taped to my door.

"Editors loved your review," it said. "Publishing next month. Fifty dollars. Congrats. Danny."

I re-read the note, then read it again. This was good news. I liked good news. Maybe there would be more following it.

Chapter Four

Just like Stanley had said, a knock sounded on my door at almost exactly three in the afternoon, distracting me from more album reviews that I had been writing. I'd been trying to reproduce the tone I had in that first one, balanced but with just a little bit of sass, and I thought I was doing pretty well.

It was Abbie at the door. "Hey there. Ready to go?"

"Almost. Just got to grab my shoes and jacket. You can come in if you want to." I didn't know why I told her that. I didn't really want her to come in and see how empty my apartment was.

But she did, and her eyes widened. "Oh wow. No wonder you told me to bring a lawn chair."

"What?"

"That first night, at the cookout. You told me to bring a lawn chair if I came up to your room, because you didn't have any furniture."

"I do remember saying that. Good memory, Abs."

She doubled over in laughter. "What did you just call me?"

"I called you Abs. You know, like the muscles in your stomach?"

"That might be the worst nickname I've ever had."

"Does that mean Amy Grant is back on the table? This is good."

She giggled, shaking her head. "You're unstoppable."

"I like to think so." Jacket on, stocking cap perched on my head, I shooed Abbie out the door and locked it behind me. "Let's do this thing."

We pushed out the front door, squinting into the sun, which dipped toward the horizon, bathing the streets and buildings in its golden glow. A crowd was already gathered in the parking lot: Stanley, Danny, Elizabeth, Jarrius, Julius, Willy, DeRon, Jake. I thought, as I walked toward them, how strange it was that after barely two weeks in Texas, I already had more friends than I'd had in Indiana after four years of high school or five years of college.

Twenty minutes, a car ride, and a short wait at the train station later, we were sitting in the Trinity Railway Express as it rocked and swayed its way toward Dallas in the growing twilight. I was looking out the window, watching the lights come on in the homes of strangers I would never meet, when I felt a hand on my shoulder and jumped in surprise.

DeRon laughed and slid into the seat next to me. "How's your nose, man?"

"Oh, it's fine. Stopped hurting about the time I got home."

"That's good. I didn't apologize to you for it."

"You don't need to," I told him, looking back out the window. "It was an accident."

"Yeah, but I'm still sorry. You're a pretty good shooter. You play in high school?"

"Yeah, four-year starter in high school, four years again in college."

"Four years in college?" I could see the reflection in the window as his eyes went wide. "You ever think about going pro?"

"Nah, I wasn't that good. I was just a big fish in a small pond."

"Gotcha. You'll like the game tonight. Mavs are killer."

"I'm looking forward to it."

The car was almost full by the time we pulled into Victory Station, pushing our way out of the car and through the throngs of people who gathered outside the American Airlines Center. I took in the whole site like a child seeing Christmas for the first time, mesmerized by all the people in jerseys, excited about a common cause. Passing through the turnstile into the concourse was like stepping into another world, a bright and loud world of people, more people than had lived in my hometown, all of them wearing green and white and blue.

Abbie grabbed me by the hand and dragged me toward the others, who were already walking away, toward the seats up in the top section. We climbed what seemed like a thousand stairs and finally found ourselves sitting in the very top row of the stadium, right on the half-court line, with a great view of the whole arena. I marveled at the whole sight, the newness and energy of it all. I'd never seen anything comparable.

The others made a bit of small talk for a while until all the lights went out. Excited screams and cheers pierced the dark, while the spotlight came on, tracing out the Mavericks logo on the wood floor, and the players ran out, high-fiving each other. My friends were going nuts, and so was everyone around us, and I watched them, fascinated.

The first quarter got underway, and I kept watching the spectacle, soaking up the intensity, the devotion to the team and the way people united to support five guys on a basketball court. Five guys, who most of the crowd would never meet, who might be playing for the other team next year, who might be tremendous jerks off the court. But on this night nobody cared. They were Our Team, and we were cheering them.

It was an electrifying feeling, having that much in common with twenty thousand other people, all cheering for the same thing, all our lives going in the same direction, if only for a little while. The Mavericks were pouring on the style, leading by fifteen points late in the fourth quarter, when I glanced over and saw Abbie cheering. She looked back at me and winked.

I don't know if it came from seeing her do that, or if it came out of nowhere, but a thought hit me in the chest like I'd jumped in front of the Trinity Railway Express. It was great and beautiful to be here, having something in common with these people, but it was something temporary, something shallow. In fifteen minutes we'd clear out of the building and I would never see nineteen thousand of them again in my life. We didn't really have anything at all.

But my friends, they did have something in common with each other, something even bigger, and something permanent. They had their faith. It held their friendships together, and it was what had made them embrace me. But I didn't have it. They were including me because they wanted to, because they felt like it was the right thing to do, but I didn't have the one thing that all bound them to each other. I was an outsider, an interloper, no matter how much they welcomed me in and made me feel wanted. Suddenly I felt very, very alone.

I must have gone white in the face or something, because Stanley leaned toward me. "You alright?" He had to shout over the roar of the crowd.

"I don't know," I told him.

He watched me for a few moments, but I had my head between my knees, not watching the game, oblivious to the fact that there was anyone around me.

A few minutes later, the final horn sounded, and the crowd stood and began filing out of their seats. My friends and I would be among the last people to leave anyway, so high up and so far from the exits, so most of my friends didn't notice that I was still sitting down. I felt sick. All the things that the others had told me, about not knowing who I was, about not knowing what I wanted in life, all the other stuff, it was bouncing furiously around the inside of my head, stronger now than it had been, and undeniable. I had no idea why it had waited until a basketball game, of all times, to crash down on me, but it had.

Not wanting my friends to see my distress, I stood, pretending I was okay, and mutely filed out behind them as they celebrated and high-fived strangers. Hands in pockets, I stood at the train station, wearing an insincere smile until I could get back and deal with these feelings in the privacy of my own bedroom.

"How was the game?" Jarrius asked me.

"Man, it was great," I said, with fake enthusiasm. "Never seen anything like it."

"You got that right. How bout them Mavericks!" Around half the people at the train station with us hooted their agreement.

We filed on to the train, which sailed westward into the night, carrying us back toward home. I ended up in a row by myself, staring at the window, trying to force down the feelings that had jumped up at me, unwanted, at the game. I had completely lost track of how much time had gone by when I felt a gentle heave in my seat: someone had sat next to me.

It was Abbie. "How's it going over here?"

"Oh, it's good. Just looking out the window. I still have a hard time getting over how gigantic this place is."

"It's pretty huge," Abbie agreed, looking past my face at the maze of headlights and taillights along the toll road next to the tracks. She seemed to hesitate, as if she wasn't quite sure how to say what she was thinking. "I realize this might sound a little strange, but I feel like God is telling me to talk to you when we get back."

"God wants us to talk," I said, sounding more skeptical than I intended. I didn't mean to push her away; I just didn't want anybody close to me while I was dealing with volatile emotions. "Why can't we talk now?"

She stood up. "Never mind."

"Wait." The word was out of my mouth before I knew I was speaking. She looked down at me, hurt, and I couldn't believe how selfish I was, how my foolish words had brought pain to one of the only people in my life who had ever truly been close to me. "I want to talk to you. I mean, I'd like to talk when we get the chance. Tonight."

"Okay." She didn't sound convinced, and I watched her move up a few rows and sit next to Elizabeth, glumly staring at the dirty, chewing-gum-speckled floor.

I bit my lip, furious at what I had done to my friend. I didn't have too long to beat myself up, though. The whoosh of air brakes and the gentle lurch forward told me that the train was about to pull in to our station.

Chapter Five

Out of the train we poured, moving in a blob across the parking lot toward our cars, through night air that wasn't anywhere near as cold as it should have been for that time of year. I guessed it was maybe fifty degrees, definitely cold enough to require a jacket, but not bad enough to make it unpleasant to be outside, not even cold enough to see our breath.

Abbie and I sat side by side in the back of Stanley's Nissan for the ten minutes it took us to get home. Once there, we ducked inside the front door of the apartment building, into the common area that housed the administrative offices and lobby. "Where do you want to talk?" I asked Abbie, hoping that she still wanted to, that my childishness hadn't put her off. The thought of that made my stomach clench. After what had just happened at the game, I felt like I really needed friends, like I should cherish what I had. But I couldn't explain why I had pushed her away on the train. I kept wanting to be a certain way, kept wanting what my friends had, and kept finding that I couldn't make myself actually be that person.

"Let's go to the park," she said, looking at me hopefully.

"Outside?"

"Yeah. Come on." She grabbed me by the shoulders and steered me out the front door, past Stanley, who raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

Abbie and I walked side by side, down roads that were deserted by now, almost one in the morning. The streetlights poured circles of gold onto the sidewalks, guiding us toward the park, where Abbie abruptly turned off the road, into the grass, and I hurried after her.

She walked to the center of the park, the clearing in the middle where the canopy of trees parted and the sky was visible, and she stood there looking up, as if she expected at any moment to be sucked into the stars. I stepped up next to her and followed her gaze; not too many stars were visible here in the middle of a city, but it was beautiful nonetheless.

We stood, enjoying the silence and the chill and each other's company for a few minutes, and finally, I broke the silence. "You wanted to talk?" My voice sounded abrasive, clumsy, in the stillness.

"Yeah," she said, and we both sat down. She took a deep breath, as if collecting her thoughts, and then looked at me. "Actually, no. I want you to talk."

"What?"

"I just feel like there's a lot on your heart that you need to talk about. I enjoy being around you, but it seems you're using humor and banter to keep me from getting close to the real you."

"How do you know the humor and banter isn't the real me?"

"Don't be dense, Eli. I was in the room when you told Stanley about your job interview. I know there's stuff you're hiding from me, from everybody. Everybody's got stuff like that."

"Do you?" I was half genuinely curious, and half just trying to change the topic.

"Sure. I'll tell you what they are, if you want. But God is already working on those things in me. He's not in you, because you've never made the decision to let him. That's why I'm concerned about you. You have to get his help for those things, or you can never get rid of them."

"How do you know? I'm not dumb, you know. I'm sure I could work it out on my own if I wanted to."

She shook her head defiantly. "No, Eli, you can't. You already tried. You did the best you could, and you created all these problems you're currently having. Your best is not good enough. Your way is a failure."

I opened my mouth to protest but the words seemed to vanish into the night air before I could give voice to them. I wasn't arguing because I disagreed with her; I was arguing because I knew she was right and I didn't want to face the truth. An impossible weight settled onto me, and I laid back on the grass, staring up at Orion's belt, suddenly buried by memories. The night at the grocery store, buying hot dogs and white bread because I couldn't afford anything else. The job interview. Hearing Danny and Elizabeth's story. Keeping Stanley at arm's length when all he wanted was to help me. Fighting with my parents. Not being able to take Jake's charity. Sitting in the arena just a few hours ago, looking at all my friends and the bond they shared, and being sick to my stomach because I didn't share it too.

Everything that had happened to me since I arrived in Texas had been steering me this direction, to the point of brokenness, to the point of realizing and having to admit that I wanted, needed, this thing that my friends had. I couldn't run from it anymore, but I didn't know how to stop running. I'd run my whole life. Keeping people away from the real me, putting up a front, that's who I was and what I did. How could I ever be anything else? How could anyone say, with any kind of certainty, that I could ever have this better thing that they all kept dangling in front of me?

"Here's the deal," I heard Abbie saying. "Each one of us does exactly what you're doing. We all go through life trying to do the best we can, trying to handle things ourselves. We try to build a life that makes us happy. But the thing is that God already has a life for us, and when we choose our life instead of his, we're rebelling against him. That's called sin. And what you're finding out right now is that sin is painful, because the life you've chosen for yourself doesn't satisfy your heart, does it?"

Mutely, I shook my head.

"We believe that God loves us all so much that he sent part of himself to earth, as a man named Jesus, who lived a perfect life – he never rebelled against God the way we have – and then he died, and God raised him from the dead. His death and resurrection made a way for us to get back to God, to have that rebellion erased, so we can approach God completely forgiven. You don't have to understand how all that works right now. You just need to know that you can turn your life back over to God. You can tell him that you're willing to live his way, and that you want to repent, which means not living your own way anymore. And it's as easy as that. You've already seen what your independence has done to you, Eli. I think you need to make the decision, tonight, that you don't want to be independent anymore. You want and need to be loved."

Involuntarily the tears came then, wet and cold on my cheeks. How could anybody love me? What could that God want with me? The objections tried to keep coming, but the need was stronger. I couldn't do it anymore. "Okay," I told her, feeling like I should say more, but not being able to form the words.

"Why don't you go home," she suggested, "and tell God what's on your mind. Then we can talk some more tomorrow."

"Okay."

We walked, elbow to elbow, back toward my building, where we said a quick goodbye. I paused outside the door, watching Abbie drive away, before staggering up to my room and flopping onto the bed, not even bothering to take off my coat.

And laying there in bed, it was as if the roof was lifted off my room. I could see in my imagination the whole giant city, slumbering in the purple dark, each house filled with people who had cares and problems and worries and dreams and hopes, and far above them was God, reaching down to them, arms outstretched, longing to do all those crazy things that my friends had been telling me about. I could see it as clearly as I've ever seen anything. And then I felt God reaching to me, whispering my name, and for no reason that I could understand, telling me that he loved me and wanted me to love him too.

It was time to stop running.

Part Four

Chapter One

Many people who hear my story mistakenly think that night is the climax and everything else is kind of an extended wrapping up of loose ends. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was still a wreck, I still didn't know who I was, my parents still didn't like me, and I still had no job. If that prayer was supposed to be a climax, it was a pretty terrible one.

That's what I woke up thinking, in fact, right before I noticed that my nose was freezing. I was used to a little bit of cold creeping in through the window, but this was full-on frigid, as if the heat in the building wasn't on at all. I glanced over at my clock to see how late I had slept, but the clock's face was blank. The power was out.

I pulled the sleeping bag up as far as it would come, but now that I had noticed the cold, I couldn't un-notice it, and it started creeping inside the bag with me. I wriggled out of it, then unzipped it and wrapped it around myself like a giant shroud. Changing clothes, I stepped out of my door, looking to see if Stanley was home. He wasn't, but as I stood staring at his door, I heard a voice from down the hall. "Hey, Eli!"

It was Elizabeth, bundled up like she was about to go skiing, and waving me toward her. "Want to come upstairs and hang with us? We're having a no-power party."

"I should shower first," I said, running my fingers through my bed-head.

"No power means no warm water," she reminded me.

"Never mind." I'd just have to deal with the muffled laughter. My bed hair could be pretty extreme.

"No one else has showered either," Elizabeth said over her shoulder as we started climbing the stairs. "I kind of like it this way."

"What, smelly?"

"No," she chuckled. "Unpretentious. When you shower, you do your hair, you're putting on a front. People see you the way you want them to see you. I think there's something really neat about all of us just being how we are, you know, not dressed up, no makeup, no nothing. Just us, honest us."

"I don't know about all that."

"Maybe you will one day."

Suddenly I realized: she didn't know about my encounter with God. Abbie was the only one who had any idea, and Abbie probably wasn't here. I was the only one in the building who knew. I felt like I should probably tell them, but I didn't know what to say. It would be weird to just blurt something like that out in front of everybody.

We walked through the open door of Danny and Elizabeth's apartment. The couches in the center of the floor had been pushed to the walls, and in the center were Stanley, Danny, and Jake, huddled around a deck of playing cards.

"Morning, Eli," Danny said.

"I prayed last night," I blurted.

"Did you?" he asked, surprised but interested.

"Yeah. Abbie and I went out after the game and she talked to me about how I need God, and so I prayed." It sounded silly when I said it that way, but I had said it. Even as the words were leaving my mouth, I felt very strange, as if something inside me was already different; I wasn't prone to just opening up and sharing things like that with people, but here I had done it, barely thinking twice.

There was a sort of stunned silence, and then Stanley stood up. "You're for real?"

"I'm serious."

Before I could blink, Stanley had wrapped me up in a bear hug, actually lifting me off my feet and swinging me around, laughing like a child on Christmas day. The others, as well, were grinning ear to ear, delighted. I couldn't figure out what the big deal was. I had only done what I needed to do.

"You know how to play spades?" Danny asked me, shuffling the cards that had been on the floor when I walked in.

"Never heard of it."

"I'll show you." He started dealing out the cards, patiently explaining the ideas of following suit, breaking trumps, and winning tricks. It looked fascinating, and I watched as the first game played out.

What I noticed, as I watched them, is that the feeling I'd had the night before – was it really only the night before? It seemed like a different lifetime – that feeling of lacking the thing they had in common was completely gone. I felt like I belonged with them now. It seemed inconceivable to me that a little prayer, a decision, could spark that feeling in me. I felt a creeping unease, a feeling that I was in over my head and didn't understand very much about what I had just gotten myself into.

But as we all sat on the floor, blankets and sleeping bags wrapped around us like we were children again, there was no denying what I felt, unless my feelings were going haywire on me. That thought stuck in my head, and it became a source of discomfort to me, because it brought to mind just how much of this was about feelings and emotions. Those were not things that I typically did well with. But, when I looked back on it, everything that had brought me to this point was based on feelings: my desire to belong, my frustration at not finding a job, my need to feel loved. Was it possible that those were the things about life that were true and reliable, and that all the other things, the things I'd built my life around before now, were the distractions?

I really needed to talk with someone who could tell me what to think, because my world had been turned upside-down, and I didn't know what any of it meant.

But soon those thoughts took a backseat as Elizabeth handed her pile of cards to me and left the apartment to run to the grocery store for some ice, in case the things in the refrigerator started to go bad. "So wait a minute, why don't we just go to a place where there's power?" I asked.

"And skip out on the chance to spend time together in community?" Danny asked.

"Oh. I didn't think of it that way."

"Don't take this wrong, Eli, because I don't mean it as an insult," he said, laying his cards down and looking at me. "But you're going to find a lot of things changing for you, especially the way you think and the priorities you have. Friendships, relationships, those are of paramount importance. You can never, ever pass up a chance to spend time with people or tell them how much they mean to you."

"I see."

"So we might be cold together, but we're together, and that's more important than not being cold."

"Yeah, but couldn't we be warm together?"

Here Jake interjected. "I think there's a lot to be said for getting away from the 'comforts' of modern life, you know? If the power was on, we'd probably be watching the TV, paying attention to that and not to each other. If we went to a restaurant, we'd be about the food. The mall, we'd be about the stores. So I kind of welcome whatever lets us forget about the outside world for a while."

"So you think this is a good thing?"

"Everything in life can be a good thing, if you want it to be," Danny told me.

I was going to protest, but suddenly thought about his story of being homeless for so long, and didn't say anything. If he wanted to say something like that, well, he had earned the right.

At that moment, the confident thrumming of the furnace sounded from the closet and fluorescent lights blinked to life overhead. I chuckled. "Looks like we can be warm together after all."

But we kept playing cards, deliberately ignoring the electronic gadgetry that was suddenly available to us. Momentarily, Elizabeth returned, toting ice that was no longer needed.

"Well, now," Danny announced, standing up. "We have a bunch of ice and no need for it. We have a bunch of meat in the fridge that has been warm for several hours and should be used very soon. What does this say to you?"

"It says to me," Stanley said, "that you're making us all lunch."

"I like the way you think," Danny agreed, pointing at Stanley.

Ironically, within half an hour of the power coming back on, we were once again out in the cool, standing in the garage that Stanley rented, where he kept his grill and a few large boxes of things that wouldn't fit in his apartment. Danny brought down beef and chicken, which Stanley grilled up expertly, and we all sat in the bed of Jake's truck, enjoying the meal and the day, which by this point had gotten up to a very comfortable sixty degrees. It was so absurd, so spontaneous, that we had just gone outside and started making lunch on a Tuesday. More surprisingly to me, I found that all the things I should have been worrying about, all the things that had been on my mind when I woke up that morning, were nowhere in my head, as if someone had put them on hold so I could simply enjoy what was in front of me. Again, it was a new feeling for me, unsettling in its newness but really comforting nonetheless.

We ate well, laughing and enjoying each other's company in the bed of a pickup truck. I didn't want the day, or even the moment, to end. It had been a long time since I'd had that thought about any day or any moment. If this was really what faith was all about for me, then I knew I couldn't get enough of it.

Chapter Two

Of course, that's not all of what faith is about, as I found out later that day when, back in my room and reviewing CDs, I was interrupted by the phone ringing.

"Eli Radak."

"Oh, hello son, how are you?" It was my mother. "How is Texas treating you?"

"It's going great, mom. I've made a lot of good friends here. And I decided to become a Christian last night."

"What? Eli, you're not going to become one of those Bible-thumpers, are you? What made you feel like you needed to do this?"

I wasn't sure whether to give her the whole explanation or not. Mainly I was worried that she might feel offended, because if I was totally honest, I would have to tell her that I had messed up my whole life chasing things other than relationships and a true identity. I had somehow learned that I was supposed to rely on myself and that it was wrong to accept other peoples' help. I could see a parent taking that the wrong way.

"It was just the right thing to do," I said, stalling for time. "I have more good news. I'm writing CD reviews for a magazine now, too. It doesn't pay much but it might be a foot in the door."

"Right, but why do you feel like you need to bring religion into this?"

I really couldn't understand where she was coming from. "I felt like there were some things missing in my life, and I've been talking to some Christians here, the good friends I told you about a minute ago, and they've really made me feel welcome. What they were saying made sense to me." I was amazed that, not even twenty-four hours before, I had been arguing with myself, trying to explain why I didn't want or need what my friends had, but having made the tough decision, here I was explaining to my mom why it really was the necessary thing for me to do. I didn't know much about God at this point, other than that he loved me, but he sure seemed to love some irony.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence on my mother's end, and then I could hear her breathe out heavily. "Alright. Your father wants to talk to you."

"Afternoon, son," my dad's voice greeted me.

"Hey, dad. You're not on afternoons at work anymore?"

"Nah, they moved your mother and me to third shift for a while. Anyway, what's this I hear about you turning into some kind of religious nut?"

"Nobody's a nut, dad."

"Whatever, boy, you know those guys don't have their heads screwed on straight. You saw them when we went to church on Christmas, the ones who raised their heads in the air and talked about Jesus like they knew him personally. Dude's been dead for thousands of years. Anybody talk to you about all that?"

"No, they didn't."

"Did you even ask? I bet you didn't. I bet you just jumped in without using your head, the way you always do."

"I'm getting an article published in a magazine," I told him, trying to steer the conversation back onto ground more favorable to me.

"Well, somebody give the kid a cookie. I suppose you're going to tell me you still don't have a real job yet."

"Working on that one, still. But I thought you'd be happy to know –"

"Know that I was still waiting for you to do something with your life? To turn into something other than the family embarrassment? Looks like I'm still waiting."

I thought the sudden silence was due to dad dropping the phone or something, and it took a minute to register that he had hung up on me. I couldn't understand the reaction I was getting from both my parents, or why they kept calling me if all they really wanted to do was gripe at me. I was sure there had to be an explanation – Danny had told me that everyone does everything for a reason – but what could it be?

So there I sat, profoundly disturbed, until three knocks sounded from my door. "It's open," I said, still standing at the bar and facing the telephone. I heard the shuffle of footsteps behind me and half-turned, but not in time to keep Abbie from tickling my sides, sending me sprawling to the floor and squirming away from her.

"That went better than expected," she said, grinning down at me.

"Good afternoon to you, too," I smiled, dusting myself off and springing to my feet again.

"How are you?"

"Fine." I had been looking at my pants, and raised my head to see Abbie staring into my eyes.

"You're not fine. We should talk over dinner."

"Abbie Grant, are you asking me on a date?" I wasn't being serious, just giving her a hard time, and trying to buy myself some time to get a hold on my emotions after what had happened on the phone.

But Abbie took the question at face value. "Would you like me to be asking you on a date?"

"I would be glad to go to dinner with you whatever the occasion," I assured her. "Let's worry about terminology some other time."

"Deal," she said, holding out her hand for me to high-five. When I went to, though, she slipped her hand out of the way. "Ooooh," she chided, "too slow."

"Oh, man. I just had flashbacks to third grade. Lead the way."

Abbie winked playfully, then turned to leave. On a whim, I grabbed her sides, and she spasmed to the ground with a squeaking laugh. She looked up at me, trying to pretend like she was offended, but failing to mask the amusement.

"You're right. That was pretty fun." I offered my hand, and when she went to take it, pulled it out of the way. "Now we're even."

Abbie laid back on the floor, hands over her face, laughing at the both of us. Finally I did help her to her feet, and laughing together, we thumped down the stairs toward her car.

"What do you think of Whataburger?" she asked, starting her car and shifting into drive.

"I just discovered it a few days ago," I answered, "and I approve."

"That settles it!" She eased the car out of the parking lot and, in the midafternoon sunlight, headed south toward the interstate.

At first, I was trying to think of something to joke with her or tease her about, but the only thing I could think of was how grateful I was for the talk we'd had the night before. "Hey, thanks for everything you said last night."

"You're welcome."

I realized she didn't actually know what had happened after I'd gone back to my room. "What I mean is, I decided to become a Christian."

Her head snapped sideways, and she looked at me for so long I was sure she was going to go flying off the road. "Seriously?"

"I'm serious. What, you're surprised?"

"I guess I am, a little, yeah." She faced the road again, allowing me to relax. "Don't take it the wrong way. You just acted like you weren't interested about spiritual things."

"Well, I wasn't at first. I don't know. It just seemed like something I needed to do."

"I think it was." A broad grin came over her face, lighting up the car better than the evening sun ever could. "I'm happy for you, Eli."

"I think I'm happy for me too, but truth be told I don't really feel that much different. I mean, Danny told me his story, and he made it sound like someone flipped a light switch and everything changed for him. I still feel like Eli Radak."

Abbie eased her car into the Whataburger parking lot, and a few minutes later we were heading to a booth with trays of burgers and fries.

"I hear what you're saying," Abbie said. "The stuff about still feeling like you, I mean, and not feeling like anything has changed." She chewed thoughtfully on a french fry before elaborating. "See, Jesus referred to salvation as being born again. You've probably heard people referred to as 'born-again Christians,' and that's where the term comes from."

"Makes sense. I never knew what that was all about."

"Now you do. But the thing of it is, being born again is both a one-time decision and a lifelong process." Her green eyes wandered to the window, watching as the sun bid farewell to the orange sky and ducked behind the row of offices and car dealerships to the west. "What I mean, and what Jesus meant, is that you've just made the decision to follow God, so in a way you've been born again. But in every other way, you really are just Eli Radak. You don't think or act like Jesus did, so in a way you haven't been born again. That second part is the lifelong process I'm talking about."

"Oh. Well, how do I do all that? Read the Bible and pray and all that?"

"Those things are part of it, sure. But I think what you really need to do is just live. I think that God will put you in situations that will build your character and teach you how to be more like him."

"I don't really understand what you're saying," I admitted, before quickly adding, "but thank you for telling me."

She grinned, tossing a fry toward me. "You just enjoy making my life difficult."

"I wake up every morning thinking of how I can do it better."

We both laughed, drawing some stares from the other people in the restaurant, but neither of us cared.

"Okay, let me say it plainly," Abbie told me. "The way you think and act now is broken. That's why you needed salvation. What God is going to start doing now is giving you chances to live his way instead. He's going to let things happen to you; some of them will be difficult. And when these things happen to you, you will have a choice – whether to respond to them the way the old you would have, or whether to respond the way God say to. That's how you get rid of your old instincts, thought patterns, behaviors, and whatever else. You were born and you learned those things as a way of making life hurt less. Now you have to un-learn them. That's being born again."

"I think I know what you're talking about," I agreed. "I was playing basketball with the guys last week when something happened that really upset me, and I felt that thing you were just talking about. I felt like I had to choose between the way I wanted to respond and some better way."

"Okay, so you know I'm not making this up," she said. "But like I said, reading the Bible and praying is really only half of the Christian walk. The point is to take what God shows you through the Bible and through prayer, and to actually let your real life be different as a result of knowing God. That's where you are now." Her eyes met mine. "I'm kind of jealous of you, actually. You almost get to start your whole life over again."

"It does sound really neat when you put it that way."

"Can I speak really honestly to you for a second?"

I fidgeted, not sure I wanted that. "Sure."

"Look at me."

I stopped playing with my food and looked into Abbie's eyes.

"You know what I'm about to tell you, but someone needs to say it out loud, so that you know it hasn't gone unnoticed. Your biggest problem is the way you view yourself. You've really embraced this identity of 'not good enough,' and it affects everything about your life. I was there when you told Stanley about that job interview you had. I know you've been having money problems. But you don't respect yourself, so you don't think anyone else respects you, so you assume that you don't deserve their attention. I hope that's one of the first things God changes about you. And I don't think you want to feel that way either."

My mind was wandering, thinking about the conversation I'd had earlier that day with my dad. I couldn't remember a time in my life when I hadn't felt like a failure, or when I had believed that I wasn't a burden on people. Abbie was right; I knew that. But I had no idea what it would look like to live any other way.

I was pretty quiet on the drive home, still thinking about all the things Abbie had told me. She, perhaps sensing that I was deep in thought, drove in silence, gazing out the windshield where the stars twinkled over the city we shared. We reached the apartment building, and both of us got out of the car, Abbie walking with me toward the door.

"Thanks for tonight," I told her.

She brushed her hair behind her ears. "I'm really happy for you, Eli. And I hope that God has something in mind for the two of us. Maybe a close friendship or maybe something more, I don't know. But I'm really glad he's put you in my life, and I can't wait to see where we go from here."

I smiled at her, then pulled her toward me and wrapped my arms around her. I could feel her heartbeat even through the sweatshirts we both wore, the gentle breeze of her breath on my neck. She pulled away and winked at me, then bounded down the steps and into her car. Smiling, I turned and let myself into the building.

As I climbed the stairs to my room, I still couldn't help but think about our conversation at Whataburger. Abbie was right. I wanted to feel wanted, needed, good enough. I knew I had felt that way my whole life, and I wanted to stop. I wanted God to fix that inside of me. I was willing to let him have control and change me.

It occurred to me that it would probably be a good idea to tell God this, so I pushed the door shut and laid on my bed, blinking up at the ceiling tiles. I didn't know if I was supposed to kneel to pray or if I could do it laying down, and I still didn't really have any idea how to pray at all, so I just told God what was on my mind. And I knew, somehow, that he heard me and that he was going to do all the things Abbie had told me about.

But what would that look like?

Chapter Three

The next day was Wednesday, which meant praise band practice in the evening. I spent the early part of the day writing more album reviews, hoping that Danny's magazine would like them. I enjoyed writing them, whether anyone else liked them or not, but I would only get paid for them if someone else appreciated them too.

That evening, with golden sunlight pouring in the windows of the church room, I sat on my amplifier and talked with Jake about the everything that had happened in the last couple of days.

"Man, that's incredible," he said, wiping his glasses off on his shirt.

"It is. And I should probably thank you for your part in it."

He waved dismissively. "I didn't do anything."

"Sure you did. The way you interacted with me was one of the things that convinced me you all were for real. The others, and you, all went out of your way to be friends with me, for no good reason except that I was there. And there's the small matter of your financial generosity too."

"I don't think I deserve any credit for that," he told me, putting his glasses back on his face and picking up his drumsticks. "But thank you anyway." It seemed to me like he didn't know what else to say, so he started tapping on the drum heads, tuning or pretending to tune them up.

Danny and Elizabeth came in the door, laughing together, and we got down to practicing. In our third week together, we were beginning to get a feel for each other; I felt like I could tell when Jake was about to do something on the drums, when Danny was about to unexpectedly repeat a certain part of a song.

It was also interesting that this was the first time I was playing praise music to a God I actually believed in and wanted to praise. I didn't pay all that much attention to the lyrics, focused as I was on making sure I got my own part right, but at the end of the practice session, I picked up one of the lyric sheets and sat on my amp, reading it, while Jake and Elizabeth filed out of the room.

Danny lingered behind, though. "Sounded good tonight, Eli."

"Thanks." I put the page down and turned my amp off, getting ready to go back to my room."

"You ever been on the roof of this place?"

I blinked. "What, this building?"

"Yeah. Come on."

Curious, I stood, following Danny out the door and to the other end of the hall. He stood for a moment, fiddling with his key ring in front of a locked supply closet door, before inserting his key and pushing the door open. Against the far wall sat a metal ladder, bolted to the wall, leading the way up to a trap door in the ceiling.

Danny pulled the hallway door closed, climbed the ladder, and unlocked and pushed up on the trap door. It clanged aside, exposing a slice of twilight sky and stars, and inviting a cool breeze into the closet.

"I should go get my jacket," I said.

"You'll be fine. We won't be up here long."

"How did you even get the key to this place?"

"Don't worry about it," he grinned down at me, hauling himself over the top and onto the roof. "Just get up here."

I pushed myself up the rungs, emerging like a prairie dog into the darkening evening, breathing in the gentle chill that whispered through the trees across the street. Danny was standing, facing downtown, where the lights in the skyscraper windows tried their best to push back the night. I moved up next to him.

He glanced over. "If you're ever looking for me and nobody knows where I am, this is a pretty good place to look."

"It's incredible up here." I could faintly hear the horns and sirens of downtown, drifting on the wind the three miles or so to where Danny and I stood.

"Sure is." He sat down on the rough concrete. "What did you think of practice tonight?"

"It went well. I'm getting more comfortable with things."

"How did it feel to actually mean the songs this time?"

I chuckled. "I definitely saw them a different way, this time."

"I thought you might. Have you ever tried writing your own?"

"Nah, not really."

Danny dug into his back pocket and pulled out a small, well-worn Bible. "You should try reading the Psalms sometime. It's a whole book of praise songs. I think it'd resonate with you."

"Thanks. I guess it's about time I started reading something in the book."

"It's pretty cool to read them out loud, too. Ah. Here we go." He had the Bible open to about the middle, and faced the city as if he was addressing the skyscrapers. "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it; the world, and all that dwell in it. He is the one who founded it on the seas, and established it on the waters."

Then he turned, speaking to me. "Who may ascend to the hill of the Lord, and who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who doesn't lift his soul or swear to an idol." He turned again, facing back to the city, and shouted, "Lift up your heads, oh you gates! Be lifted up, you ancient doors, so the King of Glory may come in! Who is this King of Glory? The Lord, strong and mighty!"

Danny's words echoed down the streets and over the railroad tracks, and I clapped once, twice. "Well done, Danno."

"You try it." He flipped a few pages, squinting until he found the one he was looking for. "I think the musician in you will sympathize with this one."

I stood and took the book. "Psalm 150. Alright." Something in the back of my head was telling me that I should feel silly, and it was probably right, but I was caught up in the moment and didn't care. "Praise the Lord," I read.

"Oh, come on," laughed Danny. "You sound like you're reading a road sign. Put some oomph in it."

"Praise the Lord," I oomphed.

"Better."

"Praise him in his sanctuary. Praise him in his mighty heavens." I looked up at the stars, twinkling at me in the dusk. "You up there!" I shouted at him. "Listen up! Praise him for his acts of power. Praise him for his surpassing greatness. Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet. Praise him with harp and...and leer."

"Lyre," Danny corrected. "Keep going."

"Praise him with tambourine and dancing," I continued. "Praise him with the strings and flute. Praise him with the clash of cymbals; praise him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord." I threw my arms wide with a flourish. "Praise the Lord!"

Danny applauded slowly. "Not bad. Not bad at all. Yeah, I think the Psalms are just the thing for you. Definitely read those and then try writing your own."

"I'm not sure I'd know where to start."

"Well see, it's hard for you," he said, taking the Bible back from me. "Cause you don't have anything to praise God for yet. I mean, you prayed for salvation, and that's awesome. But God hasn't actually changed very much in your life yet. He hasn't done all the crazy-huge things that make you respect and revere him."

"Abbie and I were talking about that last night."

"Mmhmm. All that stuff will come in time; don't get me wrong. When it does, you'll really be writing from the heart. Until then I think you should read the Psalms. Read the whole book a couple of times; get to know God better. You can write about his goodness and holiness and all that now, but you'll be writing from your head. Once you actually experience those things in your life, you'll be writing from the heart."

I nodded, not sure how to respond.

Danny looked over at me. "What do you say we get down from here?"

"I don't know. I kind of like the view."

We sat in silence for a few minutes, facing east, watching headlights wind their way between the buildings, hearing the faraway whistle of a freight train heading toward the stockyards. With the endless expanse of infinity above us, and the sprawl of concrete and steel below us, it was as if we were perched between earth and heaven. It occurred to me that I wouldn't have observed something like that a few days ago. Danny and Abbie had told me that God hadn't really started working on me yet, and I hadn't talked to him all that much or gotten to know what he was like, but there was definitely a new kind of spiritual awareness inside. I couldn't put it into words, exactly, but it was there, as if some hibernating part of me had awakened and was seeing the world for the first time.

It was then that another, less spiritual part of me observed that it was getting pretty cold up there, and I stood, shivering inadvertently. "I think I might take you up on that offer to go back downstairs."

"Suits me," Danny grinned. We descended the ladder, and Danny locked the trapdoor and supply closet behind us. "See you Sunday, if not earlier," he told me.

"You got it."

"Take this with you," he added, passing me the Bible we had read from.

"Alright. And I'll read the Psalms."

"You sure will. Later on, Eli."

I thumped down the stairs and found a package waiting by the door. Perplexed, I picked it up; my name was written on the front, so I tore it open to find a letter and a book.

"Eli – you weren't home so I dropped this off. Figure you need one sooner or later. Stanley."

The book was, unsurprisingly, a Bible, bigger than the one Danny had just let me borrow. The cover was a dark-blue leathery material, the pages so new they stuck together. I'd never in my life owned a Bible, and there I was holding one in each hand. For a moment I couldn't even dig for my keys to unlock my door; I just stood in the hallway, overwhelmed by friendship. I couldn't believe how often Danny and Stanley and the others thought of me, thought of all kinds of people. They seemed to spend so little of their time on themselves, yet they were the happiest people I knew. I ached for that.

Finally I managed to wrap my fingers around my keys and push open my door, turning on the overhead lights and making my way to my bed, where I sat on my sleeping bag and pushed Danny's small Bible open to the middle. I thumbed through a few pages until I found one psalm with a star next to it.

"Psalm 23," I said aloud. "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want."

I read the rest of that psalm, then the one after, then the next twenty. God sounded like someone I would enjoy getting to know, and indeed, I felt like I knew him a little better, like I'd just read an interview with him or seen a documentary about his life. In a way, I guess I had; that was kind of the point of the Bible. But I still didn't know what he had in mind for me.

My head was spinning a bit by that point, still chewing on all the words I had read, not sure what to do with it all, so I reached for my guitar. Being as I'd never written a praise song before, I really had no idea at all where to start. The obvious thing seemed to be taking one of the psalms I had read and putting music to it. Could I do that? Was there some kind of copyright on the words in the Bible? Whatever; the song would probably never be heard outside of my bedroom, so it didn't matter much.

I went back to the first one I had read, Psalm 23, and started strumming something that sounded a bit like the tunes we had been playing on Sunday mornings. A melody came soon after; I hummed it, then grabbed for a pen and paper to write down the chords I was playing. The whole thing came together in a hurry, and in a matter of a few minutes, I had a song, which I decided to leave titled "Psalm 23." I was pretty proud of myself.

With the melody still swirling around my head, I put my guitar back in its place and climbed inside my sleeping bag humming the song. A lot was changing for me, and it was changing very quickly. Abbie had said that I might experience a lot of conflict or difficult situations as God started changing me, but was it possible that all the things happening in my head were their own conflict? Everything I knew about life had just been turned on its head. What bigger conflict could there be?

I fell asleep with that question echoing in my mind.

Chapter Four

I hadn't looked at the clock before I went to bed the night before, but it had to have been late, and I was not amused when someone thumped on my door at around nine in the morning.

"Go away," I mumbled to my pillow, but the knocking persisted. "Go away!" I shouted.

Whether the visitor didn't hear me or chose to ignore me, it became pretty obvious that I was going to hear knocking until I got out of bed and made it stop. I swung the door open, bleary-eyed, and encountered Stanley holding a plate of cookies.

"You are not a morning person," Stanley observed.

"I didn't know nine o'clock came twice a day," I told him. "But I do like cookies."

He pulled them back. "Those are a bribe."

"A...bribe?"

"Yes. I want you to come to small-group tonight, at six in the church meeting room. If you do, I will bake you cookies tomorrow." He pushed the plate back closer to me, close enough that I could smell warm chocolate chips.

"Cookies," I repeated, wiping sleep crusties from my eyes. "But what makes you think I need bribing in order to come to small group?"

"I just want to make sure. I think you need to come, and I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to guarantee you show up."

By then I was totally mystified, wondering what kind of bizarre cult ritual they were going to do, but I figured that Stanley hadn't steered me wrong yet. "Alright," I agreed. "Small group for cookies. That's the bargain."

"Good. Now go back to sleep, son. You look terrible."

"Thanks." I closed the door behind me, but by then I was totally awake and I knew that my body wouldn't shut back down to go to sleep again. I sat down with my notepad to put the finishing touches on a few of the album reviews I'd been meaning to get back to Danny.

An hour later, I was finished, and sat there tapping my pen on an empty page, wondering what to do next. I felt like I wanted to say something about what was happening to me, to write down a little bit about how God had invaded my life through the friends I'd made. When I looked at what had made the difference for me, living in community with those people was what had made the difference. I spent a few hours crafting an essay about that idea, treating it basically like an extended journal entry, then slid it inside the back cover of my notebook to come back to later.

I spent the rest of the morning reading more in the Psalms, then the afternoon on a long walk near the apartment. By the time I got back it was almost six, time that the small group was supposed to start. I hadn't eaten yet, but I had misjudged the time and didn't have time to eat. Truth be told, I also didn't have the desire to eat another round of hot dogs in white bread. I hadn't been grocery shopping since Jake and the others gave me all that money, and although I had thanked him for it and accepted it, on a deeper level I hadn't really come to terms with the whole thing yet. I wasn't comfortable enough to actually spend the money he had given me. I could watch it sit in my bank account, feeling a little bit better that there was some kind of cushion there in case my car needed repairs or my aunt decided to stop paying her rent, but I wouldn't dream of using it to buy better food or even a few beanbags for my room – even though those were exactly the kind of things Jake had in mind when he gave it to me.

Thoughts like that were what reminded me that I was still badly broken, and that God still had an awful lot of work to do in me.

I swung by my room to pick up the Bible Stanley had given me and then climbed the stairs to the fifth floor. Upon pushing the door open, I realized that Stanley had not been lying. This really was going to be a small group. There were about ten chairs, already arranged in a circle, most of them occupied. I recognized Stanley and Jake; the rest of the faces were new to me.

"Right, let's get started," Stanley announced, as I took one of the empty seats. "This here is Eli. He's new to the faith and I hope you'll make him feel welcome."

I nodded, feeling awkward with so many eyes on me.

Stanley didn't let the moment dwell. "Right now we're doing our study of Nehemiah. You might remember from last week that his big passion was to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the wall there. So what I want to know from you, as sort of an icebreaker question, is: what is a time in your life when you faced some kind of opposition?"

So this was why Stanley had bribed me. It was a discussion group. I was expected to share things about my life with strangers. My friends were one thing; they had shown me that I could trust them. But who were these people?

Before I knew it, it was my turn, and sixteen eyes were on me again while I fumbled for something to say. "One time there was this guy in the college dorm who played his radio too loudly while we were trying to sleep. That was opposition, I guess."

"And how did you handle the situation?" Stanley asked patiently.

"Uh, well, it's funny you should ask," I said, trying to keep a straight face. "Someone took a trashcan from the bathroom, filled it up with water in the shower, leaned it against his door, and knocked. His room got flooded with fifty gallons of water."

Shocked laughs escaped a few people, and some of the others just frowned. Jake had his hand over his mouth, turning red, trying not to guffaw out loud.

Undeterred, Stanley asked, "Did it work?"

"Oh yeah, it worked like a charm. Didn't hear a peep out of him the rest of the year."

Stanley pointed at me and told the others. "Make sure you listen to Eli, because we're going to touch on that theme tonight. The way Nehemiah responded to opposition might surprise you in the same way that Eli's answer did. We might have to recalibrate our ideas about what turning the other cheek actually involves."

Now I was the shocked one, surprised that Stanley had found something worthwhile in my answer. But Stanley gave me a look, and somehow, I knew what he meant. "You snuck out of that one with humor," he was saying. The next time I would be out of luck.

He made good on the unspoken promise, too, about fifteen minutes later. "This is the point, only halfway through Nehemiah's book, that the wall is actually completed. Nehemiah is celebrating. So tell me, tell everyone, what's something that you did that you were proud of and that you thought was worth celebrating." His brown eyes swung to me immediately. "Eli, why don't you go first."

I didn't want to go first; I didn't want to answer at all, because nobody cared what I had done that I was proud of, and I especially didn't want to go first because I had no immediate answer. "I graduated college," I offered lamely.

"Did you celebrate?"

"Not exactly. Unless you count moving to Texas as a celebration."

"What else?" Stanley was still looking at me. What was he doing? He knew I hadn't done anything with my life. He had driven that point into me and it was one of the things that finally moved me to realize I needed God. So why was he making me say something that was going to embarrass me?

"I can't think of any others right now," I muttered.

"That's okay," Stanley said.

I stewed in anger as I heard the others talk about the things they had done, everything from winning a tennis championship to appearing on the national news. One of them had even saved a person's life by doing CPR. Graduating college should have been an accomplishment, and I should have felt blessed considering some people never got the chance, but I had put forth minimal effort and earned mostly C's. Graduation, in that context, didn't seem quite an accomplishment.

After the session was over, the others had filed out the door, while Stanley and Jake lingered behind. I didn't really want Jake around for the conversation, but I wanted to talk to Stanley sooner rather than later.

"Why did you embarrass me?" I demanded.

"That's a nice Bible you have there," he observed. "Where'd you get it?"

I dropped it on the ground. "Thanks for it, but that's not the point. You knew I wasn't going to have an answer to the question about what I'd done that I was proud of. We've had that conversation. Why did you push me like that in front of everybody?"

"Because you needed a push." He looked at me, calmly, and I felt very silly for being angry with him. "See, Eli, you have a self-esteem problem. That's one of the ways you're broken, so it's one of the things God is going to fix. And what that means for you is that you don't want to be seen as a failure, because you feel like a failure and you're afraid that you might actually be one. You're not, of course, but you're not at the point where you know that in your heart yet."

"That doesn't explain tonight."

"Yeah, Eli, it does. You should have told those people what you and I already knew, that you hadn't done anything important with your life. You should have told them that realizing that was one of the things that drove you to faith. That would have been an awesome answer. But you were too worried about what they would think when they heard you hadn't accomplished anything you were proud of. So you lied to them and to me. You ducked and ran instead of facing the truth. That's the lesson you needed to learn."

"Why not just tell me in private? Why make a fool of me in public like that?"

He laid his hand on my shoulder. "I didn't make a fool of you. I told you, the real answer was not anything you should ever have been embarrassed about. You made a fool of yourself because you were worried about how the truth made you look. I could have told you in private, but who knows whether you'd believe me. I'm pretty sure you'll remember the lesson now, though."

We stood there looking at each other for a minute, and I finally dropped my head. "Sorry."

"I'm sorry too, Eli. Maybe I pushed too hard. But I think that God is working in you, bringing your struggles to light so you can be healed of them. And I want to pray with you right now."

I saw Jake looking at us, trying to figure out whether to stick around or leave, and I waved him over. We sat, and Stanley prayed for me. Maybe I should have focused on what he was saying, but I kept thinking about what he had told me, about honesty and all that, and I knew he was right. I had a glimpse, just for a moment, of the kind of person I could be if I was convinced of who I was, convinced that I was valuable, and I wanted that.

That night, I laid in bed, humming again the song I had written. "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want." It sounded pretty, but he wasn't really my shepherd yet, was he? He hadn't gotten me to lie down next to still waters so I could rest, like the psalm talked about. But I got the sense that he was leading me there.

Chapter Five

I woke up the next day pondering how I hadn't applied for any new jobs in a while. Money problems had been off my mind for a while thanks to the generosity of Jake and the others, but that was only a temporary fix. Even the check from my album review, which would be arriving any day, was only fifty dollars. It was about time to get moving again.

It was also about time for people to start calling me back for interviews, but apparently they hadn't gotten that memo, because I came home disappointed and my phone stayed silent. Part of me wanted to go outside and enjoy the afternoon, but another part of me just wanted to lay on my bed plinking around on my guitar, and the second part was stronger.

I was still laying there plinking when someone knocked on my door around four in the afternoon. "It's open," I called.

The door creaked open and Abbie poked her head in. "Since when do you leave your door unlocked?"

"I don't know. I've been doing it lately, I guess. About the time I realized that nobody had ever knocked on my door who I didn't want coming in."

"Is that an invitation in?"

"Girl, get in here," I laughed.

"Actually, I've come with a proposition. There's a free outdoor concert at a place near here, and I want you to come with me."

"Music and Abbie Grant are two of my favorite things," I agreed. "Where are we headed?"

"Someplace on the south side of town," she told me. "You'll see when we get there."

"You're going to be cryptic like that?"

"Yeah," she said with a lopsided smile, "I am. And you're going to deal with it."

"Fine then," I said, standing up and putting my hands over my eyes, stumbling blindly toward the door. "Lead on."

I didn't hear her move, so I peeked between my fingers to see her shaking her head and giggling. "You're a riot," she said, heading toward the staircase. I pulled the door shut behind me and followed her.

A few minutes later, we were in her car, winding our way south along some road I hadn't been down before, over some railroad tracks and through residential streets. Finally we crossed one more set of railroad tracks and pulled into an almost-full parking lot.

"Now can you tell me what this place is?" I asked, as we got out of the car.

"It's a seminary," she told me, "like a Bible school, kind of."

"Oh wow. That sounds nifty."

"I imagine it is. It's also a cool place to walk around."

I could see why she said that. She was leading me toward an open yard, pocked by huge trees and flanked by elegant-looking brick and stone buildings. A stage had been set up and a large crowd was gathered in the open area, listening to a band playing what sounded like the same kind of upbeat praise and worship that we had been playing on Sunday mornings.

We stopped far enough away from the stage that we could still talk, but close enough that we could still hear strangers singing off-key near us. "This is pretty neat," I told Abbie. "Thanks for bringing me."

"Thanks for coming with." She watched the band, humming along to one of the songs. "So Eli, how many girlfriends have you had?"

I looked over at her, baffled. "That came out of nowhere."

"Nothing ever comes out of nowhere with a woman. If it seems random to you, all that means is that she's been thinking about it for a long time and never figured out how to ask it."

"You mean to tell me you've actually been wondering about that question?"

"Well, no, I've been wondering about the answer." She grinned impishly at me.

I laughed, looking into the branches of the tall trees around us. "You're unstoppable."

"I like to think so. But don't think you're dodging the question."

"The answer is a little anticlimactic. I've never had a girlfriend."

Now it was Abbie's turn to be confused. "Really? You never hung out with a girl in high school or college? Never got a bit lonely and dated someone for a while to take the edge off it?"

"No," I admitted.

"Well, why not? You can't just leave me hanging. Was it your choice, or was it that no one would date you?"

"What? You really think women wouldn't want a piece of prime Eli Radak?" The band was playing a song I knew, drawing my attention over to the stage.

Abbie let me be in my own world for a minute, but she plainly was not done with the conversation. "Come on, now. Why have you never had a girlfriend?"

"I dunno. I just really don't know. There weren't a whole lot of girls I've ever liked, and I've just never felt a strong desire to pursue any of them. I'm not sure I can say why."

"Interesting." Abbie watched the band, but distractedly, as if she was about to say something else.

"Danny once told me that everybody does everything for a reason. I'm curious; what's the reason you asked that question?"

Abbie stood for a moment, chewing on her bottom lip. "Let's take a walk," she said at last.

We walked away from the stage, toward the sidewalk that ringed the stone buildings. Abbie was walking quickly, aggressively, almost as if fleeing something. "Slow down, racecar," I chided gently.

"Oh. Sorry." Her eyes flitted around, taking in the trees, the leaves on the ground, the grass that was doing its best to survive the winter. "I feel like I owe you some honesty, Eli. I want to get to know you better, which means that I want you to get to know me better too. But I'm scared of what you'll think when you hear some of the things about me."

My heart was beating faster, nervous about what she might be about to say. I wanted her to say it immediately, but a family was coming toward us on the sidewalk, and Abbie waited for them to pass. "See, before I was a Christian, I had a lot of boyfriends. A lot of boyfriends. And we didn't exactly have pure relationships."

I watched her, waiting for her to continue, but she seemed to mistake my silence for a lack of comprehension. "I'm not a virgin, Eli," she said flatly. "I don't know how many guys I slept with before God got a hold of me. Maybe over a dozen."

I breathed out deeply. I'd never pictured cheerful, innocent Abbie Grant like that before. "Wow," I said, after a long pause.

"All I get is a wow?" I could tell she was uncomfortable, like maybe this was something she hadn't told very many people.

"I don't know what else to say," I confessed. "No one's ever told me something like that before. I mean, thanks for telling me. I feel honored that you would share something like that with me."

"Yeah. Like I said, I think I had to. You and I have talked in the past about hanging out, or going on dates or whatever, and I just really felt like it was time to let you know who I was in the past. It took a long time for me to forgive myself of all that, but I do feel like it's behind me. I was a different woman then. That was before Jesus changed me. But at the same time it was me, and it's the kind of thing that you have the right to know."

"I really admire your courage," I said. The irony was painful to me. Just the night before, I'd had an argument with Stanley because I wouldn't share things about my past that I thought reflected badly on me. Here was Abbie, so secure in her identity, so strong-hearted, that she would surrender that kind of information even without being asked, just to let me get a glimpse at her soul. "What do you mean that it took you a long time to forgive yourself?"

"Well, I don't know if you can identify." For the first time in several minutes, her eyes sought mine, and I could see how conflicted she was. It might have been the past, but the things she was talking about were still vivid memories. "For years, I hated myself because I'd done that. I knew someday I was going to have to stand in front of a man and admit that I'd whored myself out to anyone who would say the right words. I just couldn't stand myself. There was so much guilt inside me that I felt like it was crushing me. I felt like no one could ever accept or love someone who had done the things I did."

I couldn't imagine feeling that way, but I could see in my mind's eye a younger Abbie, standing in front of the mirror, looking blankly into a mirror and feeling nothing but disgust at what she saw. It was terrible even to think about. "What changed? How did all that go away?"

Another family was walking toward us, and we turned a corner, following the sidewalk down a residential street. "Well, like I said, God got a hold of me. As I started down my relationship with him, I learned that he loved me, and that he forgave me, and that he thought I was beautiful and worthwhile. He didn't hold my past against me. I was beating myself up for something that was already forgiven. Basically, I had to rest in what I knew. I knew the truth, and I was feeling things that didn't line up with the truth. I had to realize that my emotions weren't always reliable, and when they weren't, I had to take them captive to the truth."

"Wow. That's incredible." I was quiet for a moment, then asked, "How did you find out all that stuff about your identity? Like about God loving you and forgiving you?"

"Some of it I read in the Bible, and some of it people taught to me from the Bible. I know why you're asking me that. But I want you to say what you're thinking in your own words."

"Well, like you say, I've never had sex, so I don't have those kind of regrets to deal with. But I am...how do I say it, unconvinced of my own worth. I want to believe that I'm worth something but there's never been anybody in my life who told me that I was. I don't really feel like I know who I am. And I believe that God can tell me who I am, but I don't know where to start learning any of that."

"Just keep your ears and eyes open, Eli," she advised. "God's put us in your life for a reason. When you accepted salvation, God's spirit came to live inside you – I don't know if anyone told you that, but it's true. Since his spirit is in me, that means I sometimes say exactly what you need to hear. God gives me the words that will teach you or encourage you or rebuke you or whatever you need. So listen to the people who God is speaking through and you'll be fine."

"That's good to hear." But I was still wondering something else, so I finally asked it. "Do you ever still struggle with those things you were talking about? The regrets and stuff?"

"Not the regrets exactly, no." The corner of her mouth tugged down. "But...yeah, you know, there are a lot of days when I don't really feel desirable. I haven't had a boyfriend since I gave my life to God, and part of me wonders what's wrong with me and why it hasn't happened yet. It's almost like..." Her voice trailed off.

I felt like I needed to say something then; maybe it was that God spirit she had been talking about, or maybe it was just me wanting to say it. "I think you're beautiful," I blurted.

She didn't respond, and I saw momentarily that she couldn't respond; her eyes were wet and it felt like if she tried to speak she would just start crying. Her hand reached for mine and she squeezed, hard, her skin soft and warm. "Thanks," she whispered.

We walked in silence for a few minutes, through the long shadows of the afternoon, the sun peeking through the gently waving branches of the trees to our west. It was a pleasant kind of silence, not the kind that I felt any pressure to break. Before long we were back in Abbie's car, and she started the engine, but the car sat there idling. "Thank you, Eli," Abbie repeated. "I think I needed to hear that today. And I think God is going to do incredible things in you."

"Thanks, Abbie." I smiled at her.

"I have to get home," she said, brushing her hair behind her ear. "I made some other plans tonight and I'm already going to be late to them."

"Oh, I'm sor–"

"Don't say you're sorry. I'm really glad we spent the afternoon together."

"So am I."

The ride home passed in more of that pleasant silence, as we both looked out the windows at the town we called home.

Chapter Six

Either I had been tired the night before and forgotten to set an alarm, or I had turned it off without remembering. Whichever it was, I didn't end wake up until almost noon, angry at myself for wasting the day, ignoring the fact that whatever I would have been doing probably was not too much more productive than sleeping.

I really wished that God would hurry up and give me a job, not just because of the money issue, but just so that I would have something to do. Crazy and interesting things always seemed to come up and fill my time, but I still felt a bit aimless. I wanted to believe that God knew what he was doing – reading Psalms had given me a pretty strong impression that he did – but I still wondered somewhere in the back of my head if the problem was me.

I took my time getting ready and was almost finished shaving when someone knocked on my door. "It's open," I called over the buzz of the electric razor.

Somehow Stanley heard me and pushed his way into the room. "Afternoon, Eli. Want to come take a walk with me?"

I finished shaving, toweled the hair off my face, and stuck my head out of the bathroom. "Sounds great. Where are we heading?"

"Just around downtown. Got some friends I want to catch up with, and I figure you could use a little fresh air."

"I figure you're right. Let's get rolling."

I still hadn't gotten over how incredible it was to be outside, walking around comfortably, in December. This had not been the case back home.

That thought gave me pause; why did I still refer to Indiana as home? I didn't have very many friends there, I hadn't liked it when I lived there, and I never planned on living there again. It made no sense for me, some distant part of me, to think of it as home at all. Yet I still did.

"Stanley," I asked, as we walked east toward downtown, "do you ever think about any of the places you used to live, and still think of them as home?" I had no idea why I'd asked him. Normally I left my internal monologue on the inside where it belonged.

But Stanley cocked his head, a thoughtful frown on his face. "That's a good question, Eli. I've lived a couple different places and I have pretty good memories of most of them. Can't say I've ever thought of any of them as home the way I think of Fort Worth. And it's not even the city of Fort Worth, so much, as just the people and the relationships I have here, you know? If you all moved out, I'm not sure I would think of this city, or even my apartment, as home anymore."

"You all? You make it sound like I'm one of the people who makes this place attractive to you."

"Well, of course you are, Eli." He smiled, teeth even whiter in his dark face. "You cause me some headaches sometimes, but I love you and I think the building would be worse off if you weren't a part of it." I was silent for a moment, and Stanley laughed. "I know you have no idea how to respond to that statement so don't bother trying."

"Thanks," I said, relieved, and then attempted to change the topic. "Where all have you lived?"

"Ah, I was born in Pittsburgh, lived there for a while. When I was a teenager we moved to New Jersey, then after that I bounced around a bit, and ended up here about fifteen years ago. Didn't really have any special reason for choosing Fort Worth or that building, just knew a guy who got me a job working construction, so I did that for a while."

"When did you live in New York?"

He looked over at me very quickly. "New York?"

"Yeah. You told me the night of the cookout that you learned how to make that one kind of steak in New York."

"Right. Well, I don't think of New York as home, I'll tell you that."

It was a remarkably evasive answer from Stanley, who was usually such a straight shooter, and it caught me so off guard that I didn't know whether to follow up or not. In the end, I didn't. "So what do you do for a living nowadays?"

"I did construction and construction management for a long time until two years ago, when my mom died. She had a huge life insurance policy, and my brother, my sister, and I made out like bandits. I don't have to work anymore, which is why I spend all day helping people however I can."

"Well, that's cool, but what a terrible way to come into money."

"I'd rather have mom around, I'll tell you that honestly." He looked up at the skyscrapers, which we were almost underneath. I could tell he was seeing something in his mind's eye, remembering a woman he obviously cherished.

His answer meant something for me, though, that simply being unemployed didn't have to mean being idle. Maybe I could talk to him about that sometime, about doing something worthwhile in the meantime while I was waiting on God.

I still wanted to ask about the New York bit, but before I knew it he was knocking on the front door of a row house in the shadow of downtown. An older black woman answered. "Well hello there, Stanley Raines. Who's your friend? Come on in," she added without waiting for a response, "I've got some brownies in the oven for you."

We spent the next hour and a half talking with this woman, Stella, about a little bit of everything. I hadn't asked before the visit who she was, and only as we were leaving her house did I say anything to Stanley.

"Just a woman from around town," he shrugged. "Her relatives all moved away and she gets a little lonely there all by herself. Why was she baking a full pan of brownies if she's the only one who lives in the house? Cause she's dying for someone to stop by, that's why."

I hadn't thought of that. "Jarrius usually comes with me," Stanley continued, "but he's busy today. I try to keep someone with me just so it's not me and some woman alone in a house. Don't want to give anyone a reason to talk."

"That's smart, I guess."

"You and I should go fishing tonight."

I looked at Stanley, sure that I had mis-heard him; there was no way he had changed the topic so suddenly. But he kept walking; we were moving between the skyscrapers now, and he didn't give the slightest hint that he had said anything unusual.

"Did you say fishing?"

"I said that you and I should go fishing tonight. Catfishing, specifically. There's some big old fish at the bottom of Lake Worth."

"Well, alright. I don't think I've ever been fishing before."

"First time for everything." Stanley grinned. "Here's our next stop."

We spent the next couple of hours visiting people downtown – men, women, couples, families. I wondered how Stanley had met them all, how he found time to build so many friendships. Maybe that's just what happened when a natural extrovert got plunked in the middle of a big city.

Walking back to the apartment later, I heard my stomach growl, and realized belatedly that I hadn't eaten anything all day, except for a few of Stella's brownies. Stanley overheard and raised his eyebrow. "Guess we did forget lunch, didn't we. Sorry about that, son. I get carried away sometimes."

"No worries. We can get something to take with us, some sandwiches or something."

"I won't hear of it. Come up to my room and I'll make you something before we go."

I didn't protest. Three flights of stairs later, I was sitting at Stanley's table and watching him grill up some meat on the stove.

"So, Eli," he said, "tell me about your parents."

I paused for a few seconds, wondering where to start. "That's a complicated thing to do."

"Start somewhere. Are you an only child?"

"Yeah. Parents work in a tomato canning plant. I'm the first one in the family to go to college. I wanted to move back home after I graduated, but they wouldn't let me, which is why I ended up here."

"Why wouldn't they let you?"

I shrugged. "You want their answer or mine?"

"I want the answer."

"Okay. They said it was because they didn't want me living at home forever, eating their food and taking up space in their house. I think they're bitter that I got educated. I mean, I am smarter than them. Don't take that the wrong way, but it's true. They don't know how to manage their money; they took hundreds of dollars from my bank account just last week because they wanted a new lawn tractor. It takes thirty minutes to mow our lawn with a push mower and they need a lawn tractor for some reason. I didn't talk to them much while I was in college and I've only talked to them twice since moving down here. Both times they called me. The first time was mom telling me they plundered my savings, and the second was dad asking if he had to buy me anything for Christmas."

Stanley was staring at me, ignoring the meat sizzling insistently in the pan. "That's heavy stuff."

"I dunno. I guess. I'm supposed to go visit them over Christmas. But I don't want to. There's nothing there."

"Wow. I want to talk about this some more tonight while we're fishing. I need a while to put my thoughts together first."

"Fine." I was a bit surprised that I wasn't feeling apprehensive or reluctant about such a conversation. It was very strange how in the past I had stubbornly resisted any attempt by Stanley or the others to probe my heart, but now I felt no resistance. Actually, I almost felt the opposite, an invitation, as if the conversation was going to be important to me somehow. It was odd, but I could run with it.

It shouldn't have surprised me that Stanley's impromptu meal was unbelievably good. The man had a way with food; that was for sure. I was amused at the way so many of the important conversations I'd had with people had come over food – that first dinner at Stanley's place, the cookout where I met Abbie, my recent meal with Abbie at Whataburger, that time Stanley and I had gone for breakfast and then watched the planes land, and now this.

Stanley ate faster than I did, and disappeared into his hall closet to pull out a couple of fishing rods and a giant tackle box. I could see through the window in his kitchen that the sun was just about setting as he grabbed my empty plate, dumped it in the sink, and shepherded me out the door.

Chapter Seven

A few minutes later, sky growing darker by the minute, we stood on the shore of Lake Worth, the big reservoir on the west side of the city. One of Stanley's friends (of course) owned a big house on the lake, and Stanley had gotten the okay to fish on the place anytime. Like I told him, I'd never been before, so I watched on, feeling rather useless, as Stanley expertly untangled the lines and tied big, three-pronged hooks onto the end before opening a bag of round pellets.

"Take you a whiff of that," he said, offering me the bag.

I sniffed and almost threw up. Between gags, I spluttered, "What is that?"

"Stinkbait. Catfish love it." He pulled some latex gloves onto his hands and molded a couple of pellets onto each hook while I kept a respectful distance. Then, satisfied, he hauled back and casted the line as far as he could. I saw a splash in the water about seventy yards out, then the bobber drifted back to the surface.

"So how does this work?" I asked him.

"We sit here for a while feeling like men until we see one of those bobbers go under. That means there's a fish on the end. At that point we set the hook, reel the fish in, put it in that cooler over there, and take it home to fry up some night."

"Seems really simple."

"Yeah, well, we'll see if the fish are cooperating." Stanley tossed the second line out, a couple of yards to the right. "That one's yours. Keep an eye on the bobber."

There were enough lights from the city and highway that I could see the little plastic ball pretty clearly even in the dark, so I settled onto the ground and waited.

A few minutes of silence later, with no fish biting, I looked over at Stanley. It was odd, but I kept thinking the words "New York." Finally, I said, "Stanley, what's the deal with New York?"

He leaned back a bit, not taking his eyes off the fishing line. "You sure are curious about it."

"Sure I am. You told me at the cookout that you'd lived there for a while, then left it out of the list of places you've lived. When I tried to follow up, you just said you didn't think of it as home. You've never been evasive about anything. Actually, just the opposite, every time I've tried to dodge from you or give you a partial answer about anything, you've nailed me to the wall until I spilled the whole story. I think, the way you've been so nosy with me, answering a question honestly is the least you owe me."

He nodded, chuckling softly to himself. "Well, you got me."

"Got you?"

"Yeah, son. You got me." He shrugged. "It was a long time ago. I told you we moved to Jersey when I was a teenager."

"Right, I remember that."

"Jersey, if you know your geography, is connected to New York City, and a lot of my buddies at the time were straight-up gangster types from the city. I was dumb; I didn't know any better." He smiled wistfully. "Man, I was dumb."

I'd never heard Stanley talk about himself this way, and I didn't know how to react, so I just watched him to see what else he would say.

"I grew up without a dad, Eli. That's why I asked you about your parents. Lots of kids in the city grow up without parents, never knowing love. Insecure. So they get in fights with each other, you know, over respect and that. So I was a fighter." He clenched his hands, hands that had probably collided with dozens of faces. "One day I was over in the city, kid tried to start some stuff with me and my buddies. I shanked him."

"You what?"

"Stabbed him, son. With a knife." He seemed agitated by the interruption.

"Sorry. Keep going." Part of me was sure he was making up the story as he went along. There was no chance the Stanley I knew had ever done something like that.

"Anyway, the kid died, the police found out, I got busted, and did twenty-five years in the People's Hotel of New York."

"Wait, you killed him?" I sounded more aghast than I wanted to, but I was so shocked that I couldn't help it.

"I murdered him, actually, or at least that's what the state said. That's a steaming pile, by the way, because murder requires premeditation, and I'd never met the kid before that night. Don't ever tell me the system's not biased against black folk. But whatever, they had the right idea. Stanley Raines, murderer. It's got a decent ring to it, you have to admit."

I was trying to picture it in my head, to see a younger Stanley whipping out a knife and stabbing a man, maybe dropping the knife and running away in horror when he realized what he'd done, maybe just standing there in disbelief. I couldn't imagine it.

I was silent for so long that Stanley stopped staring at the line and looked at me instead. "You happy now?"

"What the fu– er, I guess I shouldn't say that."

Stanley laughed, shaking his head. "Nothing else really sums it up, right?"

"Stanley, you're honestly trying to tell me you're a convicted murderer?"

"I'm trying to, yes. As you may have guessed, I don't tell many people. When I got out, I figured I'd move as far away as I could and start over. That's how I ended up here."

"So wait, when did you start doing the whole God thing?"

"Ah yes, that." He was looking back at the water, and very quickly reached for his fishing pole, giving it a quick yank. The pole bent over so far I thought it was going to break, and Stanley slowly started reeling in the line. "Son, you don't know how hard I fought God. I went every week to the prison's church service, listening to that old chaplain preach at me – not because I was interested, mind you, but because I could get out of my cell for an hour. I figured God was for other people. When I heard people say that God loved me and wanted a relationship with me, all that just bounced off."

I squinted at the end of my fishing line, where the bobber still bobbed resolutely on the choppy water. "So what happened next?"

"This is a big old fish," he said, forearms tensing as he pulled the pole toward him and reeled in a few inches of line. "What happened next, you say? I got out of jail a couple weeks after my 46th birthday and landed here, in Fort Worth, in the same apartment where I live now. Did construction cause it was all I knew how to do. I'd spent the last 25 years behind bars; I didn't know a thing about computers or DVD players or any of that stuff. I had to learn how to drive, you believe that? Lived in Pittsburgh and Jersey for so long that I never needed a car, so I never learned to drive."

"Crazy." I watched him slowly, methodically pulling the fish closer toward shore. It was about thirty yards out now, and launched itself into the air, trying to free itself from the hook. I didn't know much about fish sizes, but it sure looked big to me.

"Right. Actually, it's funny we're here, cause I met God out on this lake."

"No way."

"Serious. I was out in a little canoe, thinking about my life, how I'd thrown away half of it for a moment's worth of stupidity, you know? Now I'm going to carry this black mark on me for the rest of my life, convicted felon. It's a good thing I don't have to work cause nobody respectable would hire me. So I was on this canoe, just feeling like my life didn't have a point to it, like it wouldn't matter too much if I tossed myself overboard and no one saw me again."

He glanced at me, still fighting the fish. "And I just felt something inside me telling me that my life had meaning. I didn't know what it was; thought I might have been going crazy. Then I got real mad, you know, asking what my life could mean, and that little thing inside me told me that I already knew, I'd already heard. Bible verses kept popping into my head, verses I'd heard the chaplain say, that I never remembered memorizing. Finally I figured, well, God's after me."

I was thinking by then about what Abbie had told me the day before, about her mistakes and how she had carried around guilt and shame for so long afterward. "So...ah, I don't know how to say this, but did you have any baggage left over from what you had done, maybe like you hadn't forgiven yourself?"

"Hell yeah, son, scuse the language." Stanley chuckled; the fish was nearly to shore now, and Stanley lifted it up out of the water. "That's a fish," he affirmed. "Stick that thing in the cooler for me."

It had to weigh ten pounds at least. I grabbed it by the sides like Stanley showed me and carried it to the cooler, where I kicked the lid off and slipped the fish inside. "Alright. It's in."

"Good." Stanley tossed the line back out, waiting for another bite. "Baggage, Eli. Yeah, I had baggage. The hardest thing for me to believe was that God could love me and forgive me, that everything could be okay after I'd done something so savage. I felt like I should have a permanent price to pay for doing something with permanent consequences. And I was right. I should have. But God's forgiveness means that Jesus took my permanent price on himself. All my guilt and all my shame landed on his cross instead. There are still mornings where I have to tell myself that, you know. I ended a kid's life. I had to look into his parents' eyes, there in the courtroom, see the tears that I'd put on their faces. Who wouldn't have baggage?"

A quiet plop announced that my bobber had gone underwater, and I grabbed for my pole. "How do I do this, Stanley?"

"Give it a quick, hard tug. That'll set the hook." His voice was calm, reassuring, and I did what he said. "Good. That was good. Now pull the rod toward you and slowly start to reel in the line."

I hadn't imagined how much force would be tugging at the other end of the line, as the fish thrashed all over, trying to loose itself. Slowly I pulled the line toward me, my reel periodically creaking an objection, Stanley watching me intently.

It feels a little strange to say it, but I felt like God was with us there on the bank too, like he was telling me something. Here was Stanley, who knew how to fish, teaching me, the newcomer, everything he knew. The same was kind of true of our faith. Stanley had been a believer for longer than me – though not that much longer, certainly not as long as I'd thought – and there, too, he was showing me the ropes, teaching me what to do so I could learn from him. Maybe he was even a father figure to me, taking the role that my own parents, for whatever reason, had never bothered to fill.

I stopped talking, then, consumed by the task of fighting this giant fish. The closer it got to shore, the faster my heart pounded. I could see it twenty feet out from shore, wriggling under the waves, being pulled closer and closer until finally I guided it into Stanley's waiting hands.

"That's an impressive catch for your first time," Stanley told me. "I bet it weighs every bit of twelve pounds. What do you say we take these boys back home so I can fillet them up?"

"Sounds great to me."

A short car trip and a round of goodbyes later, I laid in bed, hands behind my head as I stared at the ceiling. My mind was wide awake, thinking about all the things that were happening in my life, all the things I was learning about my friends and about myself. I'd never been excited about the future, not once in my life that I could remember. Yet every day here new things were happening, and I was starting to get a good look at the person I might be. Stanley hadn't told me, but he hadn't had to: my own baggage was that I was scared of intimacy, because no one had been close to me before. And I got the distinct sense that God was curing me of that by planting me around people who were determined to get close to me. I'd never been loved, so God had dropped me into an apartment with people who would stop at nothing to love me. I could imagine him smiling over me, celebrating, seeing that I was finally learning the most important things about life, the things he had meant for me to know from the beginning.

"Thanks," I whispered, and closed my eyes.

Part Five

Chapter One

The next morning was Sunday, and even though Stanley and I had been out late, I propelled myself out of bed as soon as the alarm went off. It was going to be my first Sunday in church as a Christian – I couldn't believe that it had only been six days since I had made that decision. It felt like a whole other lifetime, like everything before it had been something I'd seen through someone else's eyes.

I still couldn't believe what Stanley had told me last night. I was half expecting – maybe more than half – to have him clap his hand on my shoulder and guffaw about how well he'd gotten me. But when I walked into the door of the church for band practice, he was already in his seat, offering a friendly smile and hug but no indication that he'd been joking.

"So," I said quietly, "all that stuff you said last night was for real."

He nodded, very slightly. "It was real."

"Who all knows?"

"Not many people. Just you and Danny and Elizabeth. Maybe Abbie. It's the kind of thing some people might have a problem handling."

Frowning, I dropped into the seat next to him. "We have to talk about this more later. You pushed me, the night of that Bible study, to be honest with everyone about who I was, to tell them everything no matter how embarrassing. You can't turn around and do the opposite."

"The things I told you are just a little bit more serious than what you told the folks at the Bible study, Eli. But you're right. We'll talk later."

After a few minutes, the others had arrived and we had started our rehearsal. I couldn't put it into words, but I felt different than I had on the other Sundays. It felt like something inside me responded to the songs in a way that I hadn't before, like the music was coming in through my ears and straight to my heart. Abbie had mentioned something about God's spirit living inside me; maybe it was responding to the worship music, encouraging me on as I sent my praise up to God. I didn't know. I just felt giddy with joy, and it showed in the way I was playing.

Maybe that was part of why the set that morning was so energetic. Everyone singing seemed to be feeling the same thing I was; they were clapping and getting into the music, which in turn fed us. When the last song was almost over, I looked up and saw Abbie standing near the back of the room, surprising me so badly that I nearly lost my place in the song. Fortunately I caught myself in time, and once the song was over and Danny was leading everyone in prayer, I slipped to the back of the room and took a seat next to Abbie.

"Good job," she whispered.

"Thanks."

An hour or so later, church had dismissed and people were streaming out the door. Abbie and I watched them go, then I looked back at Abbie. Neither of us said anything for almost a minute, and then she smiled. "You blinked."

"I didn't either," I protested. "You want to go do something?"

"I think we should. In fact, I'm one step ahead of you."

I arched an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

Abbie burst into laughter. "Do that face again."

"What, this?" Up went the eyebrow.

"That's so cool." She tried to do it, but all she really managed was to look constipated, sending me into a fit of laughter so hard I thought I might never breathe again. "Maybe I need some more practice," she shrugged. "But I have an idea."

"Tell me."

"There's a small chance I may have brought two picnic lunches, and that I may know of a place along the Trinity River where we could sit and eat."

Smiling, I looked up at the stage. "You've really thought this one through. Why'd you come to New Heart this morning anyway?"

"What, isn't it obvious? To spend some more time with you, silly."

"Really?" Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was.

"Well, sure. That's what a girl does when she likes a boy."

"Oh, right." I met her eyes and smiled, and I think I might have blushed a little.

She squeezed my arm and winked. "You're so cute when you're flustered. Let's roll."

"Gladly."

Fifteen minutes later, having navigated a maze of downtown streets, Abbie swung her car into the empty parking lot of an insurance company, and just to our north I could see a huge swath of grass, sloping gently down to the Trinity River. To the east, maybe half a mile away, was Interstate 35; the contrast between the cars zipping past on the highway compared with the serenity of this park made my head spin.

Abbie ducked into the backseat, grabbing a plastic bag with the lunches inside, and we set off toward the riverbank. The sun beamed down, to the point that I was almost uncomfortably warm in my hoodie.

"It's supposed to get up to seventy today," Abbie told me, as if reading my mind. "Couldn't ask for nicer weather in December."

"I can't believe how beautiful it's been. Man, if we were in Indiana right now, we'd all be indoors huddled around a space heater while it was twenty degrees out."

"God's been smiling on you," agreed Abbie.

We made it to the edge of the river, which whispered pleasantly as it flowed through this garden in the middle of a metropolis. Abbie kicked her flip-flops back over her head, dipping her feet into the water but pulling them out almost instantly. "Golly. Still a little cold for playing in the river, I think."

"You never know till you try."

"True of so many things in life." Abbie dug into the plastic bag and tossed me a sandwich. "Hope you like PB and J."

"It's exactly what I would have asked for. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Mind if I say the blessing before we eat?"

"Go right ahead. Hurry, though." I started slowly moving the sandwich toward my mouth.

Abbie laughed, and prayed very quickly. "Dear Jesus thank you for the food and thank you for Eli and his sense of humor please bless this time amen!"

"Perfect timing," I told her, taking a bite.

She laid back on the ground, her laughter sailing up toward the sun that hung in the brilliant blue. "You're such a hoot."

"You're calling me an owl now? I thought we were friends."

She rolled over, burying her face in her hands. "This is why I like you, Eli. You make me laugh."

"That's true. I do." She had rolled over right next to me, her bare feet within arm's reach, so I couldn't resist running my fingernails up her right foot.

She squealed and sprang up. "Not that kind of laughing. That's just mean."

I shrugged nonchalantly. "I'll take what I can get."

Abbie tried to give a frustrated sigh, but it didn't work, sending us both into new spasms of giggling. We ended up next to each other, laying on the ground and staring up into the blue eternity overhead.

"Oh man, Eli," Abbie said. "I have so much fun with you."

"It sounds like there's a 'but' coming at the end of that sentence."

She rolled over to face me, green eyes examining mine. "How could you tell?"

"I don't know. It just did."

"Well, there was one." She propped herself up on her elbow. "I want to start dating you, Eli, but I keep getting this sense that it's not quite the right time."

"What do you mean, a sense?"

"I've been praying about it, and when I do, I just feel like God is telling me to wait. I think I know why, too. Tell me honestly, Eli: does my past bother you?"

In that instant, I knew it did. I liked Abbie and I wanted to date her, too, but I hadn't thought about the idea since the last time we talked. I hadn't spent a single moment pondering the things she had told me; Abbie herself had barely crossed my mind. I was hiding again, running away from something that scared me.

The honest answer was that her past did bother me. I didn't know what to think about it, didn't know how to feel when I realized that the hand holding mine had done the same for a dozen other men, had touched them in ways I'd never been touched in my life. What I was feeling, plain and simple, was jealousy – a strange feeling, jealousy for a woman who wasn't even my girlfriend.

My instincts cried out to flee the unknown situation, to get back to a safe distance and keep Abbie at arm's length. That was the only way I knew how to handle matters of the heart. But there was another voice this time, stronger and steadier than the instincts, urging me to be strong and to listen to my heart.

I caught Abbie staring at me, and I didn't know how long I'd been silent. "Yeah," I admitted, "your past does bother me."

The corner of her mouth tugged down and she looked close to tears. I could only imagine the pain she was going through, as this distant mistake from a past life came back to torture her again. Without thinking about it, I pulled her down to me, her head resting on my chest, running my fingers through her hair. "But I don't want it to. I want to see the real you, the new you, not the old mistakes."

Her hand found mine, and she squeezed, the strength of her grip saying what words couldn't. We laid there for long minutes, her head on my chest, bobbing up and down with my breathing, the sun warming us and melting my doubts.

Finally she rolled over to face me again. "Thanks, Eli. I don't know how you always have the right words to say."

"Must be a God thing," I told her honestly.

"Must be. Oh, hey," she said, noticing something on the ground next to me. "You didn't get to finish your sandwich."

"Wow, you're looking out for my stomach, too? You really might be the perfect woman."

Abbie giggled and poked me in the stomach, sending me squirming for safety.

"If a little bit sadistic," I amended. "So I guess you could say we're dating now?"

"I guess so," she echoed. "I mean, we've been going on dates already, so we kind of already have been dating. It's just official now."

"Oh, great. The one thing I don't miss from college is all my buddies trying to define their relationships and figure out where they were at with the girl."

"Let's not worry about that," Abbie said with a disarming smile. "We'll just keep doing what we've been doing, hanging out and getting to know each other better, and see where it goes."

"Suits me just fine. Hey, what's that over there?" Abbie swiveled to look and I lunged toward her, grabbing her ribs, and she spasmed away, laughing helplessly.

"That was just wrong," she protested, "starting a relationship on a foundation of deception and ferocity!"

"It was a pretty good move, you have to admit."

She tried to pout, but once again, it simply didn't work, and I put my hand over my mouth to hide my smile. "You're right," she said grudgingly. "But watch your back, mister."

"I will be," I pledged. We looked at each other for a few moments, and I added, "You're really beautiful."

"You honestly think so?"

"I sure do."

"Thanks," she said. "I hope you still think I'm beautiful when I have peanut butter stuck to my teeth."

"I'm sure I will."

The sun beamed down on us as we ate, smiling down its gift of light, as if God himself was warming us with his breath.

Chapter Two

Something woke me up near dawn Monday morning, and I glanced out the window. Alarm bells went off in my head; the sky was a deep reddish-orange, which in Indiana meant tornado weather on the way. The previous day had been unseasonably warm, after all, so maybe a cold front coming through would crash into that warm air and make for some nasty thunderstorms.

All those thoughts went through my head in a matter of a few seconds, before my head crashed back to the pillow and I went back to sleep for several more hours. Finally, feeling slothful, I made myself get up and go through the motions of getting ready.

I still had a few album reviews that I hadn't typed out, and I was curious whether Danny might have any more that I could write. I grabbed my notebook and climbed the stairs to his room, where he answered the door.

"Come on in, Eli," he told me. "I feel like we haven't talked in forever."

"We haven't. It's been almost a week. How are things?"

"Things are good. Church stuff is going well, life is grand, weather's beautiful. At least, it has been. They're talking about bad storms for tonight."

"I figured. The sky was red when I woke up, and that's never a good sign."

"Seriously?" His brow furrowed. "We city folk never learn these things."

I chuckled. "Never too late to start. I brought a few more of my album reviews. Any chance I can borrow your computer for a few minutes?"

"I'll type them for you, if you want," he offered. "The check for the one they're printing should be here next week, by the way."

"Nice," I said, handing over my notebook. "Thanks for everything you've done on that. And you may be amused to know that I've written a song with words from one of the psalms."

"Oh yeah? You'll have to play it for me sometime. Sorry, I don't mean to rush you out the door, but I've got an appointment in a couple minutes. I'll type your reviews later today."

"Yeah, sure. Sorry. I didn't mean to keep you."

"Not at all. Take care of yourself."

I hadn't even made it back to my room by the time Stanley waylaid me. "Hey, Jarrius is outside. He wants you to come downstairs."

"Did he say why?"

"Trust me. Just grab a jacket and go."

Thoroughly confused, I ducked back into my room for a coat and launched myself down the stairs and out the front door, to where Jarrius' Escalade was idling at the sidewalk. One of the rear doors was already open, waiting for me; Jarrius was behind the wheel, with Julius in the front seat next to him and Willy in the backseat. "Where are we off to?" I asked, jumping into the seat and slamming the door behind me.

"The desert," Jarrius said.

"Excuse me?"

"Best place to go when a storm is coming."

I sat in silence for a couple of seconds. "I'm afraid I still don't get it."

"Alright, you went on the hiking trip at Mineral Wells a few weeks ago, right? And you saw how beautiful God is because you saw the beauty of his creation?"

"Yeah," I said, picturing the place in my head again, remembering the way the sunlight through the trees had dazzled me and made me think about beauty in a new way.

"Well, beauty isn't all there is to God," Jarrius continued. "He's powerful too, and sometimes he's even dangerous. There's a place out in the desert we like to go during storms, just to watch the dangerous side of creation."

"Sounds interesting." In truth, I was a bit worried, because I'd seen my fair share of bad thunderstorms and tornadoes in Indiana, and while they did have a certain appeal to them, they could very easily kill someone who took them too lightly. But I watched out the window as the city melted away, replaced by an endless expanse of rocky dirt and runty bushes. The clouds overhead marched steadily closer, and in a matter of minutes, Jarrius was exiting the interstate, wheeling the Escalade down a winding stretch of back roads.

Momentarily the road crested a large hill, and Jarrius pulled over on top of it. We sat for a moment, watching the weather, smelling the rain on the winds that swept out of the west. There was no one else in sight. The road we'd driven in on stretched out endlessly to the north and south, disappearing over the horizon, leaving four people standing under the sky. Surrounded by so much nature, I felt very, very small.

Jarrius climbed up the back bumper, hauling himself onto the roof of the Escalade, where he stood, defiantly facing the coming storm. "Get up here," he told me, and I pushed up onto the bumper, grabbing his outstretched hand.

The others made their way up and stood next to us, and Julius pulled a pocket Bible out of his jacket. He had a couple of pages bookmarked. "Oh Lord my God, you are very great!" he read. "The Lord lays the foundation of his palace on the waters above, making the clouds his chariot, walking on the wings of the wind. Psalm 104."

We stood in worshipful silence, feeling the wind wrap itself around us. I felt like God was right there with us, smiling as he watched us marvel at what he was doing. I'd been skeptical of Jarrius' plan a few hours before, but all that doubt melted away when I looked full in the face of what God could do with just a few clouds and some warm and cold air colliding.

Julius continued. "Job 38. God answered Job out of the storm. Were you there when I laid the earth's foundations, while all the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? Have you ever given orders to the morning or shown the dawn its place? Who endowed the heart with wisdom, or gave understanding to the mind?" He flipped one more time. "Habakkuk 2. The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silent before him."

So we did, watching as lightning began to tear apart the earth to the far west. It rolled toward us over the plain, the wind blasting my pants so they flapped like a flag, and then the rain hit. Big, fat drops splattered the soil, clanking off the roof of the Escalade, turning into a torrential downpour so thick we could barely see a hundred yards. Every couple of seconds we could still see flashes of lightning, growing closer, punctuated almost instantly by ear-splitting thunder. Ominously, the next gust of wind was frigidly cold, one of the first signs of a tornado.

We climbed down then, getting back in the truck so we weren't targets for the lightning, but watched out the window in rapt fascination as the fury of nature unleashed itself on the desert. At the base of the hill, a stream was forming, as rain pounded the dirt and found no place to go but downhill.

Lightning slammed to earth fifty yards away, making all of us jump, and the resounding thunder left a ringing in my ears. All around us, earth and sky were bursting with power. For obvious reasons, I'd never looked at the weather and seen God before. Now, in a different light, I was in awe of what I saw. It intrigued me that the three guys with me, city dwellers, had stumbled upon this secret when I, growing up in the woods and hills, had completely missed it.

As quickly as it had come, the storm was gone, blowing away off to the east, to send thousands of people in Fort Worth scurrying indoors. Jarrius put the Escalade in gear and set about turning us back to the interstate.

A respectful, almost worshipful silence still hung inside the truck, and I was reluctant to break it, but I had to know. "Why did you guys start doing this?"

Julius answered. "About a year ago, we were looking through the book of Romans. There's a part at the very beginning where Paul says that God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, are clearly visible. God made creation on purpose so it would say something about him. And we were all, like, surprised, cause we'd never thought if that way. We grew up around pavement, you know? Who looks at the weather and stuff and expects to see God?"

"Stanley told us to come out here," Willy said. "Said we'd understand after we saw. He was right, and we come out here a couple times a year just to be reminded."

"Sometimes people ask me why God doesn't do miracles anymore," Jarrius added, after a long pause. "I ask them when was the last time they saw a thunderstorm. God still moves, man. It's just people forget what to look for. We get jaded. We get used to everything."

The Escalade turned onto the frontage road, then merged back onto the interstate, slick wet asphalt humming underneath the tires. The road was deserted; everyone else had fled before the power of the storm.

"And that's cool to know," Jarrius continued. "The same God who's powerful to blow the earth apart with lightning is powerful to handle any situation in my life. He reminds people of that all the time, it's just they don't realize he's trying to remind them. He's calling their name and they ain't listening."

I didn't know what to say, so I just watched the landscape as the clouds lifted off the horizon, exposing the sun as it wandered toward the west, shining its light on the underside of the black and puffy rainclouds still hanging in the east. Jarrius rolled the windows down and the breeze billowed in, filling the truck with the scent of rain.

I imagined God, brushing his hands off and smiling at the way we'd been in awe of his handiwork, glad that someone had appreciated the creation that he'd taken pains to put together just so it would be awesome to us. I didn't know what to say; I was just humbled, stunned by the quick reminder of how very small I was and how very big God was. I like to think that God got the message anyway, even though I didn't have any words to say to him.

The Escalade rolled on toward Fort Worth, leaving the site of a miracle in our rearview mirror.

Chapter Three

I lay awake in bed the next morning, arms behind my head, replaying the sights and sounds of the previous day in my mind. The flash of lightning, the concussive boom of the thunder, rain bouncing off the metal roof of the car, all the power of heaven meeting earth all around us. I had a strange feeling about that day, like I should be committing to memory the things that Jarrius had told me, like perhaps I would need to remind myself about God's power sometime very soon.

I was thinking about Abbie, too, and wondering what I had gotten myself into. I liked Abbie a lot; she knew it and I knew it, and she was an incredible woman, the only one in my life I'd ever really wanted to get close to. But what could I give her? I still couldn't, for the life of me, figure out what it was about me that drew her to me. Cold fear rushed into my heart; I felt very much like an imposter, like if Abbie got too close to me, she would find out that I wasn't all she hoped I would be, and that she would shrug her shoulders and walk away.

The thought terrified me, and for several minutes I just laid in bed, imagining that conversation, where Abbie walked casually out of my life as if I'd never meant anything to her at all. The more I thought about myself, the more doubtful I was that there was anything desirable in me. Where were these insecurities coming from? I thought I was finished with them. I hadn't felt inferior or worthless since before I had embraced God. The desire not to feel that way any more was one of the major reasons I'd listened to what my friends were saying about God at all. What was going wrong?

Someone knocked softly on my door, and I shouted, "Come in!"

Danny stuck his head in the door. "Oh, sorry, Eli. I was hoping I wasn't going to wake you."

"Don't worry about it. I was up." I pushed myself into a sitting position. "Sorry I don't have any furniture to offer you." There was that feeling again, like perhaps I was to blame for not having a job, for not being able to offer nice things to offer the people who came to see me.

"It's no problem. I won't be here long. I just came by to bring you your notebook." He tossed it onto the countertop to his right. "I saw the longer article you wrote, too."

"What? Which one?"

"The one that was torn out and stuck in the back cover. About how you became a Christian. Man, Eli, that was some great writing. You should think about sending that to the magazine, too. It seems like the kind of thing they'd be all over."

Abruptly I did remember what he was talking about, did remember cramming the article into the notebook as an afterthought and forgetting completely about it. Part of me was embarrassed, because I had never meant for that to be read.

"Yeah, maybe," I said quickly.

"Are you okay, Eli? You look really unsettled."

"Just had a rough morning, is all." There I went again – running from the truth, trying to shut Danny out even though I knew full well, even though he'd proven time and time again, that he cared about me and all he wanted was to help. "That's...not exactly true," I amended. "There's more to it."

"Tell me," Danny offered, easing into the room and pushing the door shut behind him.

I related what I'd been thinking before he walked into the room, how confused I was that all the insecurities had come back with such force. It surprised me that I was talking so candidly about those things. The old instinct was still there, telling me that I should keep quiet and handle things myself, but the more I talked, the more the old instinct faded into silence.

Danny nodded slowly. "Man, Eli. That's powerful stuff."

"So what do I do?"

He leaned against the wall, glancing around the room, gathering his thoughts. "Eli, where is God in your thought process?"

"I don't follow."

"It seems to me that you're basically thinking as if God doesn't exist. You're focusing on yourself, your own fears and insecurities. Where is God when you're having those thoughts?"

I frowned, thinking. "I don't know."

"Where does your value as a person come from?"

"I guess from God, but I don't really understand that."

"Alright," Danny said with a smile, "let me give you a better way to picture it. What makes a diamond more valuable than any other rock?"

"They're rare, I guess, hard to get to."

"Simply being rare doesn't make something valuable. Diamonds would still be rare even if there were no people on earth, but they wouldn't be valuable."

"Okay, I give up," I told him.

"They're valuable because people assign them value. They're valuable because people are willing to part with a lot in order to have them. That's the only reason. If something happened and people didn't want to buy diamonds anymore, their value would plummet, even though they'd still be just as rare. Still with me?"

"Yeah. Keep going."

"The thing that makes you as a person valuable is that God loves you and is willing to pay an incredible price in order to have you for himself. Your relationship with him cost him the death of Jesus, Eli."

That thought upset me, for a reason that I couldn't exactly pin down. Danny must have seen my face change, because he quickly continued.

"Whatever you're feeling, it's probably not grounded in truth. God said it was worth the price. Hebrews says that Jesus went to the cross for the joy set before him. Making you right with God was completely worth it to both of them. So don't feel bad. Don't feel unworthy. You will, of course; I still do most of the time. But you should feel honored instead, honored that God would see you and love you in spite of all those insecurities you're talking about. That's what gives you your value in life. That's what you need to take with you whenever you start to doubt yourself. You may fail; you may let people down, but your accomplishments don't determine your value. Your value comes from somewhere else entirely."

I sighed. "That's going to be hard to really internalize."

"Sure it is. Every time you doubt yourself, you're going to have to call it to mind and meditate on it all over again. You're really talking about reforming the entire way you think about yourself. Of course that's going to be hard and take a long time."

"I think so. Look, I think I need to take a walk and think all this through. Thanks."

"Anytime, Eli. That's what I'm here for. Let's get together sometime later this week, maybe Thursday, and talk some more. I might have some more to say, or some Bible passages you could read to explain what I'm talking about."

"Sure thing. Thanks, Danny. I'm really grateful for everything you and the others have done for me."

"Like I say, that's our purpose in life. Don't feel like you owe us anything or need to pay us back. The change we see in your life is thanks enough. Take care of yourself." He ducked out the door, leaving me by myself again.

I climbed out of bed, staring out the huge window at the clouds that lingered in the sky, relics from yesterday's weather. Fifteen minutes and a shower later, I was outside the front door, looking at the clouds again without a pane of glass in the way. It was frigid out, the rain bringing a cold front along with it, and I gritted my teeth inside my winter jacket, wondering if perhaps a walk had not been the right decision.

I set off toward the west, not paying too much attention to where I was going. The things Danny had told me were way different from the way I'd always thought of my identity. Growing up in my parents' house, if I hadn't performed – in school, in baseball, in basketball, doing my chores – I was made to feel worthless. That much was obvious just from the talks I'd had with my dad on the phone since moving down here. He'd done almost nothing except club me with the fact that I hadn't gotten a job yet, and I'd accepted his reasoning. It seemed true to me that if I couldn't get a job, there must be something wrong with me. I'd tied my identity to what I was capable of accomplishing. But Danny was telling me that my value was inherent, that I had it simply by being a creation of God. It almost seemed too good to even be true.

I sighed. My parents. Christmas was less than a week away, and my trip back to Indiana was due to kick off in just four days. The date had snuck up on me so quickly – which only showed how little I was looking forward to it, how much more excited I was about life in Fort Worth and all the things that were happening to me here.

Did I even want to go back and visit them at all? I had a hunch that it was going to be an awful experience, that I was going to come back feeling like a disappointment to my parents. Maybe the smart thing to do would be to call them back and tell them...

Tell them what, exactly? Tell them that something had come up? That would be a lie, and running from the truth was something I knew I didn't want to keep doing. I had to own myself, own my decisions. But what else could I tell them, other than the truth, which was that I didn't want to see them because I felt like they didn't love me?

And of course, my dad would be all over that statement, accusing me of being overly emotional, a nancy-boy. What he really meant was that I wasn't unemotional like him, and the thing is, I didn't want to be. I didn't want my dad's life, stuck in a dead-end job and a loveless marriage. I wanted to, had to, be different from him. But again, could I tell him any of that?

My eyes were flitting all over, taking in houses and sidewalks and cars and people, and finally they settled on the gray clouds that huddled low to the earth, left behind by yesterday's weather. Abruptly, memories of the storm crashed into my mind. I could see them in front of my eyes just as clearly as if they were happening. I had been thinking just this morning about the power of that storm, the power of God, and that maybe I would have to remind myself about his power sometime soon.

This was the time. I didn't know what that power meant, how he was going to handle everything that was going on, but I knew one thing: he had to, because I couldn't. I told him so, as I wandered down the streets of Fort Worth.

It was nearly dusk when I pushed open the door of the apartment complex again, although I couldn't tell for sure because the sun was blocked by the persistent cloud cover. My feet and knees were killing me; I must have walked fifteen miles at least, and that hadn't counted the time I'd spent at lunch, eating the tacos I'd treated myself to at a Mexican lunch stand, and sitting underneath the shade of a huge pine tree along the Trinity River. I still didn't know what I felt, honestly. My heart was a tornado of conflicting thoughts and feelings, thoughts about me and my worth and Abbie and Stanley's past and my parents and a million other things. I felt overwhelmed by it all, like the sheer volume of it all was going to rush up and bury me.

But underneath all that I felt a kind of peace, something I could reach out and grab, and I reached for it, pushing all the other things to the side – not to pretend they weren't there, but to tell them they weren't the most important thing to me. I was willing to be still, to let God speak to me in spite of my chaos, and I did. I wasn't sure exactly what he was saying, other than that he was there and that he was powerful, but that was good enough.

Chapter Four

Stanley had come by my room the previous night before I went to sleep, asking if I was interested in helping him feed some homeless people in downtown Fort Worth the next day. I wasn't sure what to expect, honestly, because I'd never met a homeless person that I knew of, and certainly never on purpose, but I'd told Stanley I would.

Wednesday morning rolled around, and I pushed my aching body out of bed and into the shower, then down the stairs to meet Stanley at nine o'clock.

"You want to walk or drive over there?" Stanley asked. Maybe he had seen me moving like an arthritic, or maybe he didn't relish walking through the cold. The clouds from the previous day had burned off, replaced by beautiful sun, but the chill remained.

"We can drive," I told him. "I like a good walk as much as anybody, but not when it feels like my lungs are made of ice."

"You're supposed to be used to this weather," he said, raising an eyebrow.

"I never got used to this weather. I hated every winter more than the one before."

"Good thing God brought you here instead of to Boston, then."

We both slid inside Stanley's car, which rumbled down the back streets toward the north side of downtown. There was a church, a tall brick building that I'd wandered past a few times while walking, and people milling around outside it. Stanley led me around the back, and we slipped into the kitchen area, where half a dozen people were putting together a meal of Hamburger Helper and dinner rolls.

After a few introductions to people whose names I already didn't remember, Stanley told me, "We'll be on the end of the line, putting dessert and silverware on the plates. Simple enough?"

"Simple enough. Why are we feeding them Hamburger Helper at nine o'clock in the morning?"

Stanley looked up at the clock. "Homeless people don't care much about time the way you and I do, Eli. They don't have to live by the clock, don't have to be anywhere at a certain time. Breakfast, lunch, whatever. They get food, they're happy. It might be the only meal they get today."

I hadn't thought about any of that, and I felt very naïve, so inexperienced in this area that Stanley knew so much about. But I guess it didn't take much experience to hand plates off to a hungry person, did it? I pulled on some plastic gloves and stood in front of a huge plate of chocolate-chip cookies as the door was pulled open and two hundred disheveled people strode toward us.

I'd thought there might be pushing or shoving, if these people were as hungry as Stanley said, but they were incredibly respectful to each other. Something reminded me of the previous Christmas, when fights had broken out near the Best Buy in Indianapolis over some of the holiday sales. Privileged white people couldn't stand patiently in line for something they didn't need, but homeless folks could treat each other civilly even when their stomachs were growling audibly.

They stank. They were missing teeth. But they filed past me, styrofoam plates extended to receive the two cookies I was about to give them, and they thanked me politely, moving toward Stanley to receive their plastic silverware, thanking him too. I looked over at Stanley, who was obviously in his element. He didn't seem happy unless he was helping somebody else. Maybe that was just his personality, or maybe there was something more to it.

It didn't take us long to send everyone through the line, and when the last one was almost past us, I said, "Stanley, why do you get so much joy out of doing stuff like this?"

"I don't know, Eli." He scratched his head. "Why do you ask?"

"It just seems like you go a bit over the top. I mean, every time I turn around you're doing something for somebody. It's almost as if..." I couldn't really finish the thought, didn't know exactly where I was going with it.

"Almost as if I'm trying too hard," Stanley finished. "Like I'm too driven."

I nodded. "That's what I'm thinking." Suddenly the thought clicked into place, and I knew what I'd been trying to say. "Like you haven't forgiven yourself for your past, like you're trying to prove to yourself that you're not that person anymore."

The last homeless man made his way past Stanley, leaving the two of us alone at the end of the line. Stanley rubbed his bottom lip, looking up at the corner of the room. "That's a very interesting idea," he said slowly.

I couldn't tell if I had upset him, so I busied myself picking up some of the mess around the kitchen, while Stanley still stood there, frowning ever so slightly. Abruptly he started walking, grabbing me by the shoulder and steering me out the back door. "This way, Eli."

By this time I had no idea what was happening, so I just walked, the chill of the air piercing my lungs. Stanley was walking quickly, and I had to rush to keep up. "Hey. Slow down," I told him.

He did, ever so slightly, then stopped, leaning against a building. "I think God just spoke through you, Eli," he said, looking me in the eyes. "I don't think I've forgiven myself." Big, round tears sprang to his eyes, meandering down his cheeks, where he wiped them off on his sleeve. He acted like he was going to start talking, then just shook his head. "I can't even tell you what it feels like."

It seemed to me he was overreacting a bit, but he was right; I had no idea what he was feeling. After all, he had killed a man in cold blood. Maybe television and movies had numbed me to that, making it seem like a person could do something like that and just get over it with no problems. But Stanley had spent twenty-five years in a cold cell thinking about what he had done, had lost most of his adulthood because of one moment of foolishness. I was having a hard enough time just believing that I was valuable to God. I couldn't imagine how much more amplified that struggle must have been in Stanley's own heart.

We stood there for long minutes, catching suspicious sidelong glances from the other pedestrians, but I didn't care. I leaned on the building next to Stanley, waiting for him to say what was on his mind. I didn't want to say anything, just wanted to let him have his moment, but I felt like I needed to speak up.

"Stanley, why are you so ashamed of your story? You've spent the last three weeks trying to get me to be honest, spent the whole Bible study last week prying me open because you said my story made God look good. God's done so much more with you than he has with me. I mean, don't get me wrong," I said quickly, "I understand why you might not want that to be public knowledge. But wouldn't you feel better if you didn't have to hide secrets from people?"

"I know, Eli. I know." He pushed off the building and we started walking again, slowly, back toward where he had parked his car. "Why do you have to be right?"

"Er...I don't know..."

He smiled thinly. "I'm just messing with you, Eli. God's got a sense of humor, using someone like you to call me out on this. You're right, of course. You know it and I know it. I don't do all this helping people because I get joy out of it. I mean, it does make me happy, but I do it cause I feel like I have to. I still think of myself as a murderer, Eli. I know God has forgiven me. But I feel like I can't forgive me. If I did, it'd be like I wasn't sorry for that anymore. And I am sorry, every single day of my life, for the years I lost. I feel like I have to pay God back for wasting the life he gave me."

I didn't know what to say to that. Nothing in my life could compare to what he was talking about; I had no idea what he was thinking or feeling. He seemed very unsure of himself now. The normally smiley, secure, outgoing exterior had melted away, and this doubtful, haunted man was what was underneath. I wondered how many people had ever seen it, given how carefully Stanley kept it concealed.

"But you're right," he said resolutely. "I'm a hypocrite if I tell you not to be ashamed of your story while I'm ashamed of mine." We had reached the car by then, but Stanley was looking eastward, where we could see Interstate 35 between the skyscrapers. He wasn't looking at anything in particular; his eyes might as well have been closed, because his mind was somewhere else completely.

"You're going to visit your parents over Christmas, you said, right?" he asked.

"Yeah. Where did that come from?"

"I'm going to see if I can get a hold of the family whose son I killed," he said, chewing on his tongue. "I want to fly up there for Christmas. I want to ask them for forgiveness."

"For Christmas? You're sure they're going to want that kind of drama in their holiday?"

"I have no idea, but I feel like I have to try. I want to reconcile."

"And I want to reconcile with my parents," I told him, almost before I knew what I was saying. Did I really? Doubts rushed in, about what I was going to say and whether they would want to hear it, but I wasn't in the mood to listen to any doubts, so I told God to come take care of them.

"It's a deal," Stanley said, extending his hand. I took it, feeling the strength of his grip, and we shook. "I want to deal with this," he told me, getting into his car. "I want it behind me. I don't want it affecting the way I think of myself and the way I live my life anymore. It's ancient history."

"Right on."

We rode back to the apartment, neither of saying anything, and went back to our separate rooms. It was kind of funny. The night I had given my life to God, I'd been complaining that I didn't have the deep connection that my friends had with each other. Well, now I did; now I was elbow to elbow with them in all the crazy stuff that was going on. I had said the morning after my prayer that the prayer itself wasn't any kind of climax, but it seemed it had certainly opened the door for everything that followed.

It was Wednesday night, the night praise band practice was supposed to happen, but I was going to be leaving on Sunday morning in order to get back to Indiana in time for Christmas, so there was no point in practicing with the gang. Besides, I didn't want to talk to anybody just then. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts, with God, talking to him about the journey I was on and where it was going to end up.

The only answer I got was that I was supposed to keep following him, and given his track record so far, that was something I was more than happy to do.

Chapter Five

The phone roused me out of bed the next morning and, ever hopeful that it might be a job interview, I dashed across the room.

"Eli Radak."

"Oh, Eli, it's good to hear your voice." It was my mom.

"Hi, mom. I was just talking with my friends yesterday about coming up to see you for Christmas. I'm looking forward to it."

"Oh..." She trailed off, obviously not expecting that response. "Well, money has been a little tight lately. I just wanted to let you know there might not be much in the way of presents waiting for you."

"Don't worry about that." Inside, I was frustrated and infuriated, not because I wasn't going to be getting presents; I was twenty-three and could care less about that. No, I was mad at my parents' foolish spending. Between the two of them, they made eighty thousand dollars a year at the factory. How could they possibly be broke all the time?

It dawned on me that there was substantial irony, not just in my mom calling the day after I'd talked about going back to visit her, but in the fact that their money problems had trickled down to me. For completely different reasons, their uncontrolled spending and my lack of income, money had formed a major conflict in our lives. It brought a wry smile to my face.

But I was thinking more about what I had told Stanley yesterday, about wanting to reconcile with them, wanting to ask their forgiveness for anything they might be holding against me and also wanting to forgive them for making me jump through performance hoops in order to earn their love. I was determined to respond gently to mom here so that I didn't sabotage our chances of a better talk later.

"Well, I just wanted to let you know so you don't get taken by surprise when you get here," she answered. "I'm glad you understand."

"I won't be able to buy much for you two, either. The job situation is still a little rough at the moment."

"Honey, why are you having so many problems finding a job? Is there anything else you can do in the meantime? What about working for a temp agency, or doing day labor? Have you thought of any of that?"

"I have." Truth be told, though, I felt like it was more important to milk my free time for what I could. How many of the things that had happened to me in the last couple of weeks would have been missed if I'd been working? "God's taking care of me," I added.

"Oh. That's nice. Well, I have your father here, if you want to talk to him."

"Sure, put him on."

"Morning, son." There was no mistaking the raspy growl of my father's voice.

"Hi, dad. How are things there?"

"Ah, it's winter. Snow, wind, gray, you know how it goes."

"Yeah, I sure do. It's been nice here, almost shorts weather."

"Sounds good. What's new on your end? Got a job yet?"

"Not just yet. I told you about the magazine article I'm getting published, though, and there will be more of those to follow. Some of my buddies helped me out in the meantime, so I'm doing fine until someone decides to hire me."

"Oh, grand. You're a charity case."

I really wanted to snap at him, to ask if working forty years in a tomato canning plant was really a step up from having friends who were willing to provide for me, but again, I had to hold my tongue.

I held it so long, trying to think of what to say, that my father awkwardly cleared his throat. "Uh, I guess we'll see you in a couple of days, then."

"That's right, dad. See you then."

I held the phone for a few seconds before setting it back down on the cradle. I don't know what had possessed them to get up at eight in the morning to give me a call. Maybe they'd been arguing again. Wouldn't be the first time.

Danny seemed to be an early riser, so after a quick shower, I took my notebook up to his apartment. He answered, already dressed for the day. "How do you get up so early?" I demanded.

He shrugged. "Just a gift, I guess."

"It's not natural." I held the notebook out in front of him. "Did you really think the story I wrote was that good?"

"I thought it was brilliant, Eli, raw and real. It's a unique story and I think my magazine would love to print it. I'd like to type it up and send it to them to see what they think. Oh, by the way, they want to publish three more of your album reviews in the February issue. That's another hundred and fifty dollars coming your way."

"Nice." It wasn't enough to live on, not yet, but it was a good start.

"So, did you want to talk some more about the things we talked about on Tuesday?"

"Not right now," I hedged. "I just want to think for a while. But I do have something I think you might be interested in. I wrote a song from one of the psalms."

Danny leaned forward. "Let's go next door. I want to hear it."

Nervousness grabbed me by the throat as I walked up to the stage in the church room, picking up my guitar from the place where it was leaning against the wall. Danny went to the back and turned on the sound board so that I could sing into the microphone. I'd never sung a song I'd written before, not so that anyone could hear it, and now I was really hesitant, just like my first week playing in front of the church. I'd gone from nerves to confidence and back to nerves again. But as I looked back at Danny, who in turn looked at me expectantly, I was determined to conquer those fears, to sing the song as if I had every confidence in the world.

And I did. It was a pretty good song, or at least I thought so, and I sang it like I was expecting Danny to feel the same. I had my eyes squeezed closed while I sang, more to keep myself focused than anything else, but toward the end I snuck a peek back and saw Danny leaned over the sound board. I couldn't tell if he was enjoying it or what, but I played my best anyway.

When the song was over, Danny was nodding slowly, appreciatively. "That's good, man. That's really good. I want you to sing it in church sometime soon, if you don't mind. I like having original songs."

"Yeah, sure." The nervousness was wafting away; I'd been strong and confident, and I'd beaten the doubts. Suddenly I smiled, proud of myself. It was a small victory, maybe, but it was a victory. "I'm going home to visit my parents for Christmas. I forget if I told you."

"No, I don't think you did. I heard through the grapevine that you were going to be gone on Sunday but I didn't hear why."

"That's why. I haven't had the best relationship with my folks, so I'm going to try to make things right."

"That's really admirable, Eli. I think it's great evidence of how much God has been working in you in such a short time. Families are brutal, man. That's the place where most people have to wear a mask. There's so much pretending."

"Do you still talk to your mom, Danny?"

He looked up quickly, chewing on his lip. "I try. She's still around the city someplace. Every so often I'll try to have a conversation with her, but she's just gone. Won't take help from anybody, won't come live with us. It's hard to see."

"I can't imagine."

"But yeah, I've told her as best I can that Elizabeth and I don't hold anything against her, that we're happy and satisfied and that God has taken care of us. She knows we forgive her. I don't know what exactly you have to forgive your parents for; you haven't filled me in on all that, but I hope it goes well for you."

"Thanks. Any parting wisdom?"

"Just remember what I told you on Tuesday. You're valuable because God loves you and approves of you. No one else's opinion, not even your parents, means anything. You know who you are. Be strong, be courageous. Tell them honestly what's on your mind and let God be God."

I sighed, sitting down on my amp and pulling my guitar off my shoulder. "Why couldn't your advice be something that would make it easier?"

"That does make it easier." Danny came down the center aisle, taking a seat on the front row. "If you know that your success or failure doesn't depend on the response you get, that takes all the stress out of it. Now all you have to do is ask their forgiveness, or tell them you forgive them, or whatever it is you're going to say to them. Their response changes nothing for you. That's the most liberating thing I could possibly tell you."

"Oh. I guess I didn't see it that way."

"Do they know you're a Christian?"

I blew out a long breath. "Yeah. They're worried that I've become a...I think 'Bible-thumper' was what my mom said, and 'religious nut' was my dad's take on it. I'm not sure they'll be too sympathetic."

"It sounds like they've been hurt by church or church people in the past. I can't think of any other reason why they might be so hostile to the idea."

"I don't know, I really don't. I don't know if it's even faith at all that bothers them. They just seem antagonistic to everything I do."

"That's a tough situation to be in. Just remember that God loves you. You just finished singing about how he's your shepherd, how he takes care of you and leads you through the valley of the shadow of death. You might have to have those lines running on repeat through your head the whole time you're up there."

"I think I might."

He stood. "If you don't mind, I'm going to go type up and send off your article. You can come hang out in my room if you want. I don't know if you have anything else planned for the rest of the day."

"I'm going to head down and read some more psalms, I think. I'm almost finished with the book. Come grab me if you're about to do anything and want some company."

"You got it."

Chapter Six

It wasn't Danny who came knocking later, after I'd had my face buried in Psalms for several hours, but Abbie. "Hey, Eli. I hear you're leaving us soon."

"How on earth does this information get around so quickly?"

"Oh, people talk," she said with a broad smile.

"I can tell." I rubbed my head, suddenly noticing a ferocious headache, probably from squinting at the small type on the pages of the Bible that Danny had let me borrow. "Yeah, I'm leaving, just for a couple of days. I'll be back not long after Christmas."

"Aww, our first Christmas together and we won't be together?" Abbie pretended to pout. Leaving the door propped wide, she came over to the bed where I was sitting and started to massage my temples.

"Oh, wow," I mumbled. "That feels amazing."

"I thought it might," she said, fingers strong on my scalp. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Stanley wander by in the hallway, and he paused for a second before going into his room. I couldn't see his facial expression, but I could just imagine the impish grin he might have been wearing.

After a few minutes of massage, my head felt quite a bit better, and Abbie grinned brightly at me. "Well, since you're going to be jumping town momentarily, I thought I'd take you to dinner tonight. My treat."

"What a strange relationship, where the woman pays for the man."

"You'll get over it, I'm sure. Especially when you see where we're going."

I took Abbie's outstretched hand. "Lead on, madam."

Twenty minutes later, we were seated in a corner booth at Texas Land and Cattle, the name of which had me giddy even before I'd seen a menu. "You know me far too well," I told Abbie. "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, followed by a left onto Steak Street."

"You're too funny."

I was going to say something else, but what popped into my head was all the insecurities I'd been thinking about a few days ago. I paused, mouth half-open, changing gears in my mind.

"What?" asked Abbie, still smiling, amused at my mental hiccup.

"I want to be honest with you," I told her. "It sounds incredibly dumb, but I feel like I have to say it."

"Try me."

And I did, I told her about all my fears and insecurities, about feeling like I wasn't good enough. "And...this is the really dumb part, by the way, but I'm really afraid that once you get to know me, you'll find out that I'm not all you hoped I'd be, and that you'll just decide you don't want anything to do with me."

Her eyes were huge, and I think she was amazed at what I'd said. "Anyway," I added, "I know what I need to do about it. Danny told me some stuff about finding my value in God and reminding myself that my worth doesn't come from what I do or how well I do it. But that's hard to internalize, you know? I've heard the opposite since the day I was born. I thought you might want to know what's going on inside my head."

Abbie nodded. "Thanks, Eli. Wow. I'm really impressed with you."

"Oh? Why is that?"

"Guys tend not to talk about their feelings much. At least, the guys I've known. Most of them seem content to pretend that they've got it all figured out. I think it's really mature of you to be so transparent. Two weeks ago you would never have said anything like that."

"Yeah, God's been dragging me right along, it seems." We were interrupted at that point by the waiter, coming to get our orders. When he had left again, I rested my chin on my hand. "It's weird, you know, all the changes that have been happening in me lately. In a way, it feels like I'm a completely different person than I was before that night, but in a way, I feel more like myself than I ever did before." I smirked. "That's a terrible way to say it, I know, but I can't put it into words any better."

"No, I know what you mean," agreed Abbie. "You're kind of stuck in the middle. You're becoming the person you were meant to be, but the person you used to be is throwing a temper tantrum."

"Yeah, I think that's it. That's part of why I'm going home. I didn't know it when I told my parents I was coming, but I think now that I have the chance to make things right with them. We haven't had the best relationship; they had a way of making me feel like nothing I did was good enough for them, so there's just not much there. And I want to see if we can patch that up."

"Interesting." Abbie looked up at the waiter, who had just slipped our drinks onto the table, then absently unwrapped her straw and sipped her lemonade.

"I do have a question for you," I put in. "You talked earlier about your past, and how it took a long time for you to forgive yourself for the things you'd done. Are you totally over that or do you still think about it sometimes?"

"Oh, Eli you have no idea." She took a long drink of lemonade, buying herself some time. "Every morning when I wake up and don't like the way I look, the doubts are there again, and I have to tell them that I know they're not true. I told you last time that I have to rest in what I know. I can't go by my feelings, because they lie to me. I have to remind myself of the truth, that God has forgiven me and I am not that person anymore. Sounds like Danny told you the same thing in different words."

"Yeah. It's just so hard to actually do it."

"You're right about that." Abbie's green eyes searched mine, and she reached her hands across the table. "Be strong, Eli. I'm proud of you and who you're becoming. Don't ever lose sight of what God has for you."

I took her hands, smiling gently at her. "Thank you, Abbie. You've been a great friend to me. You believed in me when I didn't believe in myself, and that has to count for something."

"I think there's more to come. And I'm really glad you're willing to stick with me, too."

"You're a wonderful and beautiful woman, you know that."

In the dim lighting of the restaurant, I'm fairly sure Abbie turned red.

Our steaks arrived and we spent the meal discussing less weighty things. A couple hours later, bellies full of cow and dinner rolls, we rolled back up to my apartment building. Abbie left her car idling at the curb and walked me to the front door. Brushing her hair back from her face, she smiled, a really beautiful and carefree smile. "If I don't see you again before you leave, Eli, know that I'll be praying for you. I'm eager to see what God's going to do with you."

"Thanks."

We embraced, the warmth of our bodies chasing away winter's chill, and Abbie walked slowly back toward her car. I watched her go, overwhelmed by gratitude that I had friends like her in my life. How had I ever lived without them? What kind of lonely, miserable existence had I been living for the last 23 years, before I finally came alive?

Upstairs in my room, I began packing for my trip. I'd be leaving in about thirty-six hours; the next day would be my last full day before going home. I still didn't feel ready, didn't know what I was going to say to my parents. I wanted more time to prepare, but I didn't have time. The trip was on top of me, and I had to either do what I wanted to do or be weak and find some way to not go or not have the difficult conversation.

I remembered something at that point, a conversation Abbie and I had previously the night we went to Whataburger for dinner. Abbie had told me that God would bring situations into my life, tough situations, where I'd have a choice to make between the old me and the new me. Suddenly I understood what she'd meant.

And that made the decision to go through with it a whole lot easier.

Chapter Seven

It seemed appropriate somehow that I would spend the day before my trip playing basketball. The cold weather didn't stop us all from being out in shorts and short sleeves on that beautiful Friday, the motion and activity keeping us warm enough. I was guarding Stanley, and even though he was older and less mobile, he played smart, leaning on his positioning and creative passing to get things done. He faked one way, then charged the other, and just when I started moving toward the basket, he pulled up and sank a wide-open shot. I watched it go in, hanging my head sheepishly.

"That's game," he said, giving me a conciliatory pat on the back as he walked past. "Five minute break and then rematch?"

"You know it," Jarrius answered, as eager as I was for a chance to do better.

Stanley and I sat next to each other on the bench, guzzling water and trying to find some way of breathing that didn't involve getting our lungs scorched with near-freezing air. "Got some news for you, Eli," Stanley told me.

"Oh really? What's that?"

"I told these guys my testimony. All of it."

I looked up at the court, where Jarrius, Julius, DeRon, and Willy were laughing together. "Seriously? How'd they react?"

"Blew 'em away. They never guessed it. You know the one thing that really clicked with them, though? The bit about growing up without a dad. You know Willy's the only one of those four who's got a dad at home, and even that's not his real dad?"

"That's incredible to me. There were some broken families where I came from, but I've never heard of so many people just plain missing fathers. It was way more common to have two parents who just didn't care about each other anymore, and stayed married out of habit or something." I paused, thinking. "Not to say that's really any better."

"I think you're good proof that either is destructive," Stanley observed.

"You would think," I said with a raised eyebrow, "that a God who prided himself on being father would make sure our actual fathers did a better job of showing what that means."

"Maybe. I think it proves the Bible, honestly. Look how far short your father and mine fell of God's standard. That's the best answer I have to someone who asks why we need God. Look how things go when we try to do life without him." Stanley took a long sip from his bottle. "Your life, my life. It's like we built museums to human failure."

"That's pretty pessimistic."

"It's pretty realistic, Eli. Humans have had thousands of years to figure out our problems and prove that we don't need God, and look at us now. Are we really any better off? Doesn't it strike you as odd that the United States today still has all the same problems as Israel did in the Old Testament, corruption and exploitation and lying and cheating and stealing? So much for progress."

"Right. But back to your story. Who else are you going to tell?"

Stanley chuckled, shaking his head. "This reversal of roles is throwing me off. You're not supposed to be the one pushing me to open up."

"God loves irony, or something like that. I'm pretty sure it's in the Bible."

"You're more right than you know. I want to ask Danny if I can tell my story in front of the church some Sunday. I think God wants to tell those people something about love and forgiveness." He frowned at the top of his water bottle. "Eli, I feel so dumb. I can't believe I was embarrassed of my story for so long. You don't even know how it felt when I was telling the guys there. I want to say it was freeing, but it was more like realizing I was the only one who'd been keeping myself behind the bars, you know?"

"I think I felt something like that the night I came to God," I said.

"Maybe so. It's strange, Eli, but I like it." He looked up at the others, who were waiting for us to come back onto the court. "Ready to get schooled again?"

"I'm ready for you to try."

An hour later, with four more games under our belts, the others were ready to quit. Julius, DeRon, and Willy said their goodbyes and headed off, while Jarrius stuck around to talk with Stanley and me.

"I heard about this trip you're about to make," Jarrius told me. "I'll be praying for you."

"Yeah, thanks. I don't know what to expect. Stanley told me that you and Julius grew up without a dad?"

Jarrius nodded. "Was rough, man. A lot of the things I was supposed to learn from him, I learned from the other kids around me, and they was all growing up without dads too, so none of us knew much of anything. My life was built around respect, you know, who was respecting me and who was disrespecting me, and how I could beat people up so they would respect me. Jesus wrecked my life, changed everything about the way I thought."

"What about your father? You ever talk to him?"

"Got no clue where he is. I'd like to meet him someday, you know, let him know that I forgive him and that God loves him. I'm kind of jealous you get the chance to have that talk with your parents."

"I never thought of it that way."

"It's a blessing, bro. A real blessing." Jarrius went silent, maybe thinking back to long ago, or to what he might say if he ever got the chance to have that talk with his own dad.

We sat for several minutes, just listening to the light breeze whispering through the maple trees that ringed the park. The sun was visible today, a nice change from the gray and cloudy weather that would no doubt await me back in Indiana.

"Well," Jarrius announced, "I've got class in the afternoon. I'll see you two later. Let me know how your visit goes, Eli."

"You got it." I stood and shook his hand. "Take care of yourself."

"Peace, brother."

Stanley watched him go. "That boy could have been me, you know, if he hadn't met Jesus in time. A lot of the kids he grew up with are in jail or on probation cause they grew up without dads around to show them the right way to be."

"I can't get over it, Stanley. I had no idea..."

"What, that Christian folk had problems too? Sin is universal, Eli. All the pain you see in the world is from people trying to live their own way, and getting stuck with the consequences of other people trying to live their own way. That's why everybody needs Jesus. That's also why it's silly to blame God for all the pain in the world."

"I guess so."

"By the way," Stanley added, "I got in touch with that family from New York. The family of the guy I...killed." There was still the slightest hesitation when he said it, but he had said it, which was the important thing. He wasn't running from his story. "I can't believe it, Eli. They want me to come up there for Christmas. They didn't sound surprised, didn't sound like I would be imposing on them. It sounded," he swallowed, trying to keep his composure, "sounded like they'd been waiting for that call. They told me to come on up and we'd all have Christmas together." He chewed on the inside of his lip, nodding slowly. "I can't believe it."

"So you're going to go?"

"I feel like I have to. I think it's the next step in my story." He stood up. "Well, I've got places to go this afternoon. I reckon I'll catch you later. Be safe. I'll be praying for you."

"Thanks. I'll be praying for you too."

He wandered off back toward the apartment, leaving me by myself in the park, looking up at the sun and beginning to shiver now that I wasn't moving around as much. As I started to walk back home, I found that I noticed people. There was a woman not much older than me walking on the other side of the road, pushing her two toddlers in a stroller. She saw me staring at her and glanced away quickly, as if she was embarrassed at being noticed. What was her story? Why was she by herself? Was her husband at work providing for her, or halfway across the country with another woman? And the man walking behind her; was he unemployed, or did he work nights, or was he in school?

I couldn't even remember seeing other people most of the time when I was walking. I'm sure I saw them, but I didn't really see them; their existence didn't register on my brain. Now I saw them, and I was curious. Everyone that I saw had a story, like mine, like Stanley's, like Abbie's, like Jarrius'. Somehow I'd never realized that before.

I wanted to stop and talk to all of them, to find out their story, but I knew that, for the moment, my own was more important. I had to go home and pack for my trip, to get ready to leave and make things right with my parents. This was it. This was when I would get out from under all the stuff they'd left me with, the consequences of their own sin and maybe the consequences of mine too.

In less than a day I'd be on my way home.

Part Six

Chapter One

I barely slept at all that night. I tried; even when I was dead exhausted at three in the morning, I closed my eyes and told my body that it was time to drift off to sleep. My body said okay for a moment, but then it got to thinking about the trip, about what I was going to say to my parents, about the incredible relationship we were all going to have, and it would get equal parts excited and nervous, and I'd be chasing sleep for another hour.

Just before seven in the morning, I dragged my bag of clothes out to the parking lot and loaded it into the back of the Tahoe. I had several hundred dollars of the money Jake had given me, more than enough to get to Indiana and back again. My truck hadn't been started in a while, but it roared to life, almost expectantly, as if it was as eager for the trip as I was. Heart thudding almost through my chest, I pointed the car east on Interstate 30 and retraced the route I'd taken three weeks earlier – it couldn't have been three weeks ago, it had been a lifetime, a thousand lifetimes – from the place that had given birth to the new me, back toward the place where I'd spent the last 23 years as the old me.

The first three hours of the trip passed in a moment, that mixture of excitement and nervousness squishing my chest as if an elephant was using me for a mattress. I made it into Arkansas, passed Little Rock, and made it almost to Memphis, turning north onto Interstate 55.

A few minutes later, a faint whopping sound grew into a loud whopping sound and the truck began to shudder. I eased it onto the shoulder, annoyed but not too angry about what I assumed was a flat tire. Cars whizzed past me on the interstate as I eased out of my door and circled around to the passenger side, checking out the rear tire, which was as flat as, well, an elephant's mattress.

I popped the back hatch, pushing my duffel bag to the side and pulling up the panel that hid the spare tire...which wasn't there. I frowned, scratching my head absently, until I abruptly remembered the hiking trip to Mineral Wells from way back before I had trusted God. Sure enough, I'd gotten a flat tire in the parking lot and had barely driven my truck since then. I'd never even though to get a spare.

What could I do? I had no idea how far I was from the nearest place to get a new tire, and because I had no income, I owned no cellphone. I honestly hadn't felt the need for one so far, not living in the same building as most of the people who mattered to me. Besides, who could I call? The only people I knew in the world were seven hours from me, and even though I knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that Stanley or Danny or Abbie would drop everything to come help me, I'd still be stranded till they showed up.

I sat in the back of the truck, just pondering what to do, watching the traffic blast past a few yards from me. While I waited, I had a few choice words with God, demanding to know why something like this had happened if it was so important that I get back and talk to my parents. I didn't understand it.

Barely had the words escaped my mind before I saw one truck lurch as it passed me, hauling on the brakes. Looking over my shoulder through the windshield, I saw the other truck stop fifty yards down the road, then begin reversing toward me. The man that got out was dressed in business attire, shirt and tie and slacks, but even so he was rolling up his sleeves like he was ready to do some work.

"What seems to be the problem with your truck?" he asked brightly.

"Just a flat tire. I've already got the spare on it, though, so I need to get a new tire." I put out my hand. "Eli Radak."

"Kevin Miles," he said, with a quick shake. "I felt like I should stop and help you. Dunno why, really. I've never done this before and I don't know the first thing about cars. But..." He knelt, examining my tire. "Huh, ain't that something. Looks like we've got the same size tires."

Only then did I notice that he was driving a GMC Yukon, identical to the Tahoe in everything except name. "That's funny."

"Let me give you my spare tire."

I looked at him, wondering about God's sense of humor. "Thanks. I'll give you some money so you can buy a new one."

"No, don't worry about that. I just think it's interesting."

"What's that?" I dug in the back of the car for the jack, pulling it out of its clip and moving around to the side of the truck.

"Well, you've got basically the only problem in the world that I could help you with. And I've got exactly what you need."

"God provides," I said, forgetting for a moment that I wasn't talking to my friends.

"God does provide," Kevin agreed. He watched me spin the lever, slowly raising the truck off the ground an inch at a time. "I think I needed to be reminded of that today."

"You're a believer?"

"Yeah. You know the weird thing? A couple days ago I was praying that he would give me some confirmation, just remind me that he's really out there. And you better believe I was asking some serious questions when I felt like I needed to stop and help you. I just about didn't do it."

"That's crazy. Like we're each the answer to each other's prayer."

"It'll give you goosebumps if you think about it too long," Kevin agreed. "I'll be right back with that tire."

I wondered what God was up to. He could just as easily have gotten me to Indiana and back with no flat at all, and I would never have known the difference, but he had allowed – caused? engineered? was there really a difference? – this obstacle, not just so that I could be encouraged, but so that Kevin would have the chance to flex his faith a little bit too. It occurred to me that "God's plan" was a whole lot bigger than I or anyone else could ever know.

It was surreal, as I sat there waiting for Kevin to walk the tire back, for me to think about all the people in the United States, and how many chance meetings God was organizing at this exact moment, uniting people who needed to sell a house with people who needed to buy, people needing encouragement with the people who had the exact right words to say, people who needed a spare tire with the guy who, somehow, miraculously, had the precise same size of tire he needed. My head spun trying to take it all in. If the storm earlier in the week had helped me understand how powerful God is, this had done the same.

And all from a lousy flat tire.

Kevin came back with the spare, which we hoisted onto the axle, Kevin tightening the lug nuts as I tossed the flat tire into the back next to my duffel bag. His hands were greasy and he had accidentally smeared a huge grease stain onto the right arm of his cobalt-blue shirt. When I pointed it out, he shrugged. "It was worth it."

"Thanks, Kevin." We shook hands again and climbed back in our separate trucks, to probably never see each other again.

I was thinking about God, as the miles wound past and Arkansas gave way to Missouri gave way to Illinois. Long after dark, I passed a sign welcoming me to Indiana, which only a month ago I would have been happy never to see again.

But today was different.

A few more hours in Indiana saw me pull into my parents' house close to midnight. The living room light was on; they had stayed up for me. Maybe that was a good sign.

I pulled the Tahoe into my old corner of the driveway, pulled my duffel bag over my shoulder, and prayed hard.

Chapter Two

They hadn't stayed up for me. They'd left the light on, but whether on purpose or on accident I had no idea. Feeling very alone after so long by myself in the truck, I trudged down the hallway, avoiding the creaky spots without even thinking about it, so as not to wake my parents. I threw my duffel bag into the place in the corner where my backpack had gone every day after school, and sat down on the bed where, long ago, I'd hidden when it thundered and left presents for the tooth fairy under the pillow.

It was even comforting, in that peculiar way that familiar places can be comfortable simply because they're familiar, even for a person that doesn't like them very much. My bed creaked gently as I settled onto it, and I glanced at the ceiling, at the dancing shadows from the tree outside, which when I was younger had given me nightmares as I imagined them to be people at the window. Exhausted by the trip, it took me only a few moments to fall asleep.

The next morning I awoke to the familiar smell of coffee. Pulling on a pair of sweatpants and running fingers through my bed-matted hair, I stepped out into the hallway to meet my parents.

"Oh, good morning, Eli," chirped my mother, coming over to give me a maternal hug.

"Son," grunted my father from the couch, where he'd sat reading the paper every morning that I could remember.

"Hey," I said. "Good to see you saved the cold weather for me."

"We might get a white Christmas this year," mom said hopefully. "So, why don't you tell us how Texas is going for you."

"It's great, mom, really great." I maneuvered into the kitchen and sat on one of the barstools at the island. "I've made a lot of really good friends, I'm playing guitar in the praise band at the church, I've helped feed homeless people, I've been hiking and fishing..."

"Are those the friends who are bankrolling your laziness?" my dad put in.

"Is that really all you can think about?" I snapped, instantly sorry, because that wasn't the way I wanted to start talking to them. I was slipping back into the old defensiveness, the old negativity, and I hadn't been home twelve hours. Less angrily, I added, "You really think a person's life can't be valuable if they're not working for some corporation for a third of every day?"

"I'm just saying you can't be that worthwhile if you can't even support yourself." Dad looked up from his paper. "Not you, personally, Eli, but in general. I don't want you to be a drag on your friends, son. I want you to be strong and self-sufficient."

"I'm sure I will be, dad. I've put in more than fifty applications. I just don't need you riding my back. I already feel bad enough that nothing has come out of them yet, but with my downtime, I've been making friends and exploring the city and helping people out."

Dad raised an eyebrow and went back to his paper. He was making sense, kind of, as far as his Midwestern work ethic was concerned. He'd been taught to equate a person's value with accomplishments. I guess that's how he could be proud of himself even though his job was a line worker in a tomato canning plant; at least he provided for his family. Still, though, what a puny view of meaning in life.

How could I begin to tell him that his whole way of viewing life was off? I saw shades of myself in him; I'd learned that philosophy from him, and I'd carried it with me all the way to Fort Worth. It was the reason why all I could think about for the first two weeks was money and a job, before I came to God and saw how wrong I'd been. Was it my responsibility to tell him at all, or merely to forgive and reconcile, like I'd come to do?

I felt very alone, very confused, without my friends here to help me find out what to do. It was just me and God this time around, and I didn't feel like he was giving me a whole lot to go on.

The silence must have gone to an uncomfortable length, because mom plunked a glass of orange juice in front of me. "Thanks," I told her. "How have things been here?"

"Oh, same as always," she said brightly, as if that was a good thing.

"The new lawn tractor's working out great," dad added, perhaps trying to get under my skin.

"That's good." I ran my finger around the rim of the glass, debating whether to just say what I had come for. In the end, I didn't think there was much to lose. "So...one of the things I've been thinking about in Texas is how we haven't always had the best relationship, so I just wanted both of you to know that I love you and I forgive you."

"What kind of crazy people are you hanging out with?" dad demanded. "I don't need your forgiveness. Your mother and I did the best we could with you, and if you have a problem with that, feel free to go back in time and raise yourself without our help. Forgiveness, he says." Dad threw the paper down on the coffee table and sat back on the sofa, arms crossed.

I was stunned; that wasn't the answer I'd driven so far to get, wasn't the way I'd imagined it unfolding. "Not even for taking money from my bank account to buy that lawn tractor?" I asked. "Not even for making me feel like a failure for not finding a job yet? Not even for spending so much money on yourself that you don't have anything left over for a Christmas present?"

"Do you want a present? Is that what this is about?" He stood, thumping purposefully toward me. "You're pissed that you drove this far and we're not giving you anything?"

"It's not about the present, dad," I told him, exasperated. "Did you hear a word I said? I just feel like I don't matter to you." There; it was out. Too late to take it back now. "Every time you call, all you can talk about is how I need to get a job so you're not embarrassed of me. I feel like I have to earn your love."

"I'm not going to listen to this," he said.

"You don't have to. I'm done. And I don't care if you believe me or not. All I want you to know is that I forgive you." I leaned forward. "If you don't think you've done anything that needs forgiving, then don't worry about it. I just thought, you know, you might have some regrets, some things you wish you'd done differently, and I was going to tell you that you don't have to live with regrets. There's hope and forgiveness. I know you did the best you could, and I'm glad for that. And I want you to know that I don't hold your mistakes against you. I forgive you."

Dad thundered out of the room, and I heard the front door explode shut behind him. Mom, who had been silent, put her hands over her face. I wanted to console her, but I was so rattled that all I could do was retreat to my room to regroup a bit.

It wasn't supposed to go like that. I wasn't expecting him to rush teary-eyed into my arms, but I'd at least been hoping that he would listen to what I had to say, to be man enough to hear me out even if he didn't agree. Then again, maybe I shouldn't have. When I'd first met Stanley, I'd tried to shut him up when he started saying things I didn't want to hear. If I'd bothered to wonder where I learned that trick from, maybe I would have known sooner that my dad wasn't going to listen.

I stepped back out into the kitchen, to see if my mom was still around, but she'd vanished off to someplace, maybe her bedroom, maybe to find dad. I didn't go looking for her. Alone in my room again, I went back to have a few words with God. Had I been too rash, too pushy, not tactful enough? Why hadn't God given me success?

Chapter Three

The house was eerily quiet till later that night. I knew that my parents would come back at some point, and that we'd have to talk to each other again. I had absolutely no clue what to do when that time came up, if I should raise the topic again and try for some closure or if I should just smile and nod and pretend nothing had happened.

The question was partially decided by my mother, who cracked open my door to let the smell of pork chops, my favorite, waft in. "Mind if I come in?"

"Yeah, sure." There was nothing else in the room to sit on, so I pushed my Bible to the side and made room for her on the bed.

She came and sat down, heavily, troubled. "You don't know how many years I've wanted to say that to your father."

"Really?"

"Oh, son. I've felt the same thing for decades."

"Why didn't you ever say something? To him, or to me? Why did you just let him keep being that way?"

She stared at the ceiling. "It's not that simple. You saw how he reacted."

"Yeah, but...I mean, it's your marriage. You spend every day with the guy. How could you live like that?"

Mom chewed on her lip. "I guess I forgot it was supposed to be any better. Maybe I should have said something, for you, if not for myself."

"Well, I forgive you for that too."

A weak smile was the only response; I got the impression that if she tried to say anything else, she might have burst into tears.

Feeling bold, I added, "Let me tell you why I thought it was so important to come back and talk about this stuff with you and dad."

So I did. I filled her in on everything that had happened to me since I'd moved to Texas, all the friends I'd made, all my encounters with God that ultimately made me decide to follow him. Mom listened, though I had no idea whether any of it stuck with her. Honestly, it seemed as if her mind was somewhere else, perhaps understandably so.

I wanted to give her a Bible, just in case she had some desire to read it, but the only one I had with me was Danny's well-loved and marked-up copy. I didn't know if he'd get upset if I gave it away. I took the chance, though, and with a quiet goodbye, mom left the room, Bible in hand.

Dinner was ready in half an hour, but it probed new and untold boundaries of awkwardness. Dad seemed to have taken my earlier words as a mortal insult, and he glowered at me over pork chops and mashed potatoes before finally speaking his mind.

"I don't know who those people are that you're friends with down in that place, but you're going to stop hanging out with them. You will not talk to me the way you did, and you owe me an apology."

I threw my fork on my plate. "Talk to you how, dad? Tell you that I forgive you for any mistakes you may have made as a parent? How can you possibly be offended at that?"

"I told you, there is nothing to forgive me for. I did the best I could. I raised you. I fed you. I provided for you. And you repay me by talking about my mistakes."

"All I'm saying is that we could have had a stronger friendship than what we have. Are we friends, dad? When was the last time you called me just to talk?"

"I'm not a woman, son. I don't talk, and I don't know why you feel like I need to."

"Once again, you've completely missed the point. I'm saying that I want to be friends with you. I want to know that you love me and that you're proud of me."

"You think I don't love you?" roared my father, pushing himself up, trying to tower over me. Very calmly I stood as well, while he ranted on. "How dare you accuse me of that? I gave everything for you. You think I work forty hours a week at that plant just for the hell of it? I just enjoy standing on a factory line, is that what you think? I fed and clothed you for twenty years. How dare you talk like that in my house?"

I met his eyes, watched his nostrils flaring. Once again, with him, it all came back to money. Softly, trying to deflect his anger, I asked, "If you really love me that much, would it have killed you to say it once in a while?"

"Get out of my house!" he bellowed. To my shock, he grabbed me by the shoulders and bodily shoved me toward the door.

"Be reasonable," pleaded my mother, trying to get between us, but we were well past that point already.

Dad pushed me to within arm's reach of the front door, and then stopped. I turned to face him. "I need to get my things from my room."

"Get out of here." He turned and went back to the kitchen while I, still stunned, went to my room and packed my things back into my duffel bag.

Was this really happening? Not even twenty-four hours after arriving home for Christmas break, I was being shunted back out the door the day before Christmas eve. With more calm than I was really feeling, I hoisted my bag over my shoulder and headed out to the living room where my mom was still waiting.

I embraced her, and softly said, "I love you." I realized as I did that I was, in more ways than I knew, my father's son. I'd just finished scolding him for never saying those words out loud, but I couldn't remember ever saying them to my mom.

"I know you do," she said. "I've never doubted it."

"I don't think I've said it often enough. Forgive me?"

"Of course."

I pulled away and stepped into the kitchen once more. "I love you, dad. Please forgive me."

"Go away," he grunted, taking another bite of the pork chops that mom had made because they were my favorite.

Maybe I should have stayed; maybe he wasn't serious when he told me to leave. I was just on autopilot, so hurt and so confused that I didn't know what else to do. In the quiet cold, I crunched across the frozen ground to my truck, where through the curtains I could see mom sitting on the bed, face in her hands.

Love and forgiveness weren't supposed to work that way, I thought, slamming the Tahoe into gear and roaring out onto the street. What had gone wrong? Was it me?

It probably was. I'd been too quick, had jumped straight to the meat of the conversation without building rapport first. I'd been silly and naïve to think that my father would respond to something like that. I was so stupid, so –

Those thoughts swirled around my head for the half an hour it took me to make it back to the interstate, and about the time I got up to cruising speed, something brought them to a crashing halt.

"The Lord is my shepherd," I told myself. "He leads me by still waters." Then, by myself in the truck, I sang the psalm to the tune I'd written for it. "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me."

I wasn't stupid, wasn't silly or naïve. Those thoughts weren't from God, and they weren't my true identity. That wasn't to say I'd handled the situation as well as I could have, but making a mistake didn't mean I was worthless. I'd said what I came to say. I'd reconciled with mom, at least. Time would tell if we could build the friendship we could have had all along.

But even if I'd messed things up beyond recognition, even if I hadn't reconciled with either parent, I was still God's beloved child. That was true, and would keep being true no matter what, because it was built on his own steadfast love – I'd read about that in the psalms – and not on my own strength. And that's what I had to lean on, what I had to tell my own head when it kept trying to tell me other things.

I almost turned around, maybe half a dozen times, but I felt something stopping me each time, a subtle feeling that I'd said what I came to say and the rest was in God's hands. I didn't know what that meant, and I wondered what exactly God was up to, but he'd brought me this far and I imagined he was going to keep providing.

I ended up driving for a while before spending the night in a crummy motel in an even crummier town in Illinois, only because it was way too cold to sleep in the back of the truck. The next morning, bleary-eyed and still heavy-hearted, I pointed the truck toward Fort Worth.

Chapter Four

Stanley was outside when I pulled into the parking lot twelve hours later. He watched me make the turn, and I didn't make eye contact with him, because what face could I make that would sum up everything I was thinking?

He was waiting for me when I opened the truck's door, though. "Welcome back, Eli."

It hit me, then, the full strength of what had happened, the rejection I felt and the pain of opening my heart to my dad only to have it shot through, and I leaned back against the truck.

"I take it things didn't go quite the way you planned."

I told him. I'd never seen him so deep in thought as he heard me tell about the flat tire, the first feud with my dad, the talk with mom, the second fight with dad.

"I just can't believe he reacted that way," I finished. "I've never known him to fly off the handle for any reason. I could see him getting angry, sure, but kicking me out of the house? That's way over the top and I don't understand it at all."

"Over the top is right," agreed Stanley. "That's just absurd. You must have hit him where it hurt."

"I don't get it."

"Nobody reacts that way to a new idea. I mean, look at how you reacted when you and I started talking about the same kinds of things. If you were cocky, confident in the way you were doing life, you might not have listened when I started talking about a better way. You might have been annoyed at me, or confused, but you wouldn't have gotten angry. You got angry because you were already thinking those same thoughts. I don't know why it works like that, but it does. Anger only comes when you tell a person something they already fear might be true."

"Oh. That makes sense, I guess."

"I don't know for sure, but I would bet he's had some of those same thoughts and regrets himself lately."

"Then why wouldn't he want my forgiveness? Why did he pass up the chance to have a friendship with me, if that's what he's really wanted all along?" I put my hand to my forehead. "I don't get it."

"Free forgiveness is hard to accept, son," Stanley said gently. "The hardest thing about walking with God is understanding that grace is free and you don't owe God anything. It's really easy to go through life still feeling like you need to pay God back. You told me you thought that was why I'm so busy with ministry stuff, and I think you're right. But either way, free love and free forgiveness are intimidating. That's not how the world works most of the time."

"I just don't get it," I repeated dejectedly.

"Do you think your visit was a success?"

"Stanley, are you dense? After this conversation?"

"I think it was a success." His brown eyes found mine, and he smiled. "You went for the purpose of talking to your parents about love and forgiveness, right?"

"Right..."

"And you did that, right?"

"Yeah, I did, but they –"

"But nothing. You did what you went to do. Listen close, Eli, cause this is important. You can't judge your success or failure by other people. You had no control over how you parents responded to you. All you could do was say what you came to say, and you did that. Success. It's that simple."

I leaned back against the truck, looking up at the sky and exhaling. "It feels like it shouldn't be that simple."

"Don't go by your feelings, Eli. You know they don't always tell you the truth. Take it up with God, if you want to. Ask what he thinks. I think you know what the answer will be." Stanley checked his wristwatch. "I have to go, though. Can't think of a better way to spend Christmas eve than flying to New York."

"Oh yeah, I forgot all about that. I'll be praying for you, Stanley."

He slapped my shoulder and moved past me toward his car, where a big piece of luggage was waiting in the backseat. He might have been right about my trip being a success, but I wished him more success than I'd had.

On the way back up to my room, I ran into Danny coming down the stairs. Like Stanley, he seemed perplexed to see me back so soon, and like I'd done with Stanley, I'd told him the whole story. Right there in the stairwell, occasionally interrupted by someone brushing past us, I explained what had happened and what Stanley had told me.

"Come on upstairs," he said. "Elizabeth has some friends over, but we can go to the church's room."

A few minutes later, with the halogen lights overhead flickering to life, Danny and I sat across the aisle from each other. "Got two pieces of news for you," he told me. "First, we weren't expecting you to be in town, obviously, but you're welcome to come spend Christmas with Elizabeth and me. We don't really celebrate it the way most people do, but we're going to have a nice ham dinner together. Abbie's coming, too. Does she know you're back in town yet?"

"No, I just got in ten minutes ago."

"Alright. Second piece of news, though. I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of sending the magazine that one article you wrote about how you became a Christian. They love it and they want to print it. Cover stories pay twenty-five hundred dollars. The check will be in the mail soon and the story will run sometime around March."

I sat back in disbelief. "That's some serious news."

"It is. I'm a little jealous, actually. They've never asked me for a cover story. But whatever," he added with an easy smile, "my heart beats for this church and I wouldn't want writing to interfere with that anyway."

"It's good that you know what your mission in life is. For all the progress I've made, I'm still no closer to knowing."

"I think it will come in time. God's only had a couple of weeks to work on you, after all. Maybe it's writing, who knows. Or maybe he'll tell me the church needs a worship leader. You're curious, at least; you want to know the answer, and that's a good thing. It'll come."

"Yeah. I just have to remind myself."

"That's right." Danny glanced at the stage. "Have you ever wondered why you're living here for free, Eli?"

"Cause my aunt Helen is still paying the rent."

"Yeah, but why would she do a thing like that?" His eyes shifted to me, and he smiled at my confusion. "Why would she move clear off to Arizona and keep paying for an apartment in Fort Worth?"

"She didn't want to pay the fee for breaking her lease?"

"Not quite. It's because she was hoping to come back here. Not just to the building. To the church." His gaze drifted back toward the stage now. "Can you play that song you wrote one more time?"

My guitar was still up on the stage, so I strapped it on and turned on my amp while Danny powered up the PA system. I strummed through the intro, thinking about the words and how much more they meant to me today, just a few days later, than they had the first time I'd sung it in this room.

And I sang it with feeling, turning the words over in my mind before they came out my mouth, grateful to God for being my shepherd, my rest, my protector. When I finished, I set the guitar down. "I think I need to go spend some time alone for a while."

"Yeah, sure. Go ahead. See you tomorrow."

I hadn't actually told him I was coming, but both he and I knew that I had no reason not to be there. Back in my room, I sat on the bed to think, but I was falling asleep almost instantly, the weight of the last few days bowling me over now that I was back in a place where I could rest. Part of me still kept hoping the phone would ring, my dad's voice on the other end, wanting to talk. Even without that, though, Stanley was right; I had said what I went to say, and mom, at least, was on the same page with me.

My eyelids drifted down and blocked out the golden twilight streaming in the window.

Chapter Five

I woke up Christmas morning still feeling numb and exhausted from doing thirty hours of driving in the past three days. What I really wanted was to go to Mineral Wells and do some hiking by myself, just to think and clear my mind and have some time with God, and that desire got me out of bed, into the shower, and dressed before it occurred to me that state parks were probably closed on Christmas.

So there I was, all dressed up with no place to go, until I thought about the place where the guys and I had watched the storm a week or so ago. I didn't know exactly where it was, but I had the feeling that I would recognize the exit if I saw it again. Once I was off the interstate, it was just a matter of driving south until I lost sight of civilization.

The Tahoe hummed underneath me as I sailed westward under a mostly sunny sky. It was pretty, as Christmases go, bright and sunny like a holiday should be, not gloomy and raining the way most of them had been back north. Before long I had found a turnoff that looked familiar, and made my way south on a deserted county road.

I found myself on top of the same hill where we'd sat to watch the thunderstorm, and on a whim I climbed onto the roof, raising my arms and looking all around me at the rusty clay and scrub brush that extended for miles toward the horizon. I felt like the only man on earth, but not in a lonely way. Rather the opposite, I felt God more closely than I'd ever felt him before, out in this earth that his fingers had molded.

Maybe I understood a little more clearly what it meant to be a creation of God, out there looking at some of the other things his fingers had made. Everything here had been meticulously crafted, adorned with incredible beauty, special to God even if it went completely unnoticed by the handful of humans who ever drove through here. And, hard as it might be for me to accept it sometimes, the same thought and care had gone into me. I was valuable to God, no matter what anyone else said, because he had built me. Unlike the clay, I was capable of appreciating who he was, of having a friendship with him and talking to him and interacting with him. It was pretty humbling.

I sat on the roof, a bit overwhelmed both by the beauty around me and by those thoughts flooding into my head, just taking it all in and enjoying my time in nature. Maybe it was just the peace of the place, utterly silent except for the wind teasing my hair, or maybe it was from focusing on God, but I felt my stress and exhaustion starting to slip away.

It had all happened so fast. I'd spent twenty-three years building the wrong kind of life, and God had demolished it and built a new one in less than a month. Now I was writing songs and magazine articles for a God I'd barely thought twice about. And that, I realized, was the answer to all the questions I'd been asking about my identity.

Who was I? That was the question that had brought me to my knees before God the night I told him I needed him as my Savior. In the weeks since, he had answered it, using thunderstorms and strangers on the highway and friends and music and psalms. I was a child of God, one of his beloved creations, valuable to him because he made me and he cherished me. My purpose was to live in community with him and with the other people who loved him, and to take that message to people, like my parents, who didn't know it yet. It made sense. I was seeing it for the first time.

I laid back on the roof of the truck, basking in the sunlight, almost unable to comprehend the magnitude of it all. There was really nothing left to do but thank God, praise him, let him know that I noticed what his hand was doing. He seemed closer than ever there in the desert.

After a few hours talking to God, I climbed down and went back home. That made me pause – I had called it home, for the first time. That seemed important to me, maybe the last indication that I had turned a corner and was really in a new life now.

I knocked on the door to Danny's apartment and was met by Abbie, who looked stunning, dressed up in her Christmas best. I was suddenly self-conscious, since I hadn't changed, and I probably smelled like sunlight and clay still, but Abbie didn't mind as she pulled me toward her.

"I'm so sorry about your trip," she said.

"Don't be," I told her, rubbing the back of her neck. "It was good. I'll tell you all about it."

I hadn't meant to dominate the dinner conversation, but that's how it happened, as I told them all what God had been showing me on my trip and out in the desert. My plate was still nearly full, the ham neglected and the mashed potatoes nearly cold, about the time the others were finishing, but they were listening, fascinated, at what I was saying. "I can't believe you're the same guy that Elizabeth and I took cookies to earlier this month," Danny shook his head.

"You seem really happy," Elizabeth added, "really content. I haven't seen much of you since the night we watched _Aladdin_ , but I'm with Danny. You're a totally different person."

I nodded slowly, finally giving my ham some attention. "It's a miracle."

"I hate to be that guy, but it's really not a miracle," Danny corrected. "A miracle is when God breaks the laws of nature. Parting the Red Sea, raising Jesus from the dead, those are miracles. This was just God being God, and the church being the church. I'll be the last person to accept credit for the way God has used me, but I can see plain as day that he used me – used us, all of us – in bringing you to faith, and that's an incredible feeling. All we did was what we were supposed to do."

"Be that as it may, thanks," I told him, meeting Elizabeth's and Abbie's eyes in turn. "All of you. You've made a difference beyond what you know."

"Eat your ham," Abbie laughed. "You're getting sentimental."

We talked and laughed for hours, and finally Abbie stood to leave. "Let me walk to your car," I offered.

"Yeah, sure."

On the way down the staircase, I had a crazy idea, and after debating for a minute whether to actually do it, I told Abbie to take a break at my floor. She relented, with a confused smile, and waited outside my door while I dashed in and changed as quickly as I could into a dress shirt and slacks, squirting myself with some of the cologne that I'd owned for years and never used but for some reason – maybe just for this moment – had felt like bringing with me to Texas. I stepped out into the hallway, slipping my arm around Abbie's waist. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head as she tried to take in the sight.

"All this to walk me out to my car?" she wondered.

"I thought perhaps we might do a little more than that."

Now thoroughly mystified, we walked arm in arm out the front door, across the street to the park, until we stood on the same patch of grass where Abbie had told me about Jesus the night I became a believer. "I was hoping we might dance," I told her.

"You know how to dance?"

"No clue," I said, with an embarrassed laugh. "But how hard could it be?"

I pulled her close, and we slowly swayed back in forth, while the trees applauded overhead and a gentle breeze kissed us. No words seemed appropriate, under the stars, so we just danced, feeling like it was enough to be there together. And it was.

I don't know how long we were there, minutes or hours, but finally Abbie looked up at me with a sheepish grin. "I realize you've got pants on, so you might not be aware of this, but...it's pretty chilly out here."

"Then let me walk you to your car. For real this time."

I offered her my elbow, gentleman-style, and she put her arm in mine as we strolled toward the parking lot. At her car we paused, and embraced again, before she slid in the door.

"Thanks," I told her. "For being you."

She smiled so brightly I thought it was going to push back the night. "Thank you too, Eli. You're a wonderful man and I'm so proud of who you're becoming."

"You believed in me," I reminded her.

"So I did. That was one of my better moves, I think." She brushed her hair back behind her ear. "See you tomorrow, Eli. I'd like to come hang with you for a while if you don't mind."

So she drove off into the night, or the morning, whichever it was at the time, and I went back to my room, feeling like the most blessed man on earth.

Chapter Six

Abbie, Danny, Elizabeth, and I got together around mid-morning, since everyone had the day after Christmas off from work and school. We sat around a pile of cards on the floor, playing spades, as Abbie and I tried unsuccessfully to beat a team of two people who had known each other all their lives. "Being siblings is cheating," groused Abbie. "I swear you can read each other's minds."

"Hey, I can read minds," I objected. Abbie raised an eyebrow skeptically, and I pushed my fingers to my temples. "Right now you're thinking, 'no you can't, you liar.'"

She laughed. "Maybe you can after all."

We got annihilated, of course, but the sting of the loss was eased a bit by some steaks that Danny had cooked up on the skillet. While we were eating, Elizabeth leaned over and glanced out the window. "Were you aware of anyone moving into the building today?"

Danny frowned, perplexed. "No, I wasn't. I talked to Karin down in the front office about it just last week, and she didn't say anything either. That's strange."

"Well," said Elizabeth, "let's hurry up and head down to see what's going on."

Neither Abbie nor I needed any encouragement to pack down meat, and unsurprisingly, we were the first two finished. "I have to go downstairs for my shoes and coat," I announced. "Meet you guys down there."

Abbie followed me down to my bedroom, playfully poking me in the sides as I fumbled with the door key. "Having problems with the lock, there?" she teased.

I lunged back at her and she flinched away, squealing, before I even made contact. With a victorious laugh, I pushed the door open and ran in quickly, grabbing my shoes from beside the bed before Abbie could come return fire.

She stood at the door, hands in her pockets, smirking. "You've won this round, Radak, but don't think you've won the war."

"I've already won the war. You just don't know it yet...Amy."

Somehow, at the same time, she laughed and turned red. "I thought you forgot about that."

"I never forget, Ms. Grant. You know, we should sing together again sometime. You have such a nice voice, and I have a guitar. Somehow we've never put those two together."

"Later today," she suggested. "Let's make it a date."

"Date." I put my arm around her shoulder and we walked side by side toward the staircase.

Danny and Elizabeth had beaten us downstairs, and were waiting by the door. "Have you met the guy yet?" I asked them.

"No," Danny said. "I think that's him over there."

"Why haven't you gone over there?"

"Cause you're going to."

I faced Danny, and instantly understood where he was coming from. He was passing the baton to me. Stanley and Danny had welcomed me to the building, but Stanley wasn't here, so Danny was giving me the chance to do for someone else what the two of them had done for me. If Stanley were here, he'd be doing the same thing, I had no doubt in my mind.

It struck me again, just how far I'd come in the last few weeks. Standing on the front step of a building I'd seen for the first time earlier in December, with friends who had treated me like a friend long before I deserved it, who believed and hoped the best for me when I didn't believe in myself. Danny, who had given me a chance in the praise band. Elizabeth, who had shown such hospitality greeting me with cookies. Abbie, who had seen such a change in me and who was now my partner at the beginning of what could only be a beautiful relationship. Stanley, who had spent so much time with me and done so much to make me feel wanted and valued in the building. Even the others who weren't here had played a role: Jarrius, Julius, DeRon, Willy, Jake. I didn't know if it took a village to raise a child, but it had taken a village to bring me to faith, and now I was part of the village.

Maybe the guy at the bottom of the stairs was already a believer, or maybe he hated the idea of God and church, or maybe he was right where I had been when I came to Fort Worth. There was only one way to find out.

Feeling three pairs of eyes on the back of my head, I bounded down the steps and strode confidently toward the man Danny had pointed out.

"I'm Eli Radak," I said, holding out my hand. "Welcome to the building. Let me introduce you to a few of my friends."
About the Author

Jim Barringer is a writer, Jesus lover, soccer nut, and seafood consumer from Orlando, Florida. He serves as worship+teaching pastor at The Church of Life (.com), and _New Heart Church_ is his first Christian novel. He can be contacted at jmb783@gmail.com, and more of his writing can be found at facebook.com/jmbarringer. He has but rarely updates a Twitter account, so if you want to know what he was doing two months ago, follow @jmb783.

