The Evidence of Things Not Seen

Joe got to the bottom of the stairs, looked up, and started out. As he walked back down the trail to the car a couple of things came to mind: his job and Polycarp. In his black anguish he’d burned all his bridges. He didn’t know what to do about the job. He had already been on probation. He figured he ought to at least call Bob and bring closure to the whole thing. He could do that when he was back in the city. As far as Polycarp was concerned, he wasn’t going to have to wait. When Joe got back to the car he saw Polycarp leaning against it. As soon as Joe emerged from the trees Polycarp looked up. Joe approached him not knowing what to expect. Fear and hope were sparring with each other in his heart.

“Pol, I don’t know what to say…” Joe trailed off.

“How about ‘hello, Polycarp. How did you find me?”

“How did you find me?”

“My detective friend helped. When you scanned your card at the gas station, it made it a lot easier. Then it was a matter of asking around, trial and error, and lots of prayer.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Got here this morning. Saw the car and decided you needed the time, so I had my buddy drop me off, and I just waited.”

“You didn’t know how long I was going to be up there.”

“Didn’t matter. I needed to be here when you got back. I needed resolution.”

“About the funeral, I am so sorry. Your heart was right, mine was dead. You are a better man than I am.”

“Don’t say that, Joe. There’s nowhere to go with that. Look, I had to interpret what happened in context. Everything I’d known of you up to that moment was good. I saw so many decent qualities and noble virtues in you, what happened at the cemetery was an exception, not the rule. That doesn’t make it okay, Joe. Let me be honest, it hurt bad. But you are my friend. I think I can say you are my best friend. I don’t want that to change. I want us to see it as a glitch, not a deal breaker. If you forgive me, I forgive you. Okay?”

“Yes, of course,” Joe said immediately. “I can’t go back, but if you’re willing to let me continue to be your friend, then I want to go forward.”

“So, how are you doing?”

“Oh, you know, it hurts terrible. I miss her so much. I think it’s going to take me a long while to feel normal again, but I believe I’m not going to be overrun by grief. I think I will come to a point where I can manage it.”

“I’m glad to hear it brother.” Polycarp paused then said, “Look, I don’t want to change the subject, but I’m starved. Can we head back to that little café I passed and get some grub?”

“And coffee. I need some coffee.”

“Not to mention, you owe me a game of Cribbage.”

“Yeah, that’s right. Why don’t we take off.

Joe and Polycarp reminisced the whole rest of the morning, sharing stories about Felicitas. It was good for Joe to talk of her, and laugh a little. After breakfast, Polycarp asked Joe about Cherrywood.

“To be honest, I don’t know. I think I’ll call Bob and just see what happens.”

“Why don’t you call him now?”

Joe hit the speed dial on his phone and listened to the ring. Bob picked up.

“Joe, is that you? Where have you been?”

“Hi, Bob. I just took off. Polycarp found me and we’re on our way back.” Joe paused, then, “Say about the manager job…”

“What about it?”

“Have you hired anyone else yet?”

Bob laughed. “I’ve got a manager, Joe. Do you really think I took that call seriously? I knew what you were going through. Besides, Joe, didn’t I say I would stand by you and walk with you?”

“Yeah.”

“What kind of friend would I be if I backed away from that the first time you had trouble?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on back, Joe. Cherrywood is your home and your ministry. Our ministry. Okay?”

“Thanks, Bob. I will.”

“And if you need more time, take it.”

“No, I think it would be better if I went back to work.”

“Great.”

“I need to get the keys.”

“What keys?”

“I gave the apartment keys to Ellie.”

“She didn’t mention it. You’d better ask her.”

They hung up and Joe related everything to Polycarp.

“So, you want to head back to the apartments?” Polycarp asked.

“Do you think we could stop at the cemetery first?”

“Yeah, that’s a great idea.”

Later that day they pulled in to the circular drive at the cemetery. They got out and walked up to the site. The headstone wasn’t there yet. There was just a little marker identifying the grave. The sod had been put back, but there were still remnants of fresh dirt in the grass. They stood there silently for a while and Joe couldn’t stop the tears from coming. Neither could Polycarp.

“I’m going back to the car, Joe.” Polycarp finally said.

“Okay. I’ll be along in a minute or two.”

When he was alone, Joe said, “I’m saying goodbye babe. I can’t lie and say I’m alright with this. But I can’t change it.  I think I might be able to cope sometime down the road, but there is a lot of ground between here and there. I love you and I miss you. I wish you’d stayed.” Joe knelt down and gently placed his hand in the grass. He closed his eyes. “It was so good to have you in my life. I’m a better person for it. Goodbye.”

Joe got up and walked back to the car. When he climbed in Polycarp said:

“Thanks, Joe. I’m really glad we stopped. You okay?”

“I’ve been better, but one day at a time as they say. How about you?”

“The same, I guess. I’m just glad I didn’t lose both of you.”

“Thanks for coming for me.”

They drove back to Cherrywood and went straight to Java Judy’s. When they walked in Ellie came right around the corner and hugged Joe.

“I’m so sorry, Joe. If there’s anything I can do.”

“I’m staying. I talked to Bob and he wants me to continue on.”

“Yes!”

“Thanks, Ellie. Uh, what about the keys?”

“You mean these?” She held Joe’s keys out in front of her.

“Yeah, what gives?”

“Well, I know you dropped them off here, told Bob you quit and all that, but I wasn’t ready for you to quit. I think you can be a great manager, and I think you are good for Cherrywood. I just thought I’d wait until, you know, I had to give them back. Now I do and here they are.”

“Dude!” Polycarp said. “Gal’s got class, Joe.”

“Well, thank you, Ellie. You knew more about me than I knew about myself.”

“I’ve done a lot of eavesdropping when you came in her with Steve or your big buddy here.”

“Polycarp.”

“Okay, with Polycarp. I couldn’t help but hear a lot of what you talked about. This place is pretty small. Anyway, I could see that you had something. I don’t know if I get all the God stuff, but I could see you had character.”

“Maybe we could talk about it sometime.”

“Okay. Let me think about it for a while. I have some questions. Maybe I could ask and you could tell me what you think.”

“Sounds good.”

Joe and Polycarp went back to the apartment.

“You know, Joe, there is something we haven’t talked about,” Polycarp said as they got inside.

“What’s that?”

“Blake.”

“Yeah, I thought about Blake this morning.”

“What’s the plan?”

“I don’t know for sure. I wanted to ask you the same thing.”

“Do you remember before when we were sitting at Judy’s and I mentioned The Duck Test? Well, I’m convinced now more than ever that Blake follows the Enemy.”

“I agree. What do we do now?”

“Nothing overt. Neither of us is in any shape to deal with Blake. I think, as I said before, we should pray, put our faith in God, and wait.”

“Okay.”

“Remember when we talked that our struggle is not against flesh and blood? Read that whole section. I don’t remember the exact verses, but it’s in Ephesians six.”

“Will do.”

“Listen, if you’re okay, I’m going to head back to the Refuge.”

“Thanks again, Pol.”

“I miss her too, Joe, but we are going to make it.”

After Polycarp left Joe realized how tired he was. It had been three nights since he slept in a bed. He walked once around the complex and then turned in. He woke up the next morning feeling better. He hadn’t thought that was possible, but there it was. He got coffee from Ellie and came back and sat at the little desk he and Felicitas had dragged up from the down stairs. He opened his Bible and found the passage in Ephesians Polycarp had mentioned. It talked about putting on the full armor of God so you could fight against the devil. Joe took out a yellow pad and made a list of the different parts of the armor. There was the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, feet fitted with peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit. Joe wasn’t sure how this worked. Why was truth a belt? But he got the general idea. He could not overcome the Enemy in his life if he wasn’t protected by God. That much was easy to see.

After he’d finished studying, Joe came to two conclusions. The first was that he needed to spend some time like this every morning studying God’s word, and praying. Secondly, he couldn’t avoid Blake just because he felt weak right now. He had a job to do and God would protect him. As it turned out he saw Blake that same day. He was finishing the repair job to the fence that had been interrupted by everything else when Blake drove up in his pickup and parked. Joe put his screw gun down and stood up when he saw him.

“I thought you quit.” Blake said across the parking lot.

“I did, but I came back.” Joe began to walk over to Blake when something strange happened. As he approached, Blake jumped back in his truck saying, “I gotta go. I-I forgot something.” He started the engine, backed out and drove off.

Joe wasn’t sure, but as he drove by, it seemed Blake looked scared. No, it was more than that. He looked terrified. It didn’t make sense. Joe didn’t have a tool in his hand, he didn’t feel like he posed a threat to Blake in any way, but Blake surely seemed like he wanted to avoid him at all costs.

“What happened?” Joe asked Steve at coffee the next morning.

“My opinion: the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”

“That sounds interesting.”

“It’s from First John. John tells us to test the spirits to see if they are from God or not. Any spirit that does not recognize that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not from God. He says we have overcome those who are not from God because God is greater than their master.”

“You mean Satan.”

“That’s right.”

“So, because of God, we are stronger than the Enemy?”

“Right again. In fact the book of James says: “Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Blake is not the devil, but I think he’s controlled by him. You resisted and he fled.”

“How did I resist?”

“You came back. He threw his worst at you and you kept your faith. Think about that for a moment.”

“I’m thinking about how close I came to losing my faith, Steve. I have to be honest about that.”

“It’s good you are, but remember success in the Christian life is not about the struggle, it’s about the victory.”

“Well, I had you and Bob and Polycarp.”

“Proverbs says: ‘A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.’”

“Thank you, Steve.”

Three weeks went by. Joe kept up his routine of studying and praying in the morning. He was growing in knowledge and he began to feel more and more like he could handle the grief. He still had that sinking feeling and loneliness. It surprised him how much he missed her. A myriad little things reminded him of her. He’d find a sticky note she’d left about something, or he’d get in the car and catch a faint vestige of her perfume. Even more surprising, he’d see someone and think it was her: a gal in a car going by or someone at the store with her hair color. For a heartbeat hope would spring to life and then just as quickly reality would defeat it. Every time he thought of her sadness would well up, but the sadness was no longer debilitating.

As the weeks went by it became obvious Blake was avoiding Joe. He put his rent in the slot even when Joe was in the office. If he saw Joe outside he went the other way. Since that day in the parking lot they had not exchanged one word between them. Then one day it all came to a head. Someone had told him there was some water on the floor in the basement. Joe went downstairs to see if a pipe was leaking. He heard someone in their storage locker and Joe saw it was Blake.

“Hi, Blake.”

Blake looked up suddenly and immediately got agitated. He looked around desperately, but Joe was standing in the only exit.

“What are you doing?” Blake asked.

“Just checking out a leak. What about you? What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Hey, since were talking, can I ask you a question?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you mind?”

“I guess not.”

“Why have you been so hostile to me?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“And now you’re not.”

“What?”

“You used to be hostile and now you’re not. What gives?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I think that’s my question, Blake.”

“You don’t know anything. You don’t know what I’m about. You don’t…”

“Let me tell you what I do know, or at least what I think is true. At the park that day you mentioned your boss. When I asked you who that was you said I should already know.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing! You don’t know him.”

“You’re right. I know someone else, and guess what? Your boss has no power over me. I’ve put my faith in the One who rules everything including your boss. This much is true, Blake: God is my Master. He sent his Son into this world who took on human flesh and died for my sins. His blood covered my sin and gave me life everlasting.”

Joe’s speech had a profound effect on Blake. The words ‘flesh’ and ‘died’ and ‘blood’ affected him like body blows. He clenched his fists. His face contorted into an awful mien. He screamed: “WHY ARE YOU TORTURING ME? WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ME?” and lurched past Joe almost knocking him over. It was the last time Joe ever saw Blake. Late that night Joe was reading when the phone rang. It was Mrs. Green.

“He’s moving out.”

“Who’s moving out, Mrs. Green?”

“That man across the hall. Blake.”

Joe went up to the second floor but Blake was already gone. His apartment door was opened but no one was there. All that was left was the furniture and some orange juice in the refrigerator. Joe locked the apartment, told Mrs. Green that everything was okay, and went back to his place.

The next morning when Joe told Steve about it, Steve got up and said:

“Get your keys.”

They went up to Blake’s apartment. Joe opened the door and they went inside. Steve simply said, “Let’s pray.” They walked through every room in the apartment and prayed that the Spirit would cleanse each room and fill this place. They asked for God’s blessing, and they prayed that this would be the last obstacle to the work God wanted to do at Cherrywood. When they were done praying Steve said,

“Hebrews eleven one says: ‘faith is the evidence of things not seen.’ There are two realities, Joe. One of them is quantifiable and the other is not. We have faith that God exists even though we can’t see him. That is also true for angels and demons and all kinds of spiritual powers we can’t even imagine. Blake, and probably Charlie G., were enslaved to those powers. I don’t know exactly how that happened, but you can bet it’s a dark, sad story.”

Joe felt a weight lift from him. He said goodbye to Steve and drove out to the cemetery. He hadn’t been back, but he’d gotten an email from Felicitas’ sister that the gravestone was finished. He parked the car and walked up to her grave. He knew she wasn’t there, she was with her Lord, but he wanted to stop by anyway. He walked around the grounds looking at different inscriptions and dates, wondering about the people who preceded these memorials. Were they any more than just memories? Did their lives have meaning? Had they left behind any kind of legacy? Then he came to her stone. The family had used her given name “Candace.” It had her dates and below that it said: “Loving daughter. This world was not her home.” Joe knew that nobody in her family followed the Way. Maybe this was a start. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.