Powerful and Effective (Part Two)

The phone rang three times before Joe realized he wasn’t dreaming. He fumbled in the dark and finally got it to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Joe, this is Polycarp.

“Yeah?”

“Is Felicitas there?”

“What? No, she left here,” Joe looked at the clock, “almost two hours ago.”

“Well, she hasn’t come back yet. I thought she…I thought she might still be there with you.”

“We said goodbye just after midnight, Pol. That’s all I know.”

“Something’s wrong.”

“Oh my God! Do you think…?” Joe trailed off. He couldn’t say what he feared.

“I don’t know, Joe. If she’s missing…” He couldn’t say it either. “Listen, I’m going to go look for her.”

“I want to come with you.”

“No, I’ve got a friend who’s a private investigator. He knows how to find people.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Pray, Joe. Pray hard and long.” He hung up.

Joe got dressed and made some coffee. He sat down in the living room and bowed his head. “Lord,” he began, “please. Protect her, God. Help her. Help me. Please God, don’t let evil win. I know my prayer is partly selfish, Lord, and I confess that to you, but Felicitas, she’s not selfish. She’s been through so much. Please Lord, not this, not now. She turned her back on that life. She promised to follow you all her days. She’s been faithful, God. Hold her now. Don’t let her…don’t let her suffer pain, Lord. Guide Polycarp Lord. Help him to help her.” Tears filled his eyes. “Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe, God, she just had a flat tire, or ran out of gas. But I’m worried for her. I can’t bear the thought of her being hurt or scared. Please God don’t let this happen! I’m begging you. Please…please…” Joe ran out of words to say. He just kept Felicitas in his thoughts and presented her to God. Eventually he fell asleep. When he woke up he felt guilty for sleeping. He prayed even harder. An hour had gone by and still no phone call from Polycarp. Joe started pacing and praying. He drank some coffee, but that just made him more agitated. He sat back on the couch. When his phone rang he almost jumped out of his socks.

“I found her, Joe.”

“Is she okay?”

There was a long pause. Finally, “No, she’s not.”

“Oh my God, no.”

“She’s alive, Joe. She wants to see you. I’m going to text you the address. Hurry.”

Joe put the address into the GPS on his phone and took off. It took him about ten minutes, but it seemed like ten days. He drove up to an old motel not far from where he first encountered the city. There was a beat up sign at the curb with peeling paint. It said “Dockside Motel. Hourly Rates.” It wasn’t too hard to figure what that meant. Joe screeched to a halt next to Polycarp’s car. The door of one of the units was open and the lights were on inside. Joe walked up and looked in. Charlie G. was unconscious on the bed. Polycarp was kneeling over Felicitas who was lying on the floor in the corner.

“I didn’t want to move her, Joe. She’s beat up pretty bad.”

Nothing prepared Joe for what he saw. Her eyes were almost swollen shut. Her face was cut and bruised. Her lips were cut and she appeared to be missing a couple of teeth. Her clothes were torn and bloody. One of her arms was twisted at a cruel angle. Tears came into Joe’s eyes. He looked fecklessly over at Polycarp for some kind of reassurance and saw in his eyes the same hopelessness he himself felt. Joe knelt down too and touched her hair and a jolt went through him like a megawatt. His heart ached. He’d never felt such sorrow and pain. He didn’t have time for the rage. That would come later.

“Hey, babe, I got here as fast as I could.”

“Hi, Joe,” she whispered. “I wished I’d stayed.”

“Ah, babe. Me too.” He was crying harder now.

“I’m going outside to call the cops, Joe.”

“Okay.”

Felicitas reached out with her good arm and took his hand. He held on to her as if by doing so he could take her pain. If only he could. Instead he lay down next to her and put his mouth up to her ear.

“I’m going to pray for you.” He could feel her feeble attempt to nod.

“Oh, God, please cradle your child. Sustain her Lord. Please, God, spare her this once. Let her rise above the evil in this place. Let her live. The world needs beautiful souls like hers, Lord. I need her. Please, Lord, don’t let the Enemy have a victory tonight.”

She squeezed his hand. “Could you…the Bible?”

Joe got up and found a Gideon Bible by the bed. He lay back down by her.

“Psalm twenty three,” she whispered.

Joe found the passage and read it lying next to her on the floor.

“The Lord is my shepherd,” he began.  “I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Joe felt her stir. “Look at me, Joe.”

Joe got back on his knees. He looked into her eyes one more time.

“I love you, Joe,” and then she was gone.

Then there was nothing but silence. Silence and pain. Then Joe heard a sound, low, guttural and awful, but it wasn’t coming from him. He looked up and Polycarp was standing behind him, bearing a look of absolute devastation. The sound grew and grew. It filled the room. It filled the world. It expressed every injustice, every loss, every love slammed to the pavement by evil. It was the keening of a soldier’s wife, the wail of Esau when he lost his birthright, the anguish of the messiah when he cried out: “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” No one could touch that sound because it was borne of love. Love lost. Love conquered. Love undone. Then the sound was in his soul. It became his sound and he became the sound. It shook him and rattled his bones and destroyed him until there was nothing left. Joe lay back down next to Felicitas and wished he could die with her or for her.

“I hear sirens, Joe,” Polycarp said. But Joe was useless. He had no strength, no will. He could barely breathe, much less get up and answer questions. But Polycarp helped him sit up and the police came and for a while there was nothing but questions. Thankfully, the questions were mostly for Polycarp. Joe sat against the wall with his knees drawn up and his head down. Finally someone came and asked him to move. They had to look at the body. Her body. Joe got up and someone helped him out of the room. As he went by the bed Charlie G. stirred and suddenly Joe felt the rage that had been patiently waiting. If he could, right now he would take Charlie by the throat…but then Joe remembered that you can’t kill a dead man and went out of the room.

The next hours were a blur. It was almost sunrise when Joe left the motel. He drove back to the apartments and climbed in bed with his clothes on and slept until the phone rang. It was a reporter. He mumbled ‘no’ into the phone, hung up and fell back asleep again. After that he remembered nothing until Bob woke him up knocking on his door.

“I’m so sorry, Joe. Sam called and I came right over,” Bob said as he gave Joe a big hug. “Now, listen. I want you to take a couple of days off, as long as you need. I’ve already arranged for someone to stand in for you here. Don’t worry about anything, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Sam said you could stay at the Refuge if you wanted.”

“Okay.”

Bob went over and got some coffee from Ellie and brought it back.

“Ellie wanted me to express her sympathy for your loss, Joe. She broke down when I gave her the bad news.”

“Tell her thanks.”

They sat and drank coffee in silence for half an hour until Steve came by. Since it appeared they already knew each other, Joe didn’t get up. Steve sat down next to Bob. Then the three of them sat in silence until Joe finally said,

“I don’t get it. I don’t understand why God would allow this to happen. It’s all so senseless and out of context.”

“Well,” Steve began, “that is the question of the ages, Joe. Let me say right off that this is not punishment. You cannot blame yourself for this as if God were judging you for a past sin or something. That is just not true. It does not apply to you or to Felicitas. Second, there is a theological discussion about why God allowed this to happen, but I don’t think you need to hear that right now. Ask me about it later, when you’re ready. The hard news is, Joe, I don’t have an answer to that. You may never know the reason why.”

“I don’t like that.”

“I know, Joe. I know you’re hurting. We all are, not in the same way as you, but she meant a lot to everyone.”

“Oh, God.” Joe started crying again. Again they sat silently. Finally Joe got up and blew his nose and sat back down. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, Joe. There is nothing wrong with the pain you feel right now. It’s part of the gift of love. You loved her and your souls bonded. You wanted to spend the rest of your lives together. It’s only right for you to feel the way you do.”

“Well, I feel awful. I feel lonely and empty.”

Bob got up and sat on the couch. “Joe, I think what Steve is saying is that it’s okay to grieve. Five years ago my little boy died of cancer. Now, I’m not going to tell you that everything will get better. I hurt every time I think about him. But I do know this, Joe. This pain will not destroy you. Yeah, it hurts like hell right now, literally, but it will not defeat you. I won’t let it, okay?”

“And neither will I, Joe. We will walk with you, right next to you for as long as it takes.”

“Thanks, ‘cause I feel like I’ve got a long way to walk.”

“You know, Joe,” Steve said, “Just because we don’t have some of the answers, doesn’t mean we don’t have any.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like I said, we may never know why God allowed Felicitas to die, but what do we know?” He continued without waiting for an answer. “We know God exists and we know he is love. Sometimes, like right now, that is all we know, but it’s enough.”

“It sure doesn’t feel like it.”

“Do you think God loves you?” Steve asked gently.

“Yes.”

“Then hang on to that in faith even though you don’t have the answer to your other question.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“If your friends stand with you, do you think you have a better shot at it?”

“I guess.”

“Let’s start there.”

Later that day Sam came over, picked Joe up, and took him back to the Refuge. He went straight up to his old room, threw his stuff on the floor and flopped on the bed. He didn’t want to move for a long time. A couple of hours later someone knocked on his door and asked if he wanted something to eat and he said no.

When Joe woke up it was dark and he was cold. He kicked off his shoes and crawled under the blankets. He tried hard not to, but he couldn’t help thinking about all the plans they’d made. It all seemed so meaningless now. They were going to get married at the little park Joe had found so long ago. It was one of Felicitas’ favorite places in the city as well. For their honeymoon they were going to go on a sailboat cruise to an island and they were going to sit in the sun for two weeks. Then back to Cherrywood and a new life together. So, he’d have to call and cancel his reservation of the park, call and cancel his reservation on the boat, and figure out how to live without her for the rest of his life. The first two would be hard the third, impossible. Joe turned his face to the wall. It wouldn’t be the last time he fell asleep with tears in his eyes.

The next day Sam came and knocked on his door. Joe forced himself out of bed and answered it.

“Joe, they found Felicitas’ car at a gas station. Keys were still in it. We brought it back, and I think you should have it. Here are the keys.”

Joe took the keys, said thanks and Sam left. He lay back down on the bed with the keys still in his hand.

The funeral was on Saturday. They had the service at the Refuge. There was maybe a hundred people in attendance. Felicitas’ family was there. Joe had not yet met them. That was supposed to be next weekend. They all looked at each other with sad eyes, and grasped each other’s hands meaningfully, and tried to say comforting words, but really, the only thing they had in common was lying in the casket.

The pastor, a friend of Sam’s, was the same person who was to marry them in five weeks, or thirty five days, or whatever. When everyone was seated he came to the front with his Bible.

“I’m sorry we are here today. Candace’s death seems so senseless and unnecessary.”

Joe had to remind himself that was her real name. Apparently her mom and step dad wanted it that way. Nobody felt the need to ask him what he thought. Maybe if they’d been married…

“One of my favorite passages in the Bible,” he continued, “is First Corinthians 15. I’d like to read a few select verses from this great chapter and make a couple of comments. In verse twenty it says: ‘But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.’ Christ’s resurrection three days after his death is the most significant event in human history. Not only did it guarantee the power of his sacrifice, but it also guarantees our resurrection. Let me put this another way, Jesus as risen and because of that Candace has risen. I believe she is with him this very moment looking on his smiling face. That means that death has no power, no victory over us. Later in this chapter it says: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ We hurt now. We feel that pain from a great, great loss. But we are not conquered. Because of Christ, this life does not have the final say. The final say is when the Lord sees you and exclaims, ‘Well done good and faithful servant.’ We weep for a time now. It’s good to weep when you’ve lost someone. But a day is coming when the Lord will wipe every tear from our eyes. He knows our suffering and he knows how to comfort us.

“We are here today, in part, to say goodbye. I know that this is hard. We don’t want to say goodbye to so final a circumstance. But listen! It’s not final. We will walk with her again. We will see her smiling face and we will be smiling too.

“This chapter concludes with the words, ‘Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you.’ That is true because death has no power. That fact has emboldened millions of believers over the centuries. The second century writer Justin Martyr once said: ‘You can kill us, but cannot do us any real harm.’ He went on to prove that with his life. I believe that Candace died for her faith. She is every bit a martyr as Justin was. I don’t understand why God does certain things and not others, but I do know this: nothing is wasted. No life given to him is ever wasted, and certainly no death in his name.”

The pastor prayed and then they went out to the cars and followed the hearse to the cemetery. The sun was shining and it was seventy degrees. “Funny,” Joe thought, “In the movies it always rains at funerals.” The pastor said a few words and then quoted the ‘earth to earth, ashes to ashes’ stuff that Joe had heard somewhere. Another prayer and then it was over. They lowered the casket into the grave and a few people threw flowers in, but Joe just stood and watched. He felt numb and just wanted everyone to go away so he could suffer alone. Finally everyone did. Joe watched while the cemetery people started putting dirt in the grave. Polycarp was waiting for him in the car and so he walked over and got in. Polycarp didn’t start the car. He just turned in his seat and looked at Joe. Joe could see big tears running down from behind his sunglasses.

“Joe,” he tried to begin, but paused. “Joe I have to say this. I cannot hold it in any longer. I made you a promise. I told Felicitas the same thing.  I promised to protect her, Joe, and I didn’t. I failed her…and I failed you. It’s my fault, Joe. I can’t stand it, but I have to ask you: can you forgive me?”

There it was. Joe had been avoiding thinking about it. He’d thought all around it, but there it was. He was angry, angrier than he’d ever been in his life and Polycarp had just articulated its source. He should have said, ‘It’s okay, man. I hold nothing against you,’ but he didn’t. He didn’t say anything. He sat there looking at his feet saying nothing. Then he got out of the car, slowly closed the door and walked away. It was the worst thing he ever did in his life.

Joe walked back to the Refuge. It took him an hour. He went upstairs trying to avoid everyone. It wasn’t too hard. The staff was all in the lounge praying. Joe took his stuff out to what was now his car and drove off. He went to Cherrywood and called Bob and told him he was quitting. He left the work keys at the coffee shop and took off. He didn’t know where he was going, just as far away from her memory as the road would take him. He drove out of town on a long bridge that crossed the river that had first brought Joe to the city. He followed the coast south. After an hour or so he saw a wayside and pulled into the parking lot. There was a trail through some small dunes covered with high grass. Joe found an old Adirondack chair. It was weathered and worn. Some of the nails had worked out and the slats had popped up at an odd angle. He didn’t care. He dropped his stuff in the sand and himself in the chair. It was maybe an hour before sunset and Joe just sat and listened to the waves creep across the sand. This wasn’t like when he was trapped on the beach. He was here by choice, not necessity. But just like then he felt alone. So it was good to be alone. Joe sat motionless until the sun was level with the horizon. The sense of loss washed over him and the tears came again. Sam had once told him his best days were ahead of him, but that was hard to get ahold of right now. Everything seemed bad or messed up. The sun set and it got dark. Joe sat until all he could see were stars and the lights from a few ships. It got cold and he climbed inside his sleeping bag and sat back in the chair. The future may be all bright and hopeful, but the present was a train wreck: death and damage everywhere. It hurt to think he’d never see Felicitas again and it hurt to think of all the people he’d let down or alienated. He might be able to reconcile with Polycarp, but Felicitas was not coming back. “Must not be God’s will,” Joe said aloud in a voice full of sarcasm, regret and anger. Finally he just ran out of energy. He lowered his chin to his chest, closed his eyes and in a few minutes he was asleep.

At some point in the night Joe had a dream. He was back in the city. Sam had bought a bus for the Refuge and hired Joe as the driver. Not long after he took off he discovered the bus’s brakes were almost gone. If he pumped them he could stop when he needed, but at some point he was distracted. He looked up and the light had turned red. He stomped on the brake, but it only slowed the bus and he banged into the car in front of him. That car hit the car in front of that and before it was done the bus and four cars had been damaged. He got out and tried to call nine-one-one, but he didn’t have a signal. He had to walk to the next block until he could get through. On his way back he started to cross the street, but was nearly hit by two cop cars responding to his call. But by the time he got back to the accident no one was there. The cops weren’t there and all the cars had gone. He was examining the front bumper when a seagull woke him up.

It was just starting to get light. The tide was out so far he could barely hear the waves. He heard a voice and off to his right he saw some beachcombers looking for shells or some other thing. As they got closer he saw it was a man and a woman. They were holding hands. Then the woman bent down and picked up an object looked at it and showed it to the man. It made her happy and that made him happy. They didn’t see Joe and walked on. Eventually he couldn’t see them anymore and he was alone again.

Joe got his stuff and walked back to the truck. He threw everything in the cab and got behind the wheel. He started the engine. He had plenty of gas and nowhere to go. He put the truck in gear and pulled out of the parking lot. To his left the road led back into the city. Joe turned right and headed to someplace else. Anyplace else. After a couple of hours he saw some mountains in the distance. It didn’t look like his mountain, he was facing the wrong direction, but he decided to go get lost. He stopped at a store and bought some food and orange juice. He drove out of the suburbs, out of almost every vestige of civilization and into the unknown. He drove for two solid hours and then turned right on to a gravel road that led toward an intriguing looking canyon. As he climbed in elevation the hills began to close in on him. Soon the road was one lane with no place to pull off. The hills became cliffs and it got darker and darker. It was still only late morning, but the sun didn’t grace this place, Joe thought. Suddenly the road ended in a wide spot. Joe turned off the engine, got out and locked the doors. Opposite the road was a trail that led into some of the thickest trees Joe had ever seen. Even the woods around Luther’s cabin weren’t this thick. “Perfect,” Joe thought as he stepped onto the trail. He hadn’t walked fifty feet when it came to his attention that it was completely silent in these woods. The dead calm was almost an assault. At first it felt like he’d gone deaf, but he snapped his fingers and the sound was as loud as ever. The more he walked the darker it became until he felt like he was walking in a shadow. Under normal circumstances the whole event would have filled him with trepidation. Joe thought it was truly odd how anger and depression trumped fear.

Joe followed the trail. He’d spent a lot of time in the outdoors. In the old days he took a trail because it led somewhere. Not today. Not once did he wonder where this trail led. Not once did he think about food or water or going back or going forward. He just walked. Hours went by. Eventually it got dark. Joe walked for a while and soon he came to a clearing. It was really nothing more than a wide spot in the trail. It wasn’t any bigger than his former bedroom at Cherrywood. Joe stopped there, threw down his sleeping bag and built a little fire. He crawled into his sleeping bag and lay there watching the flames, then the embers, and finally nothing at all. It was so dark he could tell no difference between when his eyes were open or closed. So he just lay there in the night looking at the darkness.

Joe woke the next morning and stood up. He surveyed his surroundings and was surprised to find that he was actually at the end of the trail. It ended at a rock wall higher than the tops of the trees. But even more surprising was the stairway carved into the rock. Joe could see blue sky at the top of the stairs and so he packed up his few belongings and prepared to make his ascent. As he put his foot on the bottom step he noticed that someone had chiseled something in the rock about eye level. Joe looked closer. It said: “Hebrews 4:16.” Joe had neglected to bring his Bible with him, so he tried to commit the verse to memory but by the time he was halfway up the stairs he couldn’t remember it.

Joe reached the top and came out on a cliff. The cliff was in fact a ledge. He walked up to the other cliff rising straight above him, but there was no stairs so he turned around. He was above the tree tops and he could see for miles. But he also noticed a stone monument close to where the stairway breached the cliff. Joe walked over to investigate. The monument was about Joe’s height and close to three feet square. It was made of dressed stone. Joe thought about how much work it must have taken to put this monument in this spot. If it was the same person who made the stairway it was even more impressive. Joe saw a plaque embedded in the stone. There was a poem written on the plaque:

Sometimes

Sometimes we can’t see the forest.

Sometimes we can’t see the trees.

Sometimes life lifts us to its highest.

Sometimes life brings us to our knees.

Sometimes

But sometimes when we’re on our knees

We ask the Lord to hear our pleas

We bear our soul and hope he sees

We state our case and he agrees.

Sometimes

But every time we’re kneeling there.

Our face upturned to God above.

We listen and hear God declare:

I love you with unfailing love.

Joe wondered what all this meant: a dark, depressing valley, the trail, the stair and now this. Then Joe noticed an inscription below the poem. “Written in honor of the three missionary sisters who were all killed on the same day. Even while their persecutors took turns shooting them with arrows, the sisters were singing praises to their Lord. Though their lives ended that day, their story did not. As of this writing over a hundred people, both home and abroad, have given their lives to follow The Way as a direct result of their martyrdom.

Joe walked around the pillar. On the other side, facing the valley he’d walked through the day before, was another plaque. This one said: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. –Tertullian.” Joe had remembered seeing his statue in the park. The same park he was to be wed in. The same park where he was confronted by the man who orchestrated the events that led to Felicitas’ death. Then Joe remembered something else. It was something the pastor said at the funeral yesterday, something to the effect that no life given to God is ever wasted. All of this sounded good. Had Joe read that at any other time since he became a believer, he would have affirmed its truth. But now, with grief eating away at him like a cancer, it was hard to process. He sat down hard on the ground and leaned against the pillar. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier’ he thought, ‘to just stay here until I join her?’ Of course, that’s what he really had to admit to himself. He felt like dying. He didn’t want to live without her.

Then something happened. Something profound. As Joe sat there he looked up at the cliff in front of him and the similarity could not be mistaken. It reminded him of his beach, and when that thought entered his thinking all of a sudden, all the events that had happened to him, washed over him like waves. From when he first met Philo until that horrible night at the motel, one after another in succession, they flashed before him. But it wasn’t the events themselves that struck him that struck him as profound; it was the grand idea that God had been there through each one, and that God had ordained them one and all. Joe reached up and touched the scar Bruiser had given him. Even that turned out to serve God’s purposes. If it weren’t for that scar, Bruiser might not be a follower. Joe thought about that for a long while and realized that even though God did not want Felicitas to die, her death could be used for the glory of the Lord. Joe couldn’t grasp the full meaning of that, but he affirmed what Bob had said, this grief would not destroy him. He still hurt, his still missed her, that would probably never change, but he could finally see it in perspective. All of Blake’s actions were an attack from the enemy. Blake told him as much in the park that afternoon. That sparked another thought: what about Blake? Joe realized he had work to do. He got up and headed down the stairs.