Alison Strobel - The Heart of Memory

· God can use our pain and painful circumstances for good

· God can heal us if we let him

She stared at what she had written. It didn’t take up a lot of room, it wasn’t full of epiphanies or revolutionary thoughts, but it embodied a radical retooling of her thought process from how it had been over the last three months. She didn’t actually believe all those statements about God, but that didn’t matter. What was more important was the lesson that emotion and experience didn’t always tell the truth.

She picked up her pen again and wrote, Do I believe God is real? She paused, thinking before writing. My heart does not. Not sure about my head- hard to isolate those thoughts apart from my emotions. Do I want him to be real? She paused again, though she knew the answer already. She just wasn’t sure what to do with it. I think my head does. My heart does not.

So how do I get my heart on the same page as my head?

She set down her pen and picked up her jacket. The sun was shining. It was time to head back to the orchard.

There was no wind today, no storm on the horizon. She walked the same path she had run down just a couple days before, the memory of that evening vivid in her mind. The anger she usually felt had diminished significantly since then, though it was still there, manifesting itself more as a feeling of disgruntled annoyance than real anger. The peace that had bloomed after her catharsis was also still there. Changes were definitely happening, and moving her in the right direction, but that last hurdle still seemed impossible to jump. The open expanse of the orchard gave her the space she needed to think about how to attack it.

She thought back to what she had written in her room. Fact: Charlie’s heart was hardened because of the pain people put him through, not because of God. He had projected those people’s actions onto God and aimed his anger at him. Maybe if she tried to address the hurts that he had been subjected to, validate his pain, and separate the anger from the fact of the situations, she’d be able to ease some of the negative emotions.

But how?

She took a quick look around, then spoke before she could convince herself she was crazy. “I know you were hurt. But you shouldn’t dwell on your pain to the exclusion of the good things that happened in your life.” She laughed aloud in nervous embarrassment, the sound swallowed by the silence that surrounded her in the hibernating orchard. Shaun would have her committed if he heard her talking to herself this way. Tabitha, on the other hand, would probably applaud her. She felt utterly foolish doing it, but in the absence of any other ideas, it certainly wouldn’t hurt. “I think it’s time to let go of that pain and get on with your life already. Well-not your life, since you’re dead, but let me get on with my life at least.” She rubbed a hand across her forehead, as though that might dislodge some better ideas. She wasn’t messing with spirits or anything, was she? That was the last thing she needed to deal with now-possession by Charlie’s hell-bound soul.

She tried a different approach. If the hurt were actually hers, what would she want to hear? It dawned on her that the things that came to mind to say- get over it, move on -weren’t exactly empathetic. No wonder she and Jessie had a hard time communicating. Affirmation and encouragement had never come easily to her when it came to her own family. To a stranger, a woman pouring out her soul at a book signing or in the meet-and-greet after a speaking event, she could effuse gentle and inspiring advice without a problem. Why not for those she was closest to?

Another problem for another day. Let’s focus on getting back to normal first, then we can go to Rose for some therapy. She tried again, picturing herself in her mind as wounded, hurting. What would she need to hear?

“You were hurt. Your father should have been there for you, he should have provided you with the love and knowledge and positive example that fathers are supposed to give their children. He robbed you of the security and love that you needed to thrive in your childhood. That wasn’t your fault. He was wrong for leaving.”

She let the words sink in, imagined them flowing through her veins and into her heart, absorbing into the tissue and soothing the cells. “Kirk was not a perfect human being. You idolized him because he was everything you needed – a strong man who shared your interests and took you under his wing, who taught you the things fathers are supposed to teach. He took a real interest in you, and invested himself in you. He even made you think twice about the conclusions you’d come to about religion. But he wasn’t perfect, despite how you thought he was. He was a broken, fallen man, like all of us are, and he made a very big mistake.

“But he didn’t do it to hurt you. He didn’t do it to hurt anyone. He had a problem, and he tried to solve it the wrong way; it backfired and ruined his marriage. That doesn’t mean that everything he told you was wrong.”

She stopped walking and stared down the row of trees that stretched beyond her vision. She almost expected Charlie to materialize in the distance, like a peach tree orchard version of Field of Dreams. As nutty as it felt to talk to herself, she had to admit it felt like a step in the right direction. She wasn’t any less disgruntled, any more willing to believe in God, but she did feel more open to thinking about him and possibly even reaching out to him, just as an experiment, to see what might happen. It struck her that praying for a release from the emotions might be the next thing she needed to do.

She wasn’t sure if screaming at Jesus counted as praying to him. If it didn’t, then it had been three months since she’d uttered anything to God. She wasn’t sure she was ready to try yet.

Savannah turned back toward the house. Tabitha would be finishing up lunch, the rest of the Refugees heading out to do whatever they chose to do while waiting for their individual therapy appointments. Maybe she and Tabitha could hide away somewhere and Tabitha could try praying for her again. Maybe even aloud.

The thought was not repulsive. That was a good sign.

SAVANNAH WAS IN A GOOD mood. It felt almost foreign, but she wasn’t one to deny a gift the universe (or, dare she consider it – God) had given her. Dinner had been eaten, Tabitha had prayed over her and she had lived to tell, and she was feeling cautiously hopeful that things might eventually turn out okay.

She decided to call Shaun. It was hard talking to him these days without feeling defensive, but she was feeling more amiable than she had in months, and maybe that would make all the difference. She sat out on the patio in her favorite rocking chair and hoped he was home.

“Hello?”

Savannah was surprised. “Jessie, hi honey. It’s Mom.”

“What do you want?”

She stopped rocking. “Well, I’m fine, thanks. How are you?”

“Oh, just peachy. The entire campus is ostracizing me and they’re threatening to kick me out for unpaid tuition. So I saved them all the trouble and just moved home.”

The pain in Jessie’s voice was loud and clear. Savannah ached with every word. “Oh sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”

“Whatever. If you were sorry you wouldn’t have done all this.”

“Jessie, I know it’s hard to understand what’s going on -”

“I’m not six, Mother, don’t talk to me like this is some big grown-up problem that little me can’t understand. You bailed on every commitment you had and left everyone to clean up after you.”

“Jessica, please understand. There’s more going on here than my issues. Your dad -”

“Don’t try to drag Dad down with you. You two are so dysfunctional, I swear! You’re trying to implicate him, he’s trying to defend you -”