Courageous (16 page)

After Adam called him “pastor” twice, he said, “Please, call me Jon.”

Adam opened his hands. “A man shouldn’t have to outlive his child.”

“It’s got to be terribly hard,” Jon said. “My children are grown now, and I’ve got grandchildren; I can’t imagine anything worse than what you’re going through, Adam. I’m truly sorry.”

“It’s so senseless. She was my little girl. God had no right to take her from me.”

Jon considered his response. “True, it’s senseless to
us
. But we know God had a reason for His own Son’s death. Do you think it’s possible He had a reason for your daughter’s?” He paused before continuing. “But you’re wrong about something. Emily did
not
belong to you.”

Adam looked up sharply. “What do you mean? She was my daughter.”

“Yes, and she’ll always be your daughter. But we don’t own our children. God owns them. We’re entrusted with their care.”

“But she was only nine!” He heard the anger in his own voice and thought about how Victoria would react if she heard him talk like this to a pastor. He put his face in his hands.

“Adam . . . have you thought about taking your life?”

He startled. “Did Victoria say something?”

“No. I just wondered.”

Silenced prevailed for a minute. “When my old partner, Jeff Henderson, killed himself, I scorned him for taking the coward’s way out. But for the first time, I understand why people do that.”

Jon leaned forward. “Your job isn’t over until your life is, and it’s not up to you to decide when that is. That’s playing God.”

“Pastor—Jon—I’m not going to take my life, okay? But . . . yes, the thought crossed my mind one evening.”

“Obviously I’m concerned about that, Adam. But it’s not just suicide. Many people give up. They keep breathing but stop living.”

Adam understood.

“There needs to be a grieving process. When my wife died, I didn’t know what to do. And the only thing I could think was ‘How do I get over this?’ But I learned you don’t get over it; you get through it. The Lord is the one who carries you through.”

“How are you supposed to heal when you lose someone you love?”

“I’ve heard it said it’s like learning to live with an amputation. You do heal, but you’re never the same. But those who go through this and trust the Lord find comfort and intimacy with God that others never experience. Now, you’ve got to give yourself time to grieve. But you also need to make efforts to move forward with your life.”

“I can’t stop thinking about her.”

“You don’t need to. Because of what God did for her on the cross, she’s with Him now. I have a question for you. If you had the power to bring her back here, would you do it?”

“In a heartbeat.”

“If you understood how happy she is with Jesus, would you really call her back from a world without sin and death? Back to a place where one day she’d have to die again?”

Adam thought but didn’t respond.

“I don’t believe you would, Adam. It would be selfish. Once someone meets Jesus on the other side, I think the last thing they’d want to do is come back here.”

“You know I’m a cop, right?”

Jon laughed. “Five years ago you pulled me over for speeding. Remember?”

“Yeah, I hoped
you
didn’t. Anyway, I see more than my share of death. It’s always been somebody else’s family. This time it wasn’t somebody else’s child. . . . It was mine. But now I’ve got a knot in my stomach that won’t go away. I don’t know what to do.”

Jon Rogers leaned forward and listened.

“I can’t make sense of anything, you know? I feel like I’m in the dark. But it’s more than that. I’m angry. I think about that drunk—about wanting to go after him.”

“That drunk has a name.”

Adam sat back.

“His name is Mike Hollis,” Jon said. “You know him, don’t you?”

“I used to buy heating oil from him. He’s been unemployed awhile, I think.”

“That’s right. He’s a real guy who’s had hard times. Some people turn to the bottle. It’s wrong, but with the pain you’re in, you should understand how desperate people get when they can’t make it go away.”

“You’re going to tell me to forgive him, aren’t you?”

“Doesn’t matter what I tell you. It only matters what God tells you. And, yes, He does tell us to forgive. Mike Hollis hitting the bottle is understandable. So is your anger against God. But that doesn’t make it right.”

“Who said I was angry against God?”

“No one. I heard it in your voice.”

“Doesn’t He want me to be honest?”

“God knows how you feel, so there’s no sense in pretending. Just don’t think that
feeling
angry means you have a right to
be
angry. By all means feel bad, Adam. Weep. Jesus wept when His friend died. But that’s not the same as blaming God. We don’t have a right to blame someone who cannot do wrong. Someone who loves us so much He paid the price for our wrongs.”

Adam shifted in his chair. Part of him rebelled against the straightforward talk from the pastor. But part of him welcomed it. Cops shoot straight with each other, but not a lot of people shoot straight with cops. He liked that Jon Rogers wasn’t afraid to tell him the truth.

“I want to be there for Victoria, but my emotions are all over the place. And Dylan’s closed me out. I don’t know what to do.” Adam shut his eyes tightly, trying to stop the leak.

Pastor Rogers thought for a moment. “A crisis like this doesn’t cause our relationships to go bad, but it does have a way of showing where they’re weak. Many marriages don’t survive the loss of a child. You need to reach out to your family and grieve along with them.”

Rogers paused. “Do you know how my wife was killed?”

“Yeah, I remember. I wasn’t at the scene, but a buddy was. To be honest, Jon, that’s why I agreed to talk to you when Victoria suggested it. I didn’t want to be preached at by somebody who doesn’t understand.”

“Losing Abby was terrible, the worst thing that ever happened to me. I won’t say it was easy to forgive that teenager, Ryan, for smoking pot and fiddling with his CD player when he ran her down at the crosswalk.”

“How did you make it through?”

“Time helps, if you use the time well and focus on what brings healing. It’s still tough sometimes. I won’t be completely over it until I get to the world where God says He’ll wipe away the tears from every eye.”

“What helped you?”

“God’s Word. The same Bible I’d taught to others became more real to me. And the church helped me, just like they’ll help you, if you let them.”

“Well, if food quantity indicates love, we’re loved.”

“Got some lasagna?”

“How did you know?”

“If I looked deep enough in my freezer, bet I could
still
find some.”

Adam smiled. “Victoria will enjoy hearing that.”

“I know this will be hard to hear, but the Lord loves Emily more than you do. The hard choice for you is whether to be angry about the time you didn’t have with her or to be grateful for the time you did have.”

“I do want to be grateful. I
am
grateful.”

“How would you like me to help you, Adam? Tell me what’s most on your mind.”

“Well, I want to know what God expects of me as a father. And I want to know how to help my wife and my son.”

“I can tell you how to find some answers. But it’s going to take time and energy. If you follow through, you’ll become a better father and husband . . . and even a better son to God your Father. I’ve got two suggestions. First, there are a few books and a software program I want to give you. If you’re serious about getting help and finding perspective, you’d better become a student of God’s Word.”

“What’s the second suggestion?”

“There’s someone I want you to visit.”

Chapter Eighteen

Some jobs a person could return to without full focus. Sheriff’s deputy wasn’t one of them. They called it “fitness for duty.” Adam’s superiors asked him to take all his accrued vacation time as a leave of absence. He only had twelve days, so the department invited officers to transfer time from their banks to his. They came up with an extra thirty days of paid leave. When he heard this, he cried for an hour. Yeah, being a cop was hard on the family. But cops would bend over backward to help a fellow cop in a family crisis.

Adam spent the first few days of his leave in decompression mode. But he took seriously Jon Rogers’s recommendation that he study Scripture to discover what it said about being a dad and a man. And once he started digging in, he found himself drawn further and further into the truth of Scripture.

Now, six weeks later, his leave had ended, but Adam hadn’t stopped studying. He sat at the kitchen table and typed on his laptop next to an open Bible and a stack of books.

Victoria walked in and looked over his shoulder. “You’d think you were going for a doctorate.”

“I feel like it. This Bible software the pastor gave me is incredible. I’ve been everywhere in Scripture, finding all these passages about fathers and sons.”

She slipped on her shoes and picked up her keys.

Adam looked at her. “Where’s Dylan?”

“In the shower. He just ran five miles. Says he needs new running shoes. I need to go to the store for a few things, okay?”

Adam leaned back in his chair and stretched. “I don’t think I could run five miles.”

“Who says you have to?”

“I’ve been thinking about running with him.”

Adam didn’t remember ever seeing Victoria’s jaw drop like it did then.

“Really?”

“I’m realizing that I have to learn to do the hard things. I’ve never enjoyed running. But it may be the best way to spend time with Dylan.”

Victoria came back and looked at the computer screen. “How
is
your research going?”

“Sobering. I’ve been doing about half of what I should have been doing as a dad. There is so much in Scripture about being a father. I never took time to look it up.”

“Like what?”

“Well, here’s what I just read.” He flipped the pages of his Bible. “The last verse of the Old Testament, Malachi 4:6. It’s quoted in Luke 1 about the Messiah: ‘And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.’”

“That’s solemn stuff.”

“You’re telling me. Either God turns the hearts of fathers and children toward each other, or our culture will be destroyed! Politicians can’t change hearts. It all starts in the family.”

Adam’s cell phone rang. He looked at the caller ID. “It’s the sheriff. Hello, sir. Yes, sir, it’s good to be back. Will do. Thank you, sir.”

Victoria kissed Adam on the head on her way out, whispering, “Love you.”

Adam turned. The phone still pressed to his ear, he said to Victoria, “Love you. Bye.”

He spoke into the phone. “Sir . . . Hello? Are you there?”

Once again, Adam Mitchell had told the sheriff he loved him.

He hit the table with his fist. “Adam!”

Adam knocked on Dylan’s door. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah.”

Dylan sat on his bed, hair wet. He wore a T-shirt and blue jeans, homework on his lap, game controller nearby.

Adam moved some clothes off a chair and sat down. “Got a lot of homework?”

“Not a lot.”

“Got your learner’s permit?”

Dylan eyed his wallet on the dresser. “Why?”

“’Cause I need you to drive me to the mall to get you some new running shoes. I may get a pair for myself.”

Now Dylan’s jaw dropped, and Adam noticed how much he looked like his mother.
I seem to be taking everyone by surprise today.

“Are you serious?”

Adam held out the keys. Dylan grabbed them as he vaulted off the bed.

Ninety minutes later, when they returned home, Victoria stood in the living room, hands on her hips. “Where have my men been and why didn’t they answer their cells?”

“Oops,” Adam said. “Guess mine was muted.”

“You never mute it!”

“I left mine home,” Dylan said.

Victoria stared at them.

“Well, Dad asked me to go with him to get running shoes. Guess I wasn’t thinking. Then we stopped at Starbucks.”

Victoria grabbed the bag and opened a shoe box.

Adam said, “They fit great. We’re going out for a run.”

“A run?” Victoria looked at Dylan. “You already ran this afternoon!”

“No problem. This isn’t going to wear me out.”

“We’ll see about that,” Adam said. “I’ll find some shorts.”

“Look deep in the bottom drawer,” Victoria called. “I think there’s a pair with an expandable waistband.”