Patterns of Swallows (34 page)

Ruth's
eyes fell to the pages of her Bible that the light summer breeze
through the open windows had flipped to Isaiah 54.

Fear
not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for
thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of
thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any
more. For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name;
and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth
shall he be called. For the LORD hath called thee as a woman
forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast
refused, saith thy God. For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but
with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my
face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I
have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer. For this is as the
waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah
should no more go over the earth; so I have sworn that I would not be
wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart,
and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee,
neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD
that hath mercy on thee. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and
not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and
lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of
agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant
stones. And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great
shall be the peace of thy children.

As
Ruth read the words, her eyes again filled with tears.

It
was as though she was seeing and hearing the words for the first time
though it wasn't the first time. But suddenly, she was that woman to
whom the promises were given.

Oh,
she knew the correct answer – the one she had been taught –
that the woman of Isaiah 54 was the church, the New Jerusalem, the
bride of Christ. But for almost the first time, she saw her part in
that body as personally as if the words had been written just to her.

"Thank
you," she whispered under her breath. For the first time, she
began to see the deep and terrible privilege in it all. The
privilege of being, " ... a woman forsaken and grieved in
spirit, and a wife of youth," who was refused. It certainly
wasn't a privilege she would have chosen for herself.

He
hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no
beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of
men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it
were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did
esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was
wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities:
the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we
are healed,
she flipped the page over to read again.

There
was one person who understood the pain of rejection perfectly. Even
the pain of having "no form nor comeliness," the pain of
having his body marred. He, too, had been given the deep and
terrible privilege of experiencing deep and terrible pain. A deep
and terrible pain for
her
healing.

Her
thoughts went back to her rejection of Joshua Bella and his sacrifice
for her in the face of her rejection.

"By
nature, we all do the same thing to
You
,"
she said within herself but not to herself. "The kind of pain
Graham caused me, I don't want to do that anyone. I certainly don't
ever want to do that to
You
.
Forgive me for the pain I've caused You. Thank You, thank You,
thank You. By Your stripes I've been healed. Thank You. Thank You
for letting me see it in a new way. Thank You even for the pain if
it brings me closer to You, lets me know You a little more.”

*
* *

"Thank
you for joining us today, Mrs. MacKellum. I hope you'll come again,"
Rev. Harper said, smiling largely and shaking Ruth's hand as the
congregation filed past the preacher into the August sunshine.

"Thank
you, I hope to," Ruth said.

"Good,
good," the preacher said, "and if you have any questions
about anything you heard today, be sure and feel free to ask ..."
His last sentence trailed off as he turned his attention and
extended his hand to the buxom, middle-aged woman behind Ruth in the
hand-shaking line.

"Well,
actually, Reverend Harper ... " Ruth said, planting her feet and
stalling the smoothly-flowing line.

"Please,
there's no reverend here, Mrs. MacKellum. No need to reverence me.
I'm just a simple shepherd of the flock. Just Pastor Harper is
fine," he said, focusing on Ruth again. He smiled on, but his
smile was beginning to wear a little thin.

"And
please call me Ruth," Ruth said.

"That's
fine. Ruth. Yes. So what was it? Did you have a question about
the sermon?"

"I
did," she said. "I admit, I wasn't following the whole
thing. But I couldn't quite tell where you found the subject of rock
and roll music in Isaiah 53."

"Well,
if you'd been listening to the whole sermon," the smile was
definitely glacial now, "you would know I was preaching on
Isaiah 53:6, 'All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned
every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity
of us all.' "

"Meaning
that rock and roll music is an iniquity," Ruth said quietly,
regretting the crowd still in line, listening with ears (if not
mouths) gaping. Maybe she regretted the crowd hearing what she had
to say. Maybe she didn't.

"Would
you be able to point me to the passage of Scripture that tells us
that rock and roll – or for that matter, dances, movies, and
card games – are iniquities?" she continued doggedly.

"If
you knew the Bible a little better, Ruth, you'd know that 1 John 2:15
tells us to love not the world, neither the things that are in the
world, and James 4:4 tells us that friendship with the world is
enmity with God." Pastor Harper's smile had disappeared and his
face and bald head had taken on a pink tinge that had nothing to do
with too much sun. Ruth imagined she could feel the heat radiating
from the redness. She was beginning to feel a little heat of her
own. Why would he assume she didn't know the Bible?

"
'The world' being left open to definition, I imagine your definition
and mine would probably be a little different. Yours is a better
definition than mine, no doubt, but then again, Psalm 150 does
command us to praise the Lord with trumpets and psalterys and harps
and timbrels and stringed instruments and organs and cymbals and high
sounding cymbals and
dance
!
'Let everything that hath breath ... ' (and here Ruth had to stop
and gasp to catch her own) ' ... praise the LORD.' So I can't
imagine that what makes rock and roll music wrong is the instruments
or the style of music. Or that dancing must always be worldly –
if it can be used to praise the Lord, after all. But maybe we could
agree that the motivation behind those kinds of activities, not the
activities themselves, is what makes them worldly."

"I
see. And you believe that those activities, which I have ever only
seen performed in a worldly way, could be performed for God's glory?"

"All
I know is what the Psalmist said."

"But
as to the rest of the things you mentioned, I'll just tell you my
reasons for saying that those things have no place in the Christian
life. As I said in my sermon, a Christian can't be too careful about
his testimony. We don't want to put stumbling blocks in anyone's
way. We don't want to do anything to bring dishonour to God's holy
name. What does the unbelieving world think if they see a Christian
at a movie house or a dance hall or a card party?"

"Well,
they probably think Christians like to see movies or go to dances or
play cards. I'm sorry, Rev ... Pastor Harper. If those kinds of
things aren't wrong according to the Bible, then I don't see what
doing them or not doing them has to do with a Christian's testimony.
'By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, by the fact
that you don't dance, play cards, or see movies?' That wasn't what
Jesus said. No, it's by our love for one another. 'For the kingdom
of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy
in the Holy Ghost.' "

"I
see you do know a little about the Bible, Mrs. MacKellum."

"Ruth,
please."

"Ruth,
then. You may know the Bible, but the important question is, do you
know God?"

Ruth
paused to relive old memories all in a split second. She remembered
lying in the grass under her giant firs with the clouds dancing by
overhead. She remembered watching a lady bug make its way up and
down one blade of grass and then another. She remembered marvelling
at the perfection of the little life crawling up and down the blades
of grass, and she remembered clearly her awe at the realization that
the same Power that had made it must have made her. It was her first
conscious knowledge of God, and it stood out in her mind as such.
From that time on, that conscious knowledge had never left her. It
had only deepened and grown with the years. Then she recalled the
moment, sitting on a chesterfield in the Bellas' front room, when she
had learned to know God for herself in a new way through the person
of Jesus Christ. In all of her losses (and they were many), s
he
still knew, somehow, that there was a God and that He was good. The
alternative was unthinkable. She could survive any losses but the
loss of God. If she'd lost Him, her own soul would have been
irretrievable. She knew that those who were damned damned
themselves, and she wasn't willing to take that step.

"Yes,
Pastor Harper, I know God," she said softly.

But
not One I could recognize from your sermon today
,
she was tempted to add but refrained. She'd done more than enough
damage already, she was sure. She dreaded meeting the eyes of her
mother-in-law.

"Well,
Ruth, I'm glad to hear that. I'll pray you'll grow in your knowledge
of Him and His Word. And do come back and join us again. That's a
good way to grow," Pastor Harper said, attempting to replace his
smile and regain his poise. His bare head was still visibly red,
however.

"Thank
you. I plan to attend regularly," Ruth said. She bit back a
laugh at the dismay hiding behind the preacher's smile at her words.

Pastor
Harper shook the hand of the buxom lady decisively.

"Mrs.
Peacock! So nice to see you back after that bad 'flu ..." he
said.

Bo
Weaver, right behind Mrs. Peacock in the line, had heard every word,
and he gave Ruth a wave. He caught up with her on the church lawn as
she was fleeing for her car.

"Thanks
for the second sermon, Reverend MacKellum," he said in mock
seriousness, shaking her hand. "You do speak your mind, don't
you? Well, if you start attending, I guarantee there will be less
sleeping in church." He laughed outright, and Ruth smiled back
weakly, wanting only to disappear.

Mrs.
Handy and Philippa also caught up with her before she could get away
to tell her they were so glad to see her and hoped she'd come again.

There
were a few black looks from some others, but now that the moment and
her temper had passed, Ruth knew she deserved them.

*
* *

"I'm
sorry I embarrassed you," Ruth said quickly, as soon as she and
her mother-in-law were in the car.

"I
was embarrassed," Mom said.

"I'm
sorry," Ruth said humbly. She meant it. Now.

"But
not by you," Mom went on, cutting off her apology. "I'm
beginning to think the man has an absolute bee in his bonnet. Out of
his last ten sermons, seven have brought in Elvis Presley in some
way. I started keeping track. It was about time someone said
something to him about it. Honestly! Where exactly in Isaiah 53 did
he find Elvis Presley?" she asked indignantly.