The Long Journey to Jake Palmer (26 page)

After more than a moment, Jake lifted his head and looked around the auditorium. He'd always had a few people, usually ladies, get misty as he spoke about discovering the strength and glory that were inside a person, about allowing the true label of their lives to be read, but only a few. And only once in a blue unicorn did any guys tear up. But this time more than half were fighting back the water. And some were quietly sobbing.

Jake didn't speak. He simply held the microphone out in front of him as he nodded at the crowd and let God's Spirit do what God's Spirit was already doing. The first one to step from his seat and tell his story was a man who had to be Leonard's age. Then a young woman who couldn't have been more than twenty. Then another woman who looked to be in her forties who was stick thin. More men. Young. Old. In between. Woman of all ages and obviously from divergent walks of life. An hour stretched into two, then three, but no one left.

All of their stories ended with a hug from Jake and words of encouragement from him, but of course he was the one who was buried in encouragement. Finally, the stream of people ended and Jake searched for the words to end a talk unlike any he had ever given.

Jake walked to the side of the stage and spoke to the promoter who had brought him in, who was fighting back his own emotions. “This might be completely inappropriate, but can I pray?”

The man nodded as he blinked back tears.

Jake walked back to center stage and shook his head in amazement. “Thank you, to all of you who were willing to step out of the bottle, to take your masks off in front of all of us. We need to close
and I want to do it with a short prayer. If you're uncomfortable with that, no worries, please feel free to leave.”

No one in the packed auditorium moved. Jake waited a few more seconds, then bowed his head and rested in the silence for over a minute. Finally he prayed.

“Jesus, we need transparency. We need to step out of the shadows. We need the freedom to live out of the strength and glory you've given us rather than live the lies about ourselves we've swallowed. We need to see that the bottle we all stand in is nothing. We need to see that we have put so much worth on a shell that is dying from the moment we are born. We need to look past the costume we wear to what is inside. We need to see it, and live from it.

“We need to tell others what is on their labels. You've changed me, but there are days I still struggle with what happened to me. There are days where I forget I'm only wearing a costume and that this costume does not define me. Which is why we need to continue to speak the truth to each other. We need to tell those around us about the strength and glory inside them that they can't see for themselves. Bring us that truth, Lord. Open our eyes, and grant us the strength to live our lives with freedom. So be it.”

For five seconds there was utter silence in the auditorium. A moment later it erupted with thundering applause as everyone rose to their feet. It wasn't applause for him, but for all of them, for freedom, for the lies that had been shattered and the truth that had just exploded out of every soul in the room.

Jake's watch hit eleven thirty before he hugged the last of those who had a story to tell or wanted to thank him. As he watched the final two members of the audience amble down the middle aisle
toward the back of the auditorium, he let himself embrace what had just happened.

He'd simply revealed himself, shown the hidden parts of his soul, but that had not only invited them into his newfound freedom, it had given them hope to find their own.

As silence fell over the hall, the emotion of the day hit him, and Jake yawned deeply. He closed his eyes for a moment, sent up a prayer of thanks, then picked up his laptop and slid it into his briefcase.

Time to head for his hotel. Sleep in till noon if he could, then wake and maybe plan his next trip to Willow Lake. To the house, his house. He smiled. Crazy. And beyond wonderful. Would he ever be allowed back through the corridor? Didn't matter. He saw the world he lived in now more clearly than ever before, and someday, when he slipped free of this body, he would step into a world where all healing would come and last forever.

Jake started to walk toward the building's lobby when a familiar voice stopped him.

“Do you have enough energy left to talk to one more fan?”

Jake knew that voice. It couldn't be. But of course it was. Jake spun and sniffed in a breath of shock. Ari stood five feet away, her makeup slightly smudged.

“Ari?”

“Yes, or is there someone else you know who looks like me?” She winked and her intoxicating smile broke open his soul.

“What are you doing here?”

“It's good to see you.”

He took a halting step toward her. “What are you doing here?”

“You already asked that.” She took a step closer as well.

“But you didn't answer.”

“It should be obvious. I came to see you.” Another step closer.

“Why?”

She looked different, but of course she would. She wore black slacks and a dark green blouse, which set off her eyes perfectly. Her hair was pulled back, which made her even more beautiful than he remembered, and the feelings he thought had faded returned in a blizzard of emotions. Hope. Resignation. Love? Yeah, definitely love, the most dangerous emotion of all.

But Jake smiled inside, because even though his feelings would never be returned by Ari, he would be fine. He knew who he was, and that person was far more than enough. He knew what God thought of him. He knew that above all else he would fight for the heart of that kid he met back in the cabin through the corridor for the rest of his days on earth.

“Didn't Peter tell you I left his company?” she asked.

“I asked him not to talk about you.”

“Of course.” She looked down and nodded. “I understand.”

Ari shifted from one foot to the other and something in her countenance shifted. Was that anticipation on her face? Nervousness? She glanced at everything but him. Strange. He hadn't seen her like this. Her evergreen confidence had been replaced by an uncertainty he was surprised to realize she was capable of.

“Are you okay?”

“You probably won't realize how powerful that was just now.” She pointed behind her at the stage. “You think you know, but you don't understand the full scope of what happened.”

“You're probably right. But it wasn't me. It was—”

“Stop.” She held a finger up to her lips the exact way he'd done with Terry earlier in the evening. “It was you. And it was the people who spoke. Yes. All of those mixed together so no one and everyone did it. But you were the one who stepped out of the shadows and opened the floodgates that set a great many people free. And freedom will continue to come as what happened here tonight ripples out into the lives of the friends and families of the people who experienced this moment.”

“That you were here is . . .”

“Strange?”

“Yes.”

Ari smiled. “I want to help you out, read to you what I saw on your label tonight.”

“Okay.”

“But first, I need to explain something.” She motioned toward the back of the auditorium. “Should we make our way out of here as we talk? Before someone kicks us out?”

Jake agreed, trying to decide if Ari's suggestion was more a function of not wanting to look at him than a desire to appease the building's security team. “Sure. That's fine.”

“Back at the cabin, in July, when we talked between the hammock and the fire pit, just before I left?” She glanced at him as they strolled up the middle aisle. “There was something you desperately wanted. Something I could have given you, something you thought you needed. Something you expected. Do you remember?”

“Yeah. It was monstrous. A huge request.” Jake held out his hand in front of him and shook it, fingers wide, and spoke in a
deep voice. “I wanted to . . . I wanted to . . . wait for it . . . I wanted to have coffee with you.”

Ari laughed. “I probably deserve that. But on the other hand—”

“But on the other hand that wasn't what I was asking for. I wanted you to accept me. Tell me I was okay. Reverse the vast ocean of revulsion Sienna had drowned me in, because if you did that, somehow I would be healed. Accept myself. I thought my looks were me. But they weren't. They were the wall I hid behind.”

“Yes.”

“And it would have been a trap. A false elixir that would have satiated for a time, then turned bitter in my mouth. If you'd agreed to a simple coffee date, I would have read much more into it. It might have even shut me off from the true healing I was being offered.”

He glanced at Ari and the upturned corners of her mouth made him smile as well.

“Anything else?” Ari brushed a loose strand of hair back from her forehead as they stepped through the lobby doors onto the street and faced each other.

“Thank you. For speaking truth when you told me to stop hiding. That if I wanted to live, I couldn't hide any longer.”

“Something happened to you at the lake after I left, didn't it?”

“It did. I found a place where I was given the thing I wanted most in the world.”

Jake looked deep into those green eyes speckled with amber and felt himself falling inside them. He did nothing to resist. Stupid? Yes. Was he about to get his heart bruised? Yes. But
not broken. Better to live a life of freedom where his heart was bumped and bruised from time to time than keep it shut in a room where no light ever came.

“I'd like to hear the story,” she said. “All of it.”

“Sure.” Jake nodded. “We'll do that someday.”

Ari tilted her head and once again flashed her nova smile. “What if someday were to become now?”

Jake automatically glanced at his watch, even though it wouldn't have mattered if it was three in the morning. “I think that can be arranged.”

As they strolled down the street, the warm, late-evening air swirling around them, Ari grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze. He savored the feel of her hand and gave her a squeeze back. Her touch would only last for a moment, unlikely to ever return.

But she didn't let go.

M
y friends,

People often ask where my story ideas come from. “It's different every time,” is the vague answer. The more specific answer—at least for the story you just finished—is that the idea came directly from my wife, Darci.

Every summer when our sons were young, we took them to a small lake in eastern Washington state. At the end of the lake was a wall of cattails and beyond them, a vast bank of trees. One summer, Darci, Taylor, Micah, and I—along with family friends—punched through the cattails and found ourselves in a huge meadow on the other side. I told my boys we'd entered into another realm, one not of this earth. Every year after that we pretended we were exploring that extraordinary world.

One day when Darci and I were batting around story ideas, she said, “What if you did a story on the corridor? You could make it challenging to find and put something on the other side that will change the life of anyone who gets through.”

I loved the idea instantly and dove in to writing the story. As I
wrote, Darci offered penetrating insight on the characters, setting, scenes I'd scratched out . . . everything.

So if you liked
The Long Journey to Jake Palmer
, thank Darci. If you didn't, blame me.

Regarding the theme of the novel, it's universal, don't you think? Isn't there a part of you that wonders if you're enough? A part that doesn't think there's much good written on your label? There's a part of me that wonders those things.

The good, no,
great
news is we
are
enough, in Jesus. There is no shame, blame, condemnation at all in him. That's just one of the myriad proclamations written on each of our labels.

My prayer is you gather with close friends and take the time to read each other's labels. That you take hold of those words and phrases and etch them deep in your heart, and that you step into more freedom than you've ever known before.

James L. Rubart

March 2016

G
reat thanks goes out to my family: Darci, Taylor, and Micah Rubart for their unwavering belief in me. (Double thanks to Taylor for being the first to read the first draft of
The Long Journey to Jake Palmer
, and for giving me excellent feedback.)

Also, thanks to Allen Arnold, Ron DeMiglio, Mick Silva, and Thomas Umstattd Jr. for amazing brainstorming sessions about the paths this story could and should venture down.

Thanks to my editors, Amanda Bostic and Erin Healy, for yet again being absolutely brilliant at what you do. This story would be a shadow of itself without you.

And thanks to Jesus for allowing me to once again enter this playground called telling stories.

1. What do you feel are the major themes in
   The Long Journey to Jake Palmer
   ?
   
2. Which character in the novel could you relate to the most? The least? Why?
   
3. Camille isn't the most pleasant person in the world. Do you have any Camilles in your life? How do you make that relationship work?
   
4. Jake's deepest question is, “Am I enough?” The question is almost universal. Are you one of the many who ask it about yourself?
   
5. If you answered yes to the above question, where do you feel you haven't been enough in someone else's life?
   
6. Where do you feel you haven't been enough in your
   own
   life?
   
7. Jake gives talks about it being impossible to read the label when you're standing inside the bottle, and we're all standing inside our own bottles. What do you think is on your label? Do you want to find out?
   
8. Is there anyone in your life who tells you what is on your label? If yes, how do they do it?
   
9. Have you ever told those close to you what is on their labels? Has anyone ever told you what is on yours?
   
10. During an author retreat I (James) once led the group in a read-each-other's-labels exercise. It was powerful and uncomfortable, both at the same time. We were all nervous to hear what would be said about us, but when the words were spoken, it brought healing and freedom. Would you be scared to do a label reading exercise? Why or why not?
    
11. If you're reading
    The Long Journey to Jake Palmer
    in a book club, or informally with friends, would you be willing to lead a read-each-other's-labels discussion? If yes, when do you think you'll do it?
    
12. Most of us hide things about ourselves. Are there things you'd be willing to share, like the group at Willow Lake shared with each other? That's a fearful exercise, but do you think there's anything freeing about doing that?
    
13. Jake talks about “stepping out of the shadows.” Where do you need to step out of the shadows?
    
14. In Jesus, we are more than enough, but that can be a hard message to grasp, and once we grasp it, hard to hang onto. How do you see yourself taking hold of that message and how will you hang onto it?