Though None Go with Me (3 page)

Small and bespectacled, he was not what she had expected. He spoke directly, and she found him as articulate as a man of his experience should be. He was not a strutter. Dynamic and magnetic, he spoke with an urgency and authority that deflected attention from him to his message. He bounced on the balls of his feet and preached from a Bible limp from use.

After his introductory remarks, he read from the Old Testament. “Listen,” he said, “to this proclamation from Joshua 24: ‘And if it seem evil unto you to serve the L
ORD
, choose you this day whom ye will serve…. but as for me and my house, we will serve the L
ORD
.'”

Hasper paused and looked from face to face. When his eyes met Elisabeth's, she held her breath. “Beloved,” he said, “we are into the second decade of the last century of this millennium. The great swelling of commitment to Christ that characterized the Moody era, spawning evangelistic campaigns across this land and in Great Britain, should not have died when Mr. Moody died. Wherever I go I encounter Christians with one foot in the kingdom and the other in the world. Where are the Joshuas who will choose to unashamedly serve the Lord God and have the courage to so say?”

Elisabeth felt the heat of his sermon as Hasper perspired through his suit jacket. He offered illustrations of men and women who had made their choices, some to live for Christ, others not. “As God told the church at Laodicea, ‘because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth…. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.'

“I challenge you, make some decision. What will become of the kingdom if we do not continue bravely carrying the torch? My dread is for those who say they believe and know the truth and yet live as close to the world as they can. Are you in or out, enlisted or AWOL, on fire for God or only lukewarm?”

Hasper rolled on, barely raising his voice but making every syllable heard. Elisabeth had taken not one note, yet she would not forget a thing. “Make a commitment tonight,” he said, and Elisabeth felt a tingle in her spine. She had already committed her heart. She was ready to commit her life. Would anyone take seriously a young woman making such a commitment? Elisabeth believed with everything in her that God knew her heart and would take her seriously.

Kendall Hasper stepped from behind the lectern. “Man, woman, boy, girl,” he said, “do you remember Henry Varley's pronouncement to D. L. Moody? ‘The world has yet to see what God can do through a man wholly consecrated to him.'” For the first time, Hasper raised his voice, and his words came with the resounding timbre of conviction. “Even more profound than Varley's challenge was Moody's reply. ‘By the grace of God, I'll be that man!' He took the challenge! The ripples from his leap into God's ocean ebb and flow around the world to this day!

“Will you stand for Christ by God's grace even if you have to stand alone? Can you say with the hymnwriter, ‘I have decided to follow Jesus'? ‘Though none go with me, still I will follow'? Can you say with Joshua, ‘As for me and my house, we will serve the L
ORD
'?”

Elisabeth trembled. Her heart and soul screamed yes, and it was all she could do to keep it from her lips. She wanted to leap, to shout, to run down the aisle. When Hasper concluded, “Would you make the rest of your life an experiment in obedience?” she stood. It was as if God himself had spoken to her.

He wanted her. And she wanted the deeper walk, the higher plane. She would go anywhere, do anything. Elisabeth wanted to stand for Christ, to follow Jesus, to serve the Lord, and above all, she wanted to make her life an experiment in obedience.

She hurried up the aisle before Hasper had invited anyone. She fell prostrate, sobbing, pouring out her heart to God. She didn't care what anyone else thought or said or did. She would obey God in every situation for the rest of her life. She would pray to know his will, and she would follow it, no matter what.

Facedown in the grass, Elisabeth was only vaguely aware that others had joined her, that Hasper was still speaking, that the piano was playing and people were singing. She felt the presence of God, and that only.

A woman knelt and put an arm around her. But from above Dr. Hasper said, “Allow me to speak to that young one.”

Hasper helped her into a folding chair and got another for himself. He asked her name and her spiritual history. “I could tell God was dealing with you before you ever moved into the aisle,” he said. “I find that those who cannot wait for the invitation have made lifetime commitments.”

“I want my life to be an experiment in obedience,” she said.

“Praise God,” Dr. Hasper said. “You will need his power every step. You have not chosen the path of least resistance, but if you could be dissuaded by that, you would not have come forward.”

Dr. Hasper prayed for her, concluding, “If Elisabeth is never known outside this little hamlet, I pray you would do a work in her and through her that would shake the world for your name and bring glory to you.”

Hasper stood and shook her hand. “God go with you.”

She could not speak. She looked past him to where Will Bishop had just finished praying with an elder. Will smiled and strode away with what appeared to Elisabeth as unbounded joy.

CHAPTER FOUR

E
lisabeth felt warm all over as she and her father silently walked home. The sky was inky, the moon a sliver, yet the thermometer on their back porch read eighty degrees. Elisabeth was so full, felt so clean and renewed and invigorated and resolute, that she wanted to tell the world—starting with her father and even Aunt Agatha. But her aunt was already snoring, and her father seemed distracted.

They sat on the front steps and sipped water chilled with ice shavings. “You did some business with God tonight,” he said. “That's good. Those are the kinds of decisions and commitments I can't make for you, but which mean as much to me as any you could make.”

Elisabeth pressed the glass against her cheek and glanced at her father. He seemed sad somehow, despite what he was saying.

“Are you all right, Dad?”

He shrugged. “A little tired.”

“You're working too hard. But can you be happy for me tonight?”

He put his arm around her, something he hadn't done for a long time. “I am,” he said. “I told you I was. At least I meant to.”

Elisabeth was troubled. She wanted to talk about the meeting and her decision, but his mood threw her. Leaning into his great, warm mass made her feel safe and loved, like when she was a little girl.

“Ah, I'm going to miss you,” he said.

She cocked her head and pulled back so she could look him full in the face. He avoided her eyes. “Where am I going?” she asked with a laugh. “Did you think I signed up for missionary work tonight?”

He shook his head. “We won't always be together, that's all. I miss you already.”

Elisabeth sensed he was hedging. “I have five more years before college,” she said.

“I know. I just hate to think of our ever being apart. But we have to be realistic. Someday you'll be as eager to get away from me as I was to get away from my parents.”

“Never,” she said, settling back into his embrace and gazing at the sky. “But if I become a brat, you'll force me out, banishing me from your kingdom.”

She felt his squeeze. “You're already a brat,” he said. “I'm trying to be serious here.”

“I'm listening,” she said. “You really want to talk about five years from now?”

He shrugged and fell silent. Finally he said, “I'm already in my forties, and I regret not having taken better care of myself.”

“You've been too busy taking care of everyone else.”

“I've used that excuse myself, but now I have no choice.”

“No choice about what?” she said.

“Taking care of myself.”

Despite the still air, a chill made her shudder. “What are you saying?”

“These extra nights at the hospital have not been for work,” he said.

She pulled away and set her glass down. The ice shavings had melted. “Don't make me ask,” she said, suddenly feeling old.

“I've been undergoing tests.”

Elisabeth could not speak. Her spiritual high disappeared in a wave of nausea. “Tests?” she managed, her voice weak. It was as if she were watching and listening rather than actually engaging in this conversation.

“Cancer,” her father said, the dreaded word hanging in the moist air.

She held her breath and stared at him, as if willing him to say more. He glanced at her and looked away.

“What?” she said. “What do we do about it? People survive that, don't they?”

“Sometimes.”

“Then you'll—we'll—do whatever we have to do to—”

“I waited too long, sweetheart,” he said, and he tried to embrace her again. Elisabeth stiffened.

“What does that mean?” she said.

“Don't pull away from me now,” he said, reaching for her. “You've heard that a doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient. By the time I knew I needed to consult someone, my illness was advanced.”

Elisabeth was reeling. “Surely, you have time.”

“My doctor gives me about eighteen months.”

“Daddy!”

“You are strong, Elisabeth. God will be with you.”

The condensation on her glass had disappeared in rivulets on the wood slats of the porch. She felt as if she too sat in a pool of her own emotions. She hung her head. “Could your doctor be wrong?”

Her father shook his head. “I've seen the test results. Without a miracle, some breakthrough—”

“That's what I'll pray for.”

“This will not be easy on either of us,” he said. “But it will comfort me to know you will be all right,” he said. “Thankfully, my affairs are in order.”

“I'm not interested in any of that,” she said. She buried her face into his chest and wept. “I just promised God I would make the rest of my life an experiment in obedience. Look what it got me.”

“Surely you didn't expect me to live forever.”

She knew he couldn't mean to sound so cavalier. “In a year and a half I will be only fifteen.”

He nodded. “I want to see your mother, and I long to see Jesus, but in truth I'd rather stay with you for now.”

A spiritual fountain had washed over Elisabeth just an hour before. Now it had given way to a gnawing emptiness in the pit of her stomach. They sat in silence for several minutes until, without a word, they rose in unison to go inside.

Elisabeth's spiritual decision had been real, and it produced in her a hunger and thirst for God and his Word she had never before experienced. Her pastor and the evangelist had warned her not to expect spiritual highs, but rather to expect opposition from the Evil One. While she felt a deep sense of joy that she had made the right decision, her foreboding grew only worse as her father deteriorated.

First he lost weight. For a month or so he looked healthier, definition coming to his features, his large frame evidencing lean musculature where puffiness had been.

But he grew tired and weak; his face paled. By the spring of 1914 he was homebound and had quit seeing patients. Elisabeth hurried home after school every day to tend to him and to spell Aunt Agatha, who used the situation to fuel her tirade against God. “Your father was not just a believer,” she told Elisabeth. “He was also devout. Look where it's got him. Don't you worry. I expect he'll provide for me, and you may rest assured that I will provide for you.”

By late 1914, Dr. LeRoy had to be hospitalized. The church had prayed, visited, helped out, and now seemed merely to await the awful news. They still cared, Elisabeth knew, but the novelty had worn off. She felt she alone was watching him die.

Maddeningly, Aunt Agatha began redecorating the house. It was nothing major at first, but eventually it became clear she was slowly stockpiling her brother's belongings. His shoes and clothes were boxed and stored in the dank cellar. His room was rearranged as a guest room, and to Elisabeth it appeared Agatha herself was planning to move in there as soon as her brother passed.

One night after Christmas Elisabeth trudged home from the hospital in the dark. She slipped onto the back porch, removed her boots, and stepped into the warm kitchen without a sound. After visiting her father and knowing his time was short, she was not in the mood to talk. Aunt Agatha was.

“I have not seen your father's will, remember,” her aunt said. “But you are not of age, and until you are I foresee no one else who might administrate his estate. Regardless how he compensates me for my years of service, I do not intend to take advantage.”

Elisabeth had been relying on her commitment to Christ in the big issues of life, giving over to God her fear and anger about her father. Lately, she had been working on infusing the same thought process to every encounter. Clearly she was not to be catty. But when Aunt Agatha mentioned that she would “like to buy this house from your father's estate,” Elisabeth didn't have time to pray or reflect. Her face flushed and she knew she looked stricken.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “But I had not heard that my father was selling the house.”

“I said I would buy it from the estate,” Aunt Agatha said. “In, ah, due time, of course.”

“So it isn't that Daddy died since I saw him a few minutes ago and you forgot to inform me?”

“Forgive me for being presumptuous, Elisabeth,” Aunt Agatha said. “I just want to plan ahead.”

“How convenient that there is something to plan for.”

“That's what I thought.”

Elisabeth was hardly in a festive mood on New Year's Eve. She knew 1915 would bring her father's death, and all she wanted for her birthday the next day was time with him. She was surprised to see at the desk the same nurse who had shared with her the facts of life two years before. The woman quickly put away what she was working on and followed Elisabeth to her father's room.

“Your daughter is here,” she said, though Elisabeth had never been announced before.

Her father opened one eye. “And were you able to—”

“Yes, Doctor,” the nurse said, and Elisabeth nearly wept at her tone. Her father was on his deathbed, yet his nurse still treated him with deference.

“Daddy,” Elisabeth said, accepting his fragile hand.

“Your present will be here in a minute,” he said.

“You're my birthday present.”

“Naw, I'm not,” he said. “I just take your time.”

“Don't say that.”

“Anyway, would you believe I went out and shopped for it last night?”

“Of course,” she said. “And I assume you had a date too.”

He forced a smile and fell asleep briefly. When he opened his eyes he said, “I dreamt I saw your mother again.”

Elisabeth had resigned herself to the fact that this was for the best. She did not want him to suffer longer. He looked past her to the nurse, who handed him a paper sack. Inside was a thin, wrapped package, tied with a ribbon. “Open the card first,” he said.

Elisabeth was crying already. The card had been handwritten, she assumed by the nurse, but her father had dictated it.

Elisabeth, you are the joy of my life. May you live to a ripe, old age and have to be told when your time comes. Your mother and I will await you at the eastern gate of the city that was built foursquare. Love, Father.

Isaiah 25:8–9.

Elisabeth looked up the passage in her father's Bible. “He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord G
OD
will wipe away tears from all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from all the earth; for the L
ORD
hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the L
ORD
; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

In the package Elisabeth found a simple blank journal with cardboard covers. “Record your journey,” he said. “Someday someone might find it encouraging.”

“What do you want for
your
birthday, Daddy?” she said.

“I want to wake up in heaven.”

She had quit telling him not to talk about the inevitable. “I'll miss you,” she managed.

Ten days later she arrived home from school as her aunt was leaving the house, bundled against an icy wind. “He's gone,” she said. “The hospital needs us.”

Elisabeth stood shivering in the snow as her aunt moved past. Agatha stopped and looked impatient. Elisabeth had thought she was prepared for this day, yet the pain bit a hole in her that would never be filled. “I'm sorry for your loss, Aunt Agatha,” she said quietly.

Agatha Erastus squinted and cocked her head. “Yes,” she said. “Thank you. And the same to you for yours.”

At the hospital, her father's nurse friend, red-eyed, handed Elisabeth a business card with the name and address of a lawyer on the front and a note scribbled in pencil on the back. “Please give to Elisabeth at the appropriate time.”

As Aunt Agatha signed papers, Elisabeth sat alone with her memories. Pastor Hill soon joined her. He simply sat and wept with her. His was the most poignant response of the hundreds who attended the funeral. The only other who knew enough to say nothing was Will Bishop, whose own father was near death.

Two weeks later Elisabeth came home from school to find her Aunt Agatha stewing in the living room with a well-dressed man in his late forties. “Won't speak to me, Elisabeth,” Agatha said. “Only to you.”

Marlin Beck, Esq., whose card Elisabeth had been given at the hospital, rose briefly to greet her. “I have been assigned executor of your father's estate,” he said, settling back down. “Much to the consternation of your aunt, I'm afraid.”

“And we'll see what
my
lawyer says about that,” Agatha chirped.

“He'll find the documents in order, ma'am,” Beck said.

“My brother was in no condition to draw up a will. I couldn't get him to so much as look into—”

“Pardon me, Mrs. Erastus, but there was no need. He had prepared his will very early on in his illness and was of sound mind. You would be ill-advised to contest it.”

“Are you
my
lawyer now as well?”

“I beg your pardon. But you might wish to hear the will before deciding to contest it.”

Elisabeth eyed her. “Do you
have
a lawyer, Aunt Agatha?”

The old woman turned away. “I can easily retain one.”

“You would contest your own brother's will?”

“If necessary!”

“I'd let you have everything before I'd fight you over one shoestring,” Elisabeth said, desperate to keep from raising her voice.

“Miss LeRoy,” Mr. Beck said, “I urge you not to speak from emotion. Your father precluded eventualities such as this by having his affairs put in order. I should think everyone involved would desire to accede to his wishes.

“Those wishes, as outlined in his will, were that his entire estate be put into a trust for Elisabeth and that she be given full access to it at age eighteen. In the meantime, his sister is to be allowed to stay in the house in exchange for her guardianship. The property is not to be sold before Elisabeth is of age, and its disposition will be solely at her discretion.”