Waterfalls (33 page)

“I am the Maiden of the Waterfall,” Meredith answered. With a graceful sweep of her hand, she said, “And this is the Vale of Peace. Your journey ahead will hold many more adventures. You must rest before you can embrace them.”

She made an elegant, welcoming gesture with both arms, offering open hands. “Come, Young Heart. Come, Hope. Drink of the living water until your souls are quenched. Eat of the bounty prepared here for you.”

Young Heart blocked Hope, who was about to run to the water. “How can we know if this is another trap like the many we have already faced?”

“You cannot know,” the Maiden of the Waterfall responded gently. “You may only choose to enter or to be on your way. Belief offers no guarantees until after the travelers have chosen to enter wholeheartedly. I offer you all that is mine to give, and I offer it with all my heart.”

“Cut!” Jake yelled.

Everyone, including the cameraman, seemed surprised. It was all going so perfectly. All eyes were on Jake, who was looking down at his feet. Meri bit her lower lip. Had she done something wrong? What was it? He had been watching her through the camera monitor, which meant he had had an upclose view of everything she did.

“Everyone take a break,” Jake called out. “Go. Everyone off the set. Be back here in exactly fifteen minutes. Everyone except the Maiden of the Waterfall.”

Oh no! He’s going to fire me! I didn’t think I was that bad
.

Meredith nervously shuffled from one stockinged foot to the other. The confused cast and crew began to head back up the trail to the snack cart Shelly had set up at the fork in the forest trail. As the crowd dispersed, Jake came toward Meri with small, staccato steps. It was as if he didn’t want to come to her but something was pushing him. Or was it Someone?

By the time he reached her, only two people were in the Vale of Peace. She had never seen the expression he now wore on his face. He looked happy, sad, relieved, and afraid, all at the same time.

Jake stepped up onto the platform and stood before her, drinking in her appearance as a man who has been lost in the desert drinks gratefully from a redeeming cup of water.

She didn’t say anything, she didn’t ask anything, and she
didn’t try to explain anything. Meredith had a fair idea of what was going on inside Jacob at this moment. She had waited a long time for God to move, and now that he was, she wasn’t going to interrupt.

You just woke him up, didn’t you, God?

Jake looked down at her hands. He slowly reached over and touched her right hand. He stroked his thumb over her smooth flesh and drew her small hand to his lips, where he kissed her bent fingers like a hero in a Victorian drama. Lowering her hand, he kept hold of it and looked into her clear eyes.

“Completely against my will,” he began in a low voice, “I have fallen in love with you.”

Meredith’s heart began to pound wildly. She waited for him to go on.

“When you said your line just now, it all became so clear. I’ve been a coward. I wanted a guarantee that what I’ve felt for you all these weeks wasn’t a trap. You just said it. There are no guarantees. I may choose to enter or be on my way.”

He lifted her hand to his lips and timidly kissed her fingers again. “Meredith, I choose to enter into a relationship with you. Everything you’ve said all along is right. Love is more than a logical choice.”

He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “I’m in love with you,” he said, opening his brown eyes and inviting her to melt into their softness.

“And I am in love with you, Jacob.” Meredith did something she had longed to do since the first time she had seen his handsome face. She raised her hand and stroked his cheek. Her finger touched the bird’s-nest mark on the side of his jawline. “I choose to enter wholeheartedly into a relationship with you. I know there are no guarantees, but my heart is filled with hope for us.”

Jake smiled. “I’m in love with you,” he repeated.

“So you’ve said,” Meri said with a gentle laugh.

“I’m crazy, out of my mind in love with you,” he said, breaking into laughter. “I never thought this would happen to me.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Meredith asked playfully.

“I’ll show you what I’m going to do about it.” Jake took her face in his hands and tilted her chin up ever so gently.

Meredith slowly closed her eyes and felt his lips touching hers. With all the hope she had been storing up inside, Meredith let her lips kiss and be kissed by the only man who had ever tossed grapes into her mouth. The only man who had ever quoted verses back to her. The only man who ever made her spine tingle and her heart pound, just as they were doing now.

They drew apart slowly, the invisible glow of their love encircling them with faith and hope.

Just then a loud cheer rose from the forest. With their arms around each other, Jake and Meredith turned to see the cast and crew yelling and waving their arms in celebration. A large, long, odd-shaped object rose from the mouth of the trail and floated above the lake like a balloon. It was all beige with a splotch of white around the middle and was tethered on long ropes like an entry in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

Meredith noticed Brendon and Emilie standing at the opening of the trail. Chad was beside them, holding the ends of the long ropes.

Jake was the first to figure out what it was. He laughed hard. “It’s your old boyfriend, Meri.”

“Fred! Oh, my poor Guard Man, what have they done to you?”

Poor Fred couldn’t answer. He was already at the top of the
tree line, full of helium and wearing only his painted-on underwear.

A bellowing “oops!” resounded from the opening of the trail as Chad leaped into the air. He was trying to catch a rope that had broken loose, launching Fred into the heavens.

“Sorry, Meredith!” Chad called out. “I’ll buy you another one.”

“You really think you need another Guard Man now that your social life has taken such a turn?” Jake said, brushing back a strand of wig hair from Meredith’s cheek.

“Oh, my poor Fred!” Meredith watched him float lazily toward the fluffy white clouds and disappear from view. “I’ll miss him terribly. You might as well know it now, Jake. Fred was a much better dancer than you.”

Before Jake could defend himself, Meredith tilted up her chin and invited him to silence her teasing lips with a kiss, which he did better than any movie star ever could have.

Dear Reader,

Sometimes I wish Glenbrooke were a real place. If it were, I would go there.

I’d share a cup of Irish Breakfast tea with Lauren. I’d dream a sunny afternoon away in Jessica’s backyard hammock. I’d persuade Teri to make a batch of her tamales. I might go for a ride on Jonathan’s zip line or play a flute duet with Meredith. And I’d definitely join in the next time the gang takes a picnic out to the waterfalls.

Glenbrooke represents to me the sweetness of life: family, friends, enduring memories, and the comforting evidence of God’s love. Through the midst of it all, hope comes tiptoeing in, wearing feathery, gossamer blue and sprinkling wish dust all over us. What would we do without hope?

Real life is hard. While I was writing this story, my dad suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed on the right side. His speech was taken from him and his vision impaired. For many long days we sat beside his hospital bed, praying, waiting, and asking lots of questions. God’s greatest gift to us during that time was hope.

“Rest in hope,” “My hope is in you, L
ORD
,” “I hope in your Word,” “It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the L
ORD
,” “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” I found my Bible to be full of words of hope, and I underlined them all.

It’s been almost nine months since my dad’s stroke. He’s improved only a little. Still we have hope. It is a tender gift from our heavenly Father and is strong enough to carry us through. But our hope is not for this life only. No, our hope is based on God’s eternal promises. My dad surrendered his life to Christ years ago. So did I. We rest in confident hope that the next time we do walk side by side, it will be on streets of gold.

Glenbrooke isn’t a real place, but heaven is. The hope of my heart is that you will be there too.

Always,

Meredith and Shelly’s mom knew all about feeding the multitude on Sunday after church services. She also knew all about having it ready to eat within minutes after they came home. My mom did this for years as well. She had a wonderful, big, roaster pan that she would fill with a roast circled by potatoes and carrots. When we walked out the door for Sunday school in the morning, she’d set the oven on 300. By the time we came home, Sunday dinner was ready.

Even if you don’t own a roasting pan, here’s how you can make Sunday Pot Roast any day of the week.

Plan on roasting beef for 20 minutes per pound. Internal temperature of meat should be:

Remove roast from the refrigerator at least 1/2 hour before preparing for cooking. Rinse meat, trim off excess fat. Season liberally with salt and pepper and a bit of garlic. Less tender cuts of meat may be improved by marinating for several hours.

There are many types of bottled marinades available, or you might like to try the following old-fashioned quick marinade:

1 cup French dressing with garlic

1 tablespoon mixed dried herbs or

2 tablespoons mixed, chopped fresh herbs

Place roast in a large roasting pan in a preheated oven (275 to 300 degrees). Add eight to twelve carrots that have been topped, washed and cut in half. Scrub six large potatoes, cut in half or in fourths and place them around the roast. If the meat was not marinated, you may want to pour a cup of beef broth over the roast and the vegetables. Other vegetables, such as celery, turnips, and onions can be added, but allow for additional cooking time.

Roast is done when internal temperature matches desired temperature listed above. Carrots and potatoes should be soft all the way through. Leftovers make a delicious stew!