CHAPTER 6
1399 Words
CHAPTER 6
Sometimes Scott wondered if pastors who’d worked as long as Carl got tired of December. Was it hard to preach four or five advent sermons a year and find something new to point out each time? Or after several decades behind the pulpit did you just stop trying to be original?
Today’s sermon was fairly standard. Scott spent more time studying the Christmas wreath than watching Carl. This week’s candle stood for joy, which for some reason kept reminding Scott of the way he’d laughed when Susannah told him her middle name. Knowing she came from a fairly conservative Christian home, he had expected something more standard like Joy or Grace. When she told him she’d been named after the historical Susannah Wesley, he’d chuckled into his phone. “So that explains why you’re so good at praying.”
Even without seeing her face, he knew his comment had flustered her.
“I’m not good or bad. It’s just something we’re supposed to do.”
He wouldn’t allow her to demure so easily. “Maybe, but you’ve got to admit that some people do it better than others.” And from that moment on, he realized how well the name suited her. Susannah Wesley Peters. He wondered how it would sound once they got married. Susannah Wesley Phillips. It rolled off the tongue well, and she wouldn’t have to change her initials or give up having an apostolic surname.
Of course, that was all in the past. So long ago now that he couldn’t remember if they’d had that conversation about her middle name before or after he’d bought his plane ticket to Washington. After months of saving up, scouring the discount flight webpages, and then rescheduling twice, he was finally going to see her.
Meet the woman who’d captured his heart.
It was still hard to believe. He’d prayed years earlier and told God he’d remain single unless the Lord brought someone into his life who shared the same passion for the mission field as he did. He’d spent so many years alone he started to worry he wouldn’t know how to join his life with someone else’s. Wouldn’t a wife nag him about making his bed or keeping the toilet seat down?
Besides, there was something exciting about his lifestyle, knowing that in a week he could be on a plane to South Africa or get called to speak at a conference in western Russia. Where would he find a woman who felt the same way about that sort of spontaneity? And what about kids? Even if he met someone willing to travel the whole world over by his side, what would happen if or when children came into the fold? Was he just supposed to retire? The last two years on home-office duty would have bored him completely out of his mind if he hadn’t had Susannah to talk to. They did the math once. If you were to assume two hours on the phone a night (a conservative estimate), plus a few extra hours on the weekend, they’d spent somewhere over four hundred hours on the phone together just in the first six months. More than the equivalent of two and half straight weeks doing nothing but talking. He finally bought an external battery for his phone so he could stay connected without having to plug his cell in halfway through the conversation.
Nights certainly had been quiet lately in comparison.
Quiet nights and a cell that could hold its charge for three or four days at a time.
His heart still raced when the phone rang. Even though he knew it wouldn’t be her. Even though it hadn’t been her for four months. Email was worse. Refreshing his inbox twenty times an hour. Facing the bitter sense of disappointment each time he told himself he’d never hear from her again.
Sometimes he had nightmares. Nightmares where she wanted to talk to him but his phone wouldn’t connect. He’d try to pick up, but it wouldn’t go through. The worst part wasn’t missing the call itself but fearing that she’d take his silence as rejection.
Fearing that she’d move on.
Find someone else.
She was so young. So passionately in love with the Lord.
It was fruitless to imagine what might have happened between them under different circumstances. But still, he hoped she wouldn’t replace him right away. It was selfish of him, really. He should wish her all the happiness in the world. Women like Susannah were made for family life. For marriage and motherhood. While it was possible for him to imagine himself remaining perpetually single, he knew Susannah would one day find a husband.
A husband who would take care of her.
Who wouldn’t drag her away from the family that needed her.
A husband who wasn’t him.
He’d known. He didn’t admit it to himself at the time, but he’d known she’d end up breaking up with him. If you can call it a breakup when you haven’t even met face to face.
Susannah’s heart was for the nations. He’d picked up on that during the first phone interview when all he was supposed to do was answer a few of her questions about the Kingdom Builders summer internship program. Which is why he thought they might be a perfect fit, but after everything that happened last fall, he couldn’t have asked her to leave. Shouldn’t have expected her to do anything but stay out there in Orchard Grove, serving God in her little quiet sphere.
He should have been the one to end things. It would have been easier on her. After those hundreds of hours on the phone, those thousands of pages worth of emails, he knew her so well. Well enough to know that she would feel guilty now. He wanted to tell her that he understood, that he’d freely forgive her if there was anything to forgive.
She was stronger than he was. She realized her duty was to God and her family, and she was devoted enough to deny herself the one thing that could make her truly happy. Scott had seen it coming, but he didn’t have the emotional fortitude to finalize things like she did. Her resolve and her submission to the Holy Spirit put him to shame.
I’m sorry.
He composed a dozen emails in his head a week, some begging her to change her mind, some praising her for her heart of surrender, most just telling her how much he missed her.
Pastor Carl was continuing on in his Christmas sermon on the theme of joy. “Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” God must be using figurative language because Scott had woken up to over a hundred lonely mornings since the last time he talked with Susannah, and rejoicing still seemed so far out of reach.
Did she think about him? Was she sitting in that little country church way out in Orchard Grove, Washington right now, wondering how he was?
Or maybe she already found someone else. Jewels like Susannah wouldn’t stay unattached forever. Was her stepdad still in the picture? Would he offer his assistance, help steer her away from predators? She was so trusting. So trusting and still so young. She’d given her heart to Scott so readily, a testimony to her innocent nature. She’d loved him months before he felt the freedom in his spirit to talk to her about courtship. She hadn’t said so, but he had learned how to read her so well that by the time he finally found the courage to tell her he loved her, the question wasn’t whether she loved him back but what to do now that their affection was out in the open.
She was created for intimacy. Designed to share her heart with those around her. It’s what made her so fulfilled working at that assisted living home. It’s what gave her such a passion for the poor and destitute around the globe, lost souls who’d never heard the name of Jesus Christ.
And ultimately, it was that same loving, gentle nature that forced her to break off communication. Tell him things could never work between them.
He still had that ticket he’d printed up for his flight to Spokane. Still looked at it sometimes as if to prove to himself that somewhere in the country there really was a place called Orchard Grove, even if it was too small to show up on any but the most detailed of maps. That somewhere in that itty-bitty town was a young woman who’d loved him enough to invite him into her heart, into her life.
That Susannah Wesley Peters was a living, breathing woman he’d loved in return but now would never get the chance to meet.
- Writer
