Cape Refuge (35 page)

 

C
aleb was not in a foster home. The HRS had no idea where he was. When Jonathan questioned them about reports of child abuse, he learned that they had only interviewed Jack Dent but had never actually removed the baby from the home.

After Sadie thought of several names of people with whom Jack might have left the baby, she, Jonathan, and Morgan took off for Atlanta.

They found Caleb at the home of one of Jack's girlfriends who lived in a trailer park with mounds of garbage festering in a ditch outside. She answered the door with a glazed look in her eyes.

“Stacy, did Jack leave Caleb with you?” Sadie asked.

“You bet he did,” the woman said, letting them in. “It's about time somebody got here.”

They heard Caleb crying in a back room. Sadie ran through the house and snatched him out of a playpen. The child was dirty, with thick caked snot crusting his nose. “Sadie's here, sweetie,” she said, crying as she pressed her face close to his. “Oh, honey, Sadie's here.”

His sobs faded into hiccups, and he looked up at her with mournful eyes. She held him tight as he laid his head against her chest.

“Jack said two days,” the woman shouted. “Two days, and here it's going on a week. I thought that kid'd never shut up.”

She ran and got his diaper bag and the things she had in the refrigerator, threw them into the bag, and thrust them at Morgan. “Take him. Good riddance. And tell Jack Dent that he owes me big for this.”

“I'm sorry, Stacy,” Morgan said. “But Jack's dead.”

The woman gaped up at her, then turned to look at Sadie. “Is that true?”

Sadie nodded. “He was shot . . . trying to kill me.”

Stacy was quiet as they gathered the rest of Caleb's things and loaded them into the car.

As Sadie hooked him into the car seat they had brought with them, the child put his thumb in his mouth and looked up at his sister.

“I missed you,” Sadie cried softly. “Big time. I'm sorry I left you. I'll never do it again.”

He hiccuped another sigh, and she kissed his wet cheek. Morgan leaned over him with tears in her eyes as she saw what a beautiful child he was. “We're so blessed, Sadie,” she whispered. “Jesus is watching over us.”

“I know,” Sadie said. “He's answered my prayers. He saved me from death . . . and from Jack. And he saved Caleb too.”

Before they left Atlanta they went by the jail, where Sadie had a brief reunion with her mother. Morgan and Jonathan got to know Caleb in the car, keeping him out of the jail so as not to traumatize him further with the confusing sight of a mother he couldn't touch. Sheila Caruso signed the papers allowing Morgan and Jonathan to take temporary custody until she was out of jail.

She was neither surprised nor saddened to hear of Jack's death.

In fact, no one mourned Jack's death.

No one at all.

 

B
ut Rick was mourned for. On the day of his funeral, Blair, Morgan, Cade, Sadie, Gus, and Mrs. Hern were the only ones who attended. As it turned out, he was all that he said he was. He had never killed anyone, and there really was a wife and baby who had died. It seemed that Randy Simmons had set him up because he was convenient, having the most mysterious background of all the tenants at Hanover House.

Cleaning out Rick's room after he was found, Morgan had found Rick's journal. Jonathan read an entry from it as he stood at the pulpit in their warehouse church. It was written on the day that Thelma and Wayne had given him the check for ten thousand dollars.

“ ‘Thelma and Wayne discovered the money,' “ Jonathan read. “ ‘And I felt more shame than I'd ever felt in my life. I finally decided I would take the money back, put it right back where I'd found it, and Gerald Madison would never know it was gone. I thought Thelma and Wayne were going to turn me in, anyway, have me arrested, and I figured I deserved it.

“ ‘Instead, they told me they knew about the money, and they handed me a check for ten thousand dollars. Said it would pay my debts in the same way that Christ had paid my spiritual debt. They were more concerned about my soul than they were about justice. It moved me to tears. It moved me to Christ.' “

Jonathan's voice cracked as he read those last words, and he looked up across the meager congregation, saw the tears on his wife's face . . .

. . . and on Blair's.

After the burial, Blair and Morgan sat quietly on a bench at the grave site, staring at the mound of dirt with flowers laid over it. “He's with his family now,” Morgan said. “His wife and his daughter. And with Jesus.”

“I wish I could believe that,” Blair whispered.

“You can,” Morgan said. “You know in your heart that it's true.”

She struggled with the thought. “Morgan, why did Mama and Pop do the things they did for people? Like giving Rick ten thousand dollars? That was probably their life's savings. There sure wasn't much left in the bank. Why did they feel such a need to provide refuge for the lost and the weak and the despairing? Why did they give people so many chances?”

“Because it had been done for them.”

Blair tried to get her mind around the thought of grace being dispensed because grace had redeemed them. But grace was a concept that couldn't be seen or smelled or tasted . . . and as much as she wanted to stand on ground as solid as that beneath Morgan, she still couldn't quite believe.

Morgan hugged her, kissed her on the cheek, then got up and left her alone there to think.

 

 

C
ade had been watching from the street, hoping for a chance to talk to Blair, but when Morgan had joined her on the bench, he hadn't wanted to intrude on a private moment.

When Morgan left Blair alone, Cade got out of his car. Blair was alone at last. He started down the hill toward her.

She looked up at him.

“Mind if I sit down?” he asked.

She shrugged and nodded, and he took the seat that Morgan had just left. Quiet settled between them. Blair looked past the gravestones to the water beyond, to the sailboats lined up in the harbor. “I'm thinking of leaving Cape Refuge soon,” she said. “As soon as I'm well enough.”

“I've been thinking about that too,” Cade said. “About what it would be like here without you.”

She looked over at him, surprised that he had given it any thought at all.

His eyes were misty, serious, as he held her gaze. “I really wish you wouldn't go, Blair.”

She swallowed and looked back at the harbor. Something about those words changed things in her mind. She didn't even know why. She couldn't think of a thing to say, so she just sat there staring, and he sat there with her, quietly content in her presence.

For the first time in her life, she didn't analyze the peace that he seemed to radiate like a warm wind. She just borrowed from it—astonished at the way he seemed to fill in the loneliness.

And she wondered if there was really any hurry to leave Cape Refuge. Maybe she would stay for just a while longer.

 

I
don't understand suffering. This past year has been a time of grief for my family and many of my friends, and if I could, I would lift it off us and make it go away. But I can't.

At this writing, I'm grieving over the death of Landon Von Kanel, my daughter's eighteen-year-old friend, who was taken unexpectedly in a car accident. Just two years ago, we buried another of her friends, Anthony Shams, sixteen. Both of these young men had circles of influence that reached far across the globe. Their unique and vibrant personalities, their colorful wit, their big dreams, made them unforgettable and irreplaceable. I daresay that thousands have been impacted by their deaths, many for eternity. But I don't understand why Randy and Cindy, or Deborah and Al had to bury their children.

My friend Rick McMahan died a year ago. He was a mentor and friend to my husband and me. He and his wife, Lynda, were a true brother and sister. I miss seeing him on Wednesday nights after church, leaning on the visitor's booth as he waited for his wife and daughter to come down from youth group. He was the one I always gravitated to, to air my latest complaints about children or parenthood or life. He always seemed so in tune with God, and his wisdom always challenged me. I miss him on Sunday mornings. He and his family used to sit behind us, worshiping the Lord and shedding tears over his goodness and his awesome sovereignty. I miss him on Sunday nights, when we would sit together and worship again, and share stories and laughter and praises afterward. I miss his sense of humor, and his hugs, and the peace that he radiated. I miss the fact that my youngest child will not get to go through his Sunday school class and experience the love he had for the kids to whom he ministered. I miss the way his marriage set an example for the rest of us, of love and protection and nurturing and endurance.

I don't know why God chose to take Rick so early, or why he allowed him to suffer as cancer ravaged his body. I don't know why Lynda and his children, Kerry and Brad, had to say good-bye to their husband and father.

I have also grieved for Stephanie Whitson, another Christian writer, who said good-bye to her husband, Bob, after a long, exhausting struggle with cancer. In his last days, when he could barely sit up, Bob searched through his Bible for reasons that we suffer and wrote it all down. This long list of God's reasons for putting us through adversity has blessed my friend Lynda as she has grieved and suffered over Rick's death. It has also blessed many, many others. And his love and urgency to make others understand the Lord will live on long after him. Bob's teaching and his wisdom will continue to work in the lives of all those he touched. Yet Stephanie has a hole in her life, and she and their children miss him terribly.

And I have grieved for a friend, Patricia Hickman, another Christian writer who is completely sold out to the Lord. She and her husband, Randy, have devoted their lives to planting churches and drawing people into a knowledge of Jesus Christ. Why, then, did God choose to take their beautiful twenty-year-old daughter, Jessi, in another terrible car accident? I have so many questions for the Lord, so many whys as I weep for that loss that can never be replaced. With a daughter almost the same age, who has the same goals and interests as Jessi, I find myself shaken and humbled and slightly frightened by the suddenness of death. And my heart is broken for this dear family.

But I see so much fruit that has sprung up from these deaths and know that entire crops are yet to come. And I can't help remembering that my own salvation was the result of the death of a boy in my school, Ricky Bogan, a fifteen-year-old who died in an accident on the way home from school. Whatever fruit I bear is his fruit too. And despite the sorrow his death produced in me as a fourteen-year-old seeker, I am glad that God used it to bring me to him. I know the Lord well enough to trust that he is doing the same to many others as the result of these deaths.

Psalm 116:15 says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” I know this is true, and I also know that Jesus weeps over our losses, and he shares our grief. But he also sees the future, and he sees the whole picture. He knows his purpose in taking Landon and Anthony and Rick and Jessi and Bob. And he's already seen the reunions that are yet to come. Joyful, overwhelming, celebratory reunions.

We cannot control God, and we cannot second-guess him, as much as we'd like to try. Our God has plans and purposes that are far beyond our understanding.

Sometimes those plans and purposes break our hearts.

Sometimes they require sacrifices we never agreed to make.

Sometimes they stop us dead in our tracks, turn us upside down, inside out, and paralyze us with pain.

But his comfort is not far behind. And as we climb up into his lap and weep into his chest, he whispers in our ear, “Shhh. It's okay. I did it for a reason, and some day I'll tell you what it is.” He strokes our hair and hugs us tight, and cries with us. “Shhh. Just hang on. It's not that long before you'll see them again. And then you'll be with them for eternity. I promise to see you through this.”

Our whys are not answered, but we trust that there is a reason. God is in control, and he loves us through our pain.

As the song says, “Life is hard, but God is good.” How precious is that goodness, and how sufficient is his comfort. And how thrilling are his promises of what will happen when he returns for us.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

 

About the Author

 

 

 

T
erri Blackstock is an award-winning novelist who has written for several major publishers including HarperCollins, Dell, Harlequin, and Silhouette. Published under two pseudonyms, her books have sold over 3.5 million copies worldwide.

With her success in secular publishing at its peak, Blackstock had what she calls “a spiritual awakening.” A Christian since the age of fourteen, she realized she had not been using her gift as God intended. It was at that point that she recommitted her life to Christ, gave up her secular career, and made the decision to write only books that would point her readers to him.

“I wanted to be able to tell the truth in my stories,” she said, “and not just be politically correct. It doesn't matter how many readers I have if I can't tell them what I know about the roots of their problems and the solutions that have literally saved my own life.”

Her books are about flawed Christians in crisis and God's provisions for their mistakes and wrong choices. She claims to be extremely qualified to write such books, since she's had years of personal experience.

A native of nowhere, since she was raised in the Air Force, Blackstock makes Mississippi her home. She and her husband are the parents of three children—a blended family which she considers one more of God's provisions.