Rapture Practice (8 page)

“Boys and girls, who can tell me what the Good News is?”

Hands fly up all around the circle. A little boy shouts out, “Jesus is coming back!”

I smile and nod. “Yes! That’s part of it. He’s coming back because he is risen. Jesus died, just like Speckles, but the Good News is that, unlike Speckles, Jesus didn’t stay dead!”

I use the same breathless excitement Mom uses as I explain that Jesus rose from the grave on the third day, conquering death and making it possible for everyone to go to heaven. “All you have to do to go to heaven when you die is pray and ask Jesus to forgive your sins.”

I ask all the boys and girls to bow their heads and close their eyes.

“If Jesus came back right this minute, would he leave you behind or take you to heaven?” I ask. “If you don’t know whether you’re going to heaven or hell when you die, you can be certain before you crawl into your sleeping bag,” I assure them. “If you’d like to talk to a counselor about accepting Jesus as your savior, raise your hand right now.”

In the orange glow of the flames at the center of our circle, I see hands fly into the air all around; little hands reaching up toward me to ask for help, to find comfort, to be saved from the fire.

When the boys in our covered wagons are settled into their bunks for the night, Jason finds me by the dying campfire and sits down on the log next to me.

“Nice work tonight,” he says.

“Thanks.” I smile and peer back into the flames.

“You really got into that story. The kids loved it. You’re good at that.”

He’s right. I
am
good at it. More than once Dad has told
entire churches full of people how proud he is of me when I help Mom teach Good News Club, how I win boys and girls to Christ; how if you train your kids right, they’ll be able to train others.

But what am I good at, exactly?

This is the question that nags at me as I sit in the dark next to Jason, staring into the low flames. The story of Speckles hasn’t changed since the first time I told it in Good News Club several years ago, but I have changed. Tonight as I looked into the eyes of the boys and girls watching me talk about flames and hell, I realized Speckles’s sacrifice isn’t beautiful.

It’s horrible.

I must’ve really scared the little kids around the campfire. If
I’m
afraid of hell, imagine how terrified they must be of it. Eternal torment and crucifixion are heavy issues to raise with first- and second-grade campers. That’s why I was trained to do it with an object lesson about a little boy, his pet hen, and the day she became an extra-crispy value meal in order to save her offspring.

I know it’s dark enough that Jason probably can’t see the tears streaming down my face, but I keep staring into the fire just in case. I don’t really care if he sees me crying, but I am glad that if he’s noticed, he hasn’t said anything. If he asks me what’s wrong, I don’t think I can tell him.

The truly sad part of the Speckles story—the part I realize now has always made me cry—isn’t her selfless act; that’s the basic instinct of an animal protecting its young. The heartbreak I feel is because we never find out what happens to Jimmy. All
we know is that he loses the thing that is most precious to him in the whole world. From his perspective, the idea of atonement seems horrifying. It seems like the worst idea ever.

I feel like everyone else is satisfied with the leap comparing Speckles to Jesus, but I’m not. A rope of fear tightens around my stomach—fear that His atonement doesn’t apply to me. I desperately want to feel the comfort of that psalm about being covered with big wings. There seems to be a promise of safety nestled in those feathers, or maybe it’s a promise of flight.

As I stare into the fire, I say a silent prayer to that God with the big wings of protection:
Help thou my unbelief.

But it feels silly, like a spark from the popping logs that shoots into the darkened sky, then vanishes into nothingness.

The air between Jason and me feels electric. I am sitting on a log at a campfire in the middle of the woods, next to a college student who is so much cooler than I am. I am crying, and he is pretending not to notice, and I think this may be the nicest thing any guy has ever done for me.

I remember how last Friday night as we sped home from the State Theater it had started to rain, and Jason turned up the music. As Wilson Phillips sang about arrows through hearts drawn on a misty window, I held on to my little yellow ticket stub and felt like my life was finally beginning. I wasn’t the guy who is a whiz teaching Bible stories to kids, or who plays the piano in church, or who makes my dad proud.

I was just
myself
.

I’m not sure how long I can go on making my parents
proud. For the past fifteen years, I’ve been to church three times a week and attended a Christian school Monday through Friday. I’ve learned enough to know the atonement Mom and Dad believe in is absolutely free for the taking, but that gleam of pride in their eyes comes with some strings attached. I have a hard time telling the difference between their love and their approval, and when my actions don’t live up to their standards, I feel like I’ve lost both.

The choice that gnaws at my stomach isn’t between heaven and hell. I have a hunch that God isn’t disappointed with me, but my parents are a different story. I know in my head that Mom and Dad love me, but I can sense in my heart that I’m going to have to choose between their approval and making my own decisions—doing the things that feel right to me.

I can’t find the words to tell Jason any of this. So we sit here in silence and watch the campfire shoot sparks into the sky until all that remains is a molten mound of glowing embers. I sneak a quick swipe at my face in the darkness and dry my cheeks with my hand. Then we stand up and head back to the covered wagons we call home.

“We’ve got the next two nights without campers,” Jason says. “I was thinking maybe we could drive in to Grand Island for dinner tomorrow night.”

“Excellent,” I say, and smile. “That’d be really cool.” Jason’s car seats only two. It’ll just be us.

“Want to do anything special?” he asks.

I smile at him in the moonlight. “Let’s go see a movie.”

Our waiter is tall and handsome, with dark hair. When he drops off my Diet Coke, I notice he’s wearing a silver ring on his left index finger. It’s a wide band brushed to a dull sheen. After he takes our order, Dad thanks him, then grasps Mom’s hand and addresses his four children.

“Kids, we came to a nice restaurant today because it’s Aaron’s sixteenth birthday.” He turns to me, smiling like he does when I play the piano in church, his eyes shining with pride and affection. “Son, we want to consecrate your young adult life to the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Olive Garden seemed like just the special place to do that.”

“Oh, Aaron,” Mom gasps, “do you know what I was doing at this exact moment sixteen years ago today?”

“Lamaze breathing?” I know it’s a rhetorical question, but I can’t resist. Mom can tell you where we were and what we ate for dinner on almost any random date for the last twenty years.

“Oh, no, honey.” She laughs. “I was all finished with labor
by this point. I was holding you in my arms and thanking God for my firstborn son.”

“Aaron, you have grown into a good-looking young man,” Dad says, beaming, “and soon Satan will begin to shoot his fiery darts of sexual temptation your way.”

As the words “sexual temptation” tumble from my father’s lips a little too loudly, our waiter appears. I see him freeze briefly, then recover and place a large bowl of salad and a basket of garlic bread sticks on the table as Dad continues.

“Aaron, your mother and I have gotten you a very special birthday gift that will be a symbol of your commitment to physical purity.”

I glance up, hoping that by some miracle the waiter has missed this comment, but he is looking right at me, and I feel my cheeks flush. I drop my gaze and try to distract myself with a sip from my straw, but my glass is already empty.

“I’ll be right back with another refill for you,” the waiter says. He has bright, kind eyes. “Can I get you anything else?”

I shake my head no, and he heads toward the kitchen.

“Let’s pray and bless the food,” Dad says, “then Aaron can open his gift.”

We all hold hands in a circle around the table, bow our heads, and close our eyes. Dad begins to pray in the middle of the Sunday afternoon Olive Garden lunch rush.

“Lord, we want to thank you for this special time and for Aaron and what a fine young man he is growing up to be….”

As Dad continues to talk to God over our bottomless basket of breadsticks, I can sense the eyes of the other
diners in the restaurant staring at us. It always feels weird to hold hands and pray in public. As usual, that feeling is followed by a pang of guilt for feeling weird about it. As a Christian, this is one of the ways I can show my faith to the unsaved world. It is a simple, quiet act that speaks volumes: Our family believes in Jesus Christ. We pray over meals in restaurants.

Usually, I keep my eyes closed and just pretend that if I can’t see the other people, they can’t see me, but today is different. I sense someone approach the table, and I open my eyes to see our waiter standing behind Dad with a fresh Diet Coke, waiting respectfully for us to finish praying. This time when our eyes meet, I don’t look away.

Neither does he.

I smile and shake my head.
Can you believe this?
I silently telegraph to him over my father’s bowed head. He winks at me and smiles.

I don’t mind praying. I just wish we didn’t have to make such a big scene of it in public. Why can’t we pray in the car before we come into the restaurant? Usually, prayer is this thing we do in private—a personal conversation between us and God. Jesus even taught a parable about not praying on the street corner like a Pharisee but showing you are repentant and humble by keeping your prayers out of sight. Restaurants require a prayer of the evangelical variety, it seems. Praying in restaurants is all about other people seeing us do it. It’s our faith on offense. One more way we can prove we’re not ashamed of Jesus; one more way to spread the Gospel; one
more way to show we are different from the unsaved world, when all I really want right now is not to stand out.

“… so we thank you for all of your blessings to us but most of all for the blood of your son, Jesus. And it’s in his name we pray, Amen.”

Dad wraps up his prayer and the waiter delivers my Diet Coke. “Here you go.” He smiles. “I’ll be right back with your food.”

I watch him walk away as Mom reaches into her purse and hands me a tiny, wrapped package. I am excited, but I’m not sure it’s the present. Something about the moment I shared with the waiter made me feel good, like an understanding had passed between us.

I tear the paper from the present, and feel the flocked fabric of a small, velvet-covered box. I’m pretty sure I know what this is, and when I pop open the box, I am not surprised. Inside is an eighteen-karat gold signet ring etched with a large
A
in the kind of calligraphy I saw once in a picture of a Gutenberg Bible.

“Wow,” I say. “Thank you.”

Dad’s voice is husky with emotion. “Son, every time you’re alone with a young lady from now until the day you get married, this ring will be on your finger to remind you of your promise to the Lord Jesus Christ to remain morally and physically pure until your wedding night.”

“Oh, darling!” Mom is smiling, her eyes bright with tears. “Think how happy you’ll be in the honeymoon suite on the night you’re married when you’ll be able to slip this ring off
your finger and give it to your new bride—the best wedding gift of all: your virginity.”

“Wait, let me get this straight.” Jason is laughing so hard there are tears running down his cheeks. “You’re supposed to give it to your wife when you get married? On your wedding night?”

We are in the dinner line at the Bible college cafeteria. It’s Friday night, and I got permission from Mom and Dad to spend the night in Jason’s dorm room tonight. When I lifted my green melamine tray onto the rails along the hot-food line, he noticed the gold ring on my left hand.