War Room (11 page)

Elizabeth shook her head at her friend and they waited until a squad car arrived. Two officers listened to their story.

“And you believe he was early twenties?” one officer said.

“Yeah, maybe twenty-five,” Elizabeth said.

Clara spooned the ice cream like she was ravenously hungry.

“So let me get this straight,” the second officer said. “He was pointing a knife at you, and you told him to put it down in Jesus’ name.”

Clara nodded and stretched out a hand. “Right. Now when you write that down, don’t you leave out Jesus. People are always leaving Jesus out. That’s one of the reasons we’re in the mess we’re in.” She went back to her ice cream and finished off the cup.

The officers glanced at each other as if they didn’t know how to respond.

“You know, what concerns me is that you could have easily been killed.”

“Well, I know a lot of people would have probably given him their money. I understand that. But that’s their decision.”

As the officers wrote information for the report, Clara leaned closer to Elizabeth and Danielle on the bench where they sat. “Are you not eating your ice cream, Elizabeth?”

“No. I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Let me help you out with that.” Clara reached for the cup. “No reason to waste perfectly good ice cream.”

The officers stared at Clara as she dug into the cookies and cream.

After the police report had been completed, Elizabeth drove Clara home. The woman invited both of them inside, and Elizabeth called Tony to let him know what had happened.

When he answered, he sounded preoccupied. She knew he was on another trip and was probably heading into a meeting. She spoke anyway.

“I don’t mean to bother you. I just thought you’d want to know I was held up today.”

“Held up?”

“As in robbed. The guy had a knife.”

“Whoa! Where were you?”

Elizabeth told him. She paced on Clara’s front porch, Danielle sitting in the swing alone with a book on her lap.

“Yeah, that’s not the best part of town. Did he take anything?”

“No.”

“Good.”

That was it? That’s all he could ask about?

“What’s wrong?” Tony said. “You’re okay, right?”

“Yes, we’re fine, but you could show a little more concern, Tony.”

“Hey, there’s nothing I could do. I’m over here in
 
—”

“I know there’s nothing you could have done about it,” she interrupted him. “I’m just saying I was scared. And to think, Danielle could’ve been with us.”

“I’m sure it was scary. But calm down. You’re okay.”

“Well, I just thought you’d want to know.”

“I do want to know. But it’s over now, Liz.”

“Fine. Okay. We’ll talk later. Bye.”

The insensitivity. The callous feeling. It oozed through the phone line. Did Tony even care? Had he ever cared?

She ended the call, wanting to throw the phone through a window. But taking a deep breath, she turned to her daughter. “Danielle, can you read your book while I go talk with Miss Clara?”

“Can I text Jennifer on your phone?” Danielle said, her face suddenly brightening.

Elizabeth thought a moment. “Okay, but not too long. I want you to read, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Clara was waiting in her sitting room with paper and pen.

Elizabeth sat across from her. “I’m sorry. I just thought I should call Tony.”

“I understand.”

“You would think he would be more alarmed, but he kept saying that since we were all okay, I should just calm down.”

The woman scowled, her lips moving and head wagging from side to side. “I’m having trouble calming down myself.”

“Really? You seemed calm earlier.”

“Yeah, but I got a huge sugar rush from all that ice cream. I feel like I could run around the block a few times.” Clara picked up her elbows and pretended to jog like an Olympic athlete.

Elizabeth smiled. The old woman was full of surprises. Elizabeth learned something new about her with every meeting.

“Oh, while we’re on the subject of Tony,” Clara said, “I have something for you to do.” She handed Elizabeth a legal pad and a pen.

“What’s that?”

“I want you to write down everything you can think of that he’s done wrong.”

She shook her head and frowned. “Miss Clara, if I did that, I’d be writing a long time.”

“Then just write down the highlights. I’ll be back to check on you in a little while.”

Clara walked out and Elizabeth was left with the paper and her thoughts. She fought back the resentment, the childish feeling of being controlled and pushed into doing something she didn’t want to do. Instead, she did what she was asked.

• Forgot our anniversary last year.
  
• Puts his work over his family.
  
• Has said no to a pet in the house.
  
• Interrupts me when I try to share my feelings.
  
• Walks away during arguments.
  
• Looks at other women.
  
• Doesn’t lead his family spiritually.
  

Once she started, it was like a flood. Instead of trying to list things in chronological order, she wrote them as they came
 
—and sometimes they came so fast she just jotted down words so she wouldn’t lose the thought. She covered the first page and went to the next, and the more she wrote, the more things came to her. There were some struggles she couldn’t write because they were too intimate, so she put
unmentionable
. She was just getting momentum on the list when Clara returned and sat.

“That’s almost three pages.”

“And I could write more, but you’ll get the gist of it when you read it.”

“Actually, I’m not gonna read it.”

Elizabeth cocked her head at Clara, confused. The whole point was to tell her what Tony did wrong, wasn’t it?

Clara leaned forward. “My question to you is this. In light of all these wrongs, does God still love Tony?”

Elizabeth thought about the question. The theological answer was that God loved everyone. With regret in her voice, she said, “We both know He does.”

“Do you?”

Elizabeth tried not to look away, tried to stay right with Miss Clara. Tried not to laugh. “Now you’re meddlin’.”

Clara smiled and waited. Elizabeth thought that this was what love often did, smile and wait.

“There is love in my heart for Tony, but it’s buried under a lot of frustration.”
Buried.
That was the right word. Their relationship had been buried long ago, and though there was no stone above, she could only imagine the bones wasting away under the cold dirt.

Clara nodded. “So he needs grace.”

“Grace? I don’t know that he deserves grace.”

Another penetrating look. “Do you deserve grace?”

Suddenly Elizabeth felt exposed. This old woman knew how to get rid of a teenage robber with a knife. She also knew how to cut to the heart with a question.

“Miss Clara, you have a habit of backing me up in a corner and making me squirm.”

“I felt the same way. But the question still remains. Do you deserve grace?”

Elizabeth looked at the pages filled with all the words she had written about Tony. She wondered what he would write if he had the same chance.

“The Bible says, ‘There is no one righteous, not even
one.’ So really, none of us deserves grace. But we all still want God’s forgiveness.”

It was all Elizabeth’s Sunday school lessons rolled into one. God had been an important subject to Elizabeth her whole life, but the way Clara put it made it sound like He wasn’t a subject, He was everything.
Grace
had been a nice word in her vocabulary that she used to talk about God, but Clara was using it personally, pulling her toward the truth.

“Elizabeth, it comes down to this: Jesus shed His blood on the cross. He died for you, even when you did not deserve it. And He rose from the grave and offers forgiveness and salvation for anyone who turns to Him. But the Bible also says that we can’t ask Him to forgive us while refusing to forgive others.”

Elizabeth nodded. “I know, Miss Clara, but that’s just so hard to do.”

“Yes, it is! Yes, it is! But that’s where grace comes in! He gives us grace, and He helps us give it to others. Even when they don’t deserve it. We all deserve judgment, and that is what a holy God gives us when we don’t repent and believe in His Son. I had to forgive Leo for some things, and it wasn’t easy. But it freed me.”

Freedom.
That was a word Elizabeth wanted so desperately, and it finally seemed to her that they went well together.
Grace. Freedom.
There were surely more good words to come after those.

“Elizabeth, there’s not room for both you and God on
the throne of your heart. It’s either Him or you. You need to step down. Now, if you want victory, you’re gonna have to first surrender.”

Elizabeth pushed the thought away. “But, Miss Clara, do I just back off and choose to forgive and let him walk all over me?”

“I think you’ll find that when you let Him, God is a good defense attorney. Trust it to Him. And then you can turn your focus to the real enemy.”

“The real enemy?”

“The one that wants to remain hidden. The one that wants to distract you, deceive you, and divide you from the Lord and from your husband. That’s how he works. Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy. And he is stealing your joy, killing your faith, and trying to destroy your family.”

The old woman was fiery now, like an old-time preacher just getting wound up and ready to pound the pulpit. “If I were you, I would get my heart right with God. And you need to do your fightin’ in prayer. You need to kick the real enemy out of your home with the Word of God.”

So many of Elizabeth’s conversations through the day were just words and concepts thrown back and forth. She really didn’t listen to much of it carefully. Like music played in the background to set a mood, conversations were the same thing. But this one was more than a conversation, more than just a few concepts thrown out between two people. She stared at Clara with a laser focus.

“It’s time for you to fight, Elizabeth. It’s time for you to
fight for your marriage! It’s time for you to fight the real enemy. It’s time for you to take off the gloves and do it.”

Elizabeth felt a strength coming, a resolve. With an understanding of grace came a freedom to love she’d never experienced. She glanced at Clara’s Bible. She’d always thought of it as a book filled with stories. Lessons and tales of people who succeeded against great odds. But if Clara was right, it wasn’t just a storybook. It was a manual of warfare. It was a path toward deep forgiveness and love from God that could empower her to forgive and love others.

Something came alive as she sat there. Something was reborn. And for the first time in a long time, Elizabeth found something she’d lost. Hope. Hope for herself. Hope for Tony and Danielle that things could be different. Hope for her family.

She put a hand on the old woman’s shoulder and Clara hugged her. “You think about what I’ve said here.”

“I will,” Elizabeth said in a daze. She brushed away tears all the way home and was glad Danielle didn’t ask questions.

Tony stared at his phone.
What he had heard from Elizabeth shook him. His wife had been assaulted. She had been in grave danger, or so she said. Elizabeth had always been a little dramatic, though. Maybe it had just been a person living on the street and she thought he had a knife. Maybe the guy just wanted a bottle and asked for change.

He walked back into Veronica Drake’s office. He never took phone calls during a meeting, but he’d happened to see that Elizabeth was on the line and felt a pang of guilt that made him step out to take it.

“Sorry about that,” he said.

“It’s okay,” Veronica said. “Sounded like it was important.”

Her voice was as sweet as a honeycomb. And the
package wasn’t hard to look at either. She had a seductive smile and a knockout figure. She treated Tony like he was the most important person on the planet, getting him coffee and making time for him in her busy schedule.

“The important thing here is your company getting exactly what it needs from Brightwell Pharmaceuticals,” he said. “On time. Period. Now, where were we?”

She flipped through the papers on her desk. “We have a signed contract, the shipment date, the payment schedule.” She looked up at him and bit her lower lip. “I have your personal cell number so I can contact you anytime I need to. I think we’re good.”

He put both hands on the desk and leaned over the papers but instead looked into her eyes. Veronica was a beautiful woman. And her eyes said something that reached to his core.

“We haven’t talked about you,” he said.

“Me?”

“I’m in sales, of course, but I see part of my work for Brightwell as a coach.”

“A coach?” Veronica said, dipping her head, her eyes twinkling.

Tony sat on the edge of his seat. “It’s my sports background. Everything in life is being part of a team. Getting people to move in the same direction.”

“You mean, everything is a competition?” she said. “Isn’t that what sales is all about? Isn’t that what makes you good at what you do?”

He smiled. “There’s nothing wrong with competition. It actually can bring out the best in a person. You strive to become everything you can be. And as you become the best, you bring others along on that journey.”

Veronica leaned back in her chair, her fingers interlaced under her chin. “Tell me more, Coach Jordan.”

“Well, as a coach, I try to do more listening than talking. I find out the person’s hopes and dreams. For example, how long have you been at Holcomb?”

Veronica told him and offered information about her personal life. He followed up, asking about her romantic relationships. “A gorgeous person like you surely has had some kind of long-term relationship.”

She stifled a smile and blushed. “I’ve had boyfriends, if that’s what you mean. But I’m waiting on the right one to come along.”

“Now that is wise. A lot of people don’t wait for the right one. They jump at the first one who says they love you. You’re an intelligent, wise, beautiful young woman and I see a bright future for you.”

“Does a coach do anything more than butter up his players?”

Tony laughed. “This is not buttering up, this is the truth. But teammates have to have a correct view of themselves. A realistic look at strengths and weaknesses.”

She looked at her watch and crossed her arms. “Hmmm. Sounds like you’re going to need more time to help me discover that. And I have another meeting in ten minutes.”

“There’s so much more we have to talk about,” Tony said. “Why don’t you give me the chance to continue this over dinner?”

Her eyes widened and she smiled. “You want to take me to dinner?”

He nodded. “There’s a lot more to cover. Plus, it’s on me. My service to the cause, and to thank you for being so easy to work with.”

“Coach Jordan, is it a problem that you have a ring on your finger?”

He stared at the wedding band he wore. The only problem was that it was holding him back from really being happy. “My wife and I are having some struggles. In a long line of struggles.”

“Well, maybe I can help you out, then. You know. Be a team player.” Veronica looked at her schedule, then back at him. “All right. Dinner it is.”

When she got home, Elizabeth went straight to her closet and, with resolve, tossed out the bean bag chair, moved her clothes to the spare room closet, then carried the boxes of shoes to the same.

She went to her desk and opened her Bible and Clara’s journal. As she read, she could hear the woman’s voice, her encouragement, her advice.

“There’s no magic in the location you pray. But Scripture does say to go into your inner room and pray in secret,
and your heavenly Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. Get rid of any distractions, and focus your heart and mind on Him. Acknowledge that He is God and that you desperately need Him.”

Clara had suggested Elizabeth find several prayers in the Bible and meditate on them. One of the woman’s favorites was the prayer of King David at the end of his life.

“This is something you can memorize and keep going back to time and again,” Clara had said. “If you can’t think of what to pray or you run out of things to thank God for, go to this one.”

The prayer was in 1 Chronicles 29. As Elizabeth wrote the words, she prayed them from her heart.

Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the splendor and the majesty, for everything in the heavens and on earth belongs to You. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom, and You are exalted as head over all. Riches and honor come from You, and You are the ruler of everything. Power and might are in Your hand, and it is in Your hand to make great and to give strength to all. Now therefore, our God, we give You thanks and praise Your glorious name.

Elizabeth thought that was a great way to start any prayer, reminding herself who God was and immediately praying that to Him.

Clara had also made a point to talk about confession. “Now, be grateful for your blessings, but lift your needs and requests to Him. If you’ve got something to confess, then confess it. Ask Him for forgiveness. Then choose to believe when He says that He loves you and will take care of you.”

Elizabeth began to pray as she wrote and a new thought came. Instead of focusing on all the things Tony had done to wrong her, she wrote down the things she had done to hurt him. Once she began writing, the floodgates opened and the tears flowed and she saw the ways she had fallen short in her own heart. It was a lot easier to remember her husband’s faults. Writing down her own gave her a sense of ownership, that she had to not just recognize the ways she had fallen short, but tell those things to God and ask Him to relieve her of the guilt and shame. She knew she’d have to apologize to Tony at some point too.

The funny thing was, through the tears and all that writing, there came with the exercise a sense of freedom, of relief and release to the discovery.

Clara had said to ask God for the truth. “Discover the truth about God, who He is, how He works, how much He loves. And then you’ll uncover the truth about yourself, your sin, the ways you displease God. The truth about your life is always better to know, even if it hurts.”

So Elizabeth asked God for the truth. She wrote down each true thing that came to her mind. And with each entry she made a request.

“Father, I confess that I have yelled and interrupted my husband so many times. I’ve been so angry at him, and I haven’t really listened. Would You forgive me for my tone of voice and treating him unkindly? And would You create in me a heart that wants to respond to Tony out of love and respect and really wanting to hear him? Would You do that in my heart, Lord?”

“Then pray for the hearts of your husband, your daughter, and anyone else that the Lord brings to your mind,” Clara had said. “And don’t rush it. You take your time. Then you listen.”

Listening to God. What a concept. What a radical thought, to pause long enough to actively listen for God to speak. Elizabeth knew it wasn’t an audible voice she would hear, but that the process of reading the Bible and desiring for God to come alongside her would yield good things. That’s what Clara had said, and the woman seemed to know what she was talking about.

She prepared three pieces of paper for the wall of her closet: one for Tony, one for Danielle, and one for herself. On Tony’s she listed prayers for his work, his role as a father and as a husband, for his friendships, and for his heart. She asked that God would bring someone into his life who would tell him the truth.

Unite us in marriage, Father, and unite us as parents to do the very best thing for our daughter. Don’t let the enemy tear us apart. Whatever You have to do
in order to break me and him of our dependence on ourselves, would You make that happen? Would You bring us together in a way that causes us to cling to You no matter what? Bring us together so we can give You glory, just like Clara said.

She sat back and looked at what she had just written. Did she really mean that? Was she really ready to surrender? It looked good on paper, but how would it work in the real world?

And
would
it work? Would Tony respond? A little doubt crept in. Was she doing this just because some old woman had held out hope like a carrot on a string? Or was the feeling coming over her real? If Tony didn’t change, if things got worse, would she stop believing? Stop praying?

She looked at the section of Clara’s journal that held verses about doubt. One from Hebrews 11 stuck out to her, and she copied it down.

Without faith it is impossible to please God, for the one who draws near to Him must believe that He exists and rewards those who seek Him.

She closed her eyes and lifted her voice, whispering to the ceiling, “God, I want to have faith. I do believe You exist. I believe You reward people who seek You sincerely. And that’s what I’m doing. With everything in me, I want to know You. And I ask You right now to give me the kind
of faith I need to be the wife, the mother, the person You want me to be. Thank You that You answer cries of the heart like this. I want to do like Miss Clara says
 
—I want to surrender every part of me to Your will, to Your kindness and mercy and grace. Put a spotlight on the areas where I’ve never given You control. And thank You for bringing this woman into my life. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

It felt like a victory. It felt like movement toward God and toward her family. It felt like Elizabeth was becoming whole instead of fractured in little pieces. And she began to see the ways God had already worked in her life. He had given her a family, and she rarely thanked Him for that. God had given her a job she enjoyed. The feeling of fulfillment when a family moved into their own home was amazing, and she thanked Him for the chance to make a living helping others. She thought of Mandy and Lisa in the office and clients who had been kind. She should start a page for them. Then she thought of the clients who had stiffed her. What would she do with the anger and hurt and resentment she felt for them? Well, God would have to deal with her on those people, and she was willing to open that door, as painful as it was.

After dinner with Danielle, Elizabeth returned to her closet and taped the three pages to the wall. As she did, her phone chimed with a text message. How was she going to handle the distraction of the phone with this new prayer life of hers? She figured Clara would tell her to silence it and check it afterward.

She glanced at the message and saw it was from her friend Missy. She had texted Elizabeth before about new shops in town. But this message said:
Liz, this is Missy.
I’m in Raleigh. Just saw Tony in a restaurant with a woman I didn’t recognize. Somebody you know?

Elizabeth’s heart stopped. She stared at the message, reading it again. Maybe her fears about Tony were true. Maybe the look he gave the girl in church was nothing compared to what he was doing on the road. Her legs felt wobbly, and she leaned against the shelf. She held the phone to her heart. It felt like a punch in the gut, all the air going out of her lungs and her mind spinning, like spiritual vertigo. She tried to gain her balance, tried to stop her mind from racing with possibilities.