War Room (23 page)

That evening they sat in Elizabeth’s closet, her war room, and prayed for the situation with Coleman and Tom. She asked God to work things out so that Tony wouldn’t have to be prosecuted. She prayed for a new job for Tony and provision for their family. “Help us trust You no matter what,” she prayed.

Tony hesitated before he began. Praying together wasn’t something he was comfortable with
 
—and in the beginning he’d just let Elizabeth pray and he held her hand and squeezed it at times. She gave him this, not requiring that he be at the same place she was. But soon he was praying aloud with her, and his voice and his heart came shining through. Elizabeth couldn’t believe the sense of unity she felt when she heard him speaking with God.

“God, I want a new job and I don’t want to go to jail,” Tony prayed. “But I know there are consequences to my actions. I know what I did hurt people. I’ve hurt my family. I hurt my employer. And I thank You for forgiving me and
grabbing hold of my heart and not letting me go any further toward things that would have destroyed me.

“Right now I pray for Tom. He hates me. I could see it in his face. And I can understand why. So, Lord, give me some opportunity to be kind to him. Some chance to show Your love to him. I don’t have any idea how You could do that, but I believe You can make it happen. And I pray for Coleman, Lord. He has a lot of pressure on him to succeed. A lot of pressure from the shareholders and all those people who are working under him. I pray You would bless him. I pray You’d bless the company and use it to help people. Give the research team wisdom as they’re working on new medicine. Most of all I pray You would draw Coleman and Tom to Yourself. Would You use even this situation with them to help them see their need of You? Their need to be forgiven?”

They were in the closet for nearly an hour. When they finished praying, Tony held a hand out and helped Elizabeth up, and she drew close to him. She looked in his eyes and he put his hands on her shoulders. For a moment she thought he would kiss her.

Instead, Tony bit his lip and looked at a verse on the wall. “As we were praying, I got the impression that the Lord wants us to talk to Danielle. I don’t think it’s fair to lay a big burden on her, but I don’t think it’s fair to keep her in the dark, either.”

“I trust you,” Elizabeth said. And the words were out of her mouth before she realized she meant them.

Tony saw the fear in Danielle’s face when, after the dinner dishes had been put away, he asked her to sit at the table with them. “We have something to talk about.”

“Don’t be scared, honey,” Elizabeth said, rubbing the girl’s back.

“You’re not getting a divorce, are you? Because that’s what’s happening to Cindy’s parents. They sat her and her brother down at the kitchen table just like this.”

Tony leaned forward and caught his daughter’s eyes. “Your mother and I love each other. We’re working on our marriage so we can be the people God wants us to be. So we can be good parents.”

“You’re not moving out?” Danielle said. “That’s what Cindy’s parents did first. Her dad moved out
 
—”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

As soon as Tony said the words, he looked at Elizabeth and could see the pain in her face as well. He couldn’t say that he wasn’t going anywhere. That decision was up to Coleman. Well, really, it was up to God.

“Danielle, the reason I got let go from work
 
—the reason they took my car
 
—was that I did something wrong.”

“What did you do?”

“I kept some medicine that didn’t belong to me. At the time I thought it was fine
 
—I thought nobody would ever notice. And I sold some of it.”

“You stole from them.”

“That’s right.”

“Why, Daddy?”

“To make some extra money. I thought I deserved more than they were giving me. They caught me. And it was wrong. I took back the things I had stolen and showed them.”

Danielle’s face showed the pain he felt inside, but it was a double hit seeing it through her eyes. He had let her down and that look tore at his heart.

“God will forgive you, Daddy.”

He reached out and patted her hand. “He already has. That is a good lesson. When we make mistakes, we can ask Him to forgive. And He’ll do it. But mistakes also have consequences.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I went back and apologized, they let me know that there could be consequences. They’re deciding if they want to punish me for what I’ve done.”

“If God can forgive you, why can’t they?”

Tony glanced at Elizabeth and she gave him a look like
You’re on your own with this one.

“I hope they will forgive me, but even if they do, I might have to be punished.”

“What does that mean? Punished how?”

“They could do a lot of things. Like make me pay them back for what I didn’t return. I’m going to do that whether they ask for it or not.”

“What else could they do? Take your cell phone away?”
Danielle looked at her mother, then turned back to Tony. When she saw the expression on his face, she said, “Could they make you go to jail?”

“I don’t know, baby. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but I’m going to do everything I can to stay right here, to be your daddy, to jump in that competition with you and the team, and God is going to get us through this together.”

“Are you sure?”

“God can do anything,” Tony said. “And He loves you so much. He loves all three of us and wants the best for us. So you keep praying and we’ll keep praying, and let’s see what He does, okay?”

Danielle nodded and looked at the table.

Tony reached for her hand again, and Elizabeth put her hand on Danielle’s head as if blessing her.

“Father, you are our Daddy, and I thank You that You love us so much,” Tony prayed. “Help us not be afraid of what’s ahead. Help us to trust in You no matter what happens . . .”

“And help those people forgive my daddy,” Danielle whispered.

“Yes, help them forgive me, Father. And whether they do or not, I thank You for forgiving me. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

Clara had coffee ready
when Elizabeth arrived. She’d originally suggested they meet once a week, but their conversations had become much more frequent. Elizabeth told her all about Brightwell, what Tony had done, how he had felt convicted and confessed, and how they were now waiting for the hammer to fall.

“There’s not going to be a hammer falling that God won’t allow,” Clara said. “You know that, don’t you?”

Elizabeth nodded. “Doesn’t make it any easier.”

“I suppose it doesn’t,” Clara said. She thought a moment. “You know I was thinking about old Bartimaeus today.”

“Who?”

“Bartimaeus, the beggar. He was blind but he’d heard of the miracles Jesus had performed, so when the Lord passed, old Bart yelled out and wouldn’t keep quiet, even though they told him to hush. How can you be quiet when the One who made you is walking by? How can you shut up when the Lord is near?

“So Jesus, in His kindness, told them to get old Bart and let him through. I imagine that man walking stiff-legged, his eyes cloudy, his face unshaven, clothes tattered. And I can see the compassion and love on the Lord’s face. Jesus asked him a question. Instead of Bartimaeus launching into what he needed, Jesus said, ‘What do you want Me to do for you?’

“You see, Elizabeth, prayer is God drawing us close and asking what’s on our hearts. Now most people, if you tell them that, will go to their list. ‘Lord, give me this and that and the other thing.’ But Bartimaeus did something different. He asked the Lord for one thing
 
—he asked to see.

“Right there is a truth you can hang on to. The first thing God wants to do is help you see. See yourself. See your sin. See your helplessness without Him. And then
 
—oh, this gets my blood pumpin’
 
—then He opens your eyes and brings everything into focus.

“I envy Bartimaeus. The first thing he ever saw in his life was God. Can you imagine that? God looking you in the face. But God doesn’t leave you there. He helps you act on what you’ve seen. This is the hard work. This is where God meets your greatest need: vision. He enables you to see how utterly helpless you are in your own strength.”

“That’s not a popular message these days,” Elizabeth said.

“That’s a fact. Most people think ‘God helps those who help themselves’ is in the Bible. Listen, God helps those who have come to the end of themselves. And that’s where Tony is. I know it feels terrible, but it’s a very good thing.”

“Well, I appreciate you praying for us.”

“What’s the man’s name who is making this decision?”

“Coleman Young.”

Clara closed her eyes tightly. “Lord Jesus, You know this Coleman Young. Father, open his heart to Tony. Don’t let him rest. Don’t let this decision go out of his mind. Help him see the truth about Tony wanting to set things right. Even now, Lord, would You help him show grace? And glorify Yourself through this somehow.”

Clara felt a stirring inside, a peace that washed over her. “And, Lord, I’m going to ask You for something in Tony and Elizabeth’s life
 
—and their daughter’s, too
 
—that is going to sound impossible in these circumstances. But I know You can do it. Would You not just keep Tony out of jail, but would you bring him home? Would You help him avoid prosecution and help him pay back the money he owes and, Lord, would You give him something to do that keeps him close to his family and fulfills the desires of his heart? Give him something to do with his life that will be perfectly suited for everyone involved.”

After Elizabeth left, Clara went to her war room and stayed for hours. She was still praying for Tony and for Coleman Young when she drifted off to sleep.

After her meeting with Clara,
Elizabeth spent the day at Twelve Stone Realty trying to focus on her work, but finding it hard. She couldn’t shake the fear of Tony in a courtroom, Tony being led away, Tony in shackles and a prison jumpsuit. These weren’t reality, she knew
 
—that wasn’t the way it would happen, even if Tony were convicted and sent away. But the end result would be the same. Tony would be gone from them, and they would likely lose the house, and she and Danielle would have to pick up the pieces and move on, at least for a time. She beat back the voice in her head, but it was like a rushing stream with a current so strong that it was hard not getting carried away by it.

His choices have put you in this spot. What makes you think he won’t do this again down the road? Coleman isn’t going to forgive Tony. You and Danielle might as well move back with your mother.

That voice was strong in her head, telling Elizabeth she and Tony would never make it and she should just look for someone new. Clara had said the way to drown the voices was to wash yourself with truth, so Elizabeth turned to the Scriptures she had memorized. She wished she could put an eviction notice on her thought life to get the bad voices out, but it didn’t work that way.

She kept praying, kept asking God to soften Coleman’s heart to the situation, to help him understand the change in Tony. But just because a person changed didn’t mean he could walk away freely. She knew that. Still, he was a good man. He was trying to be a good husband and father and a productive member of society. She just wanted Coleman to see the real Tony, not the one who had made such mistakes.

On her lunch break she dialed Clara and spoke with her for some encouragement. Just hearing her calm voice again sent a wave of peace over Elizabeth. As they spoke, a thought went through her mind
 
—since Clara no longer lived in her house, maybe Elizabeth and Danielle could rent her home while it was in process. She didn’t mention the idea, but it seemed like an idea that might have come from God.

This was where Elizabeth’s mind went all day, trying to figure out the future, trying to calm herself with ways
to make things work out. Life was one plea bargain after another with God if He would just make things happen the way she wanted. She had a constant running battle with herself about what Coleman would decide and whether Tom would influence him or people on the legal team. It was like predicting the outcome of some sporting event, but this wasn’t a contest for a trophy or bragging rights, this was the life of their family.

In the afternoon, Mandy pulled Elizabeth into her office with a dispute from another Realtor, a man who had a reputation in town as being hard to work with. He had billboards and ran ads on TV and radio and was known, at least by the general public, as the man who would sell your house the fastest and get you the most money, all while smiling and being your best friend. Every Realtor who had worked with the man knew a different story. Lies and hardball tactics and signings that left people in tears. Veteran Realtors, people who had seen every trick in the book for decades, wilted when they heard a property had listed with his agency.

“Don’t let this guy eat your lunch,” Mandy had said. “He growls and throws his weight around and wants everything to go his way. But you have something powerful, and the buyers do too. Your clients have what he wants the most
 
—the money to buy that house. Don’t forget that.”

Elizabeth nodded and went through the disputes about the sale with Mandy giving good advice. Then Elizabeth sat back. “That’s not the only thing eating my lunch.”

Mandy’s face showed a compassion that moved Elizabeth. She was a consummate businesswoman who rarely let her guard down, but every now and then she surprised Elizabeth. She showed her humanity in small ways and this was one of those times.

“I don’t know everything that’s going on with you and Tony. You’ve been guarded about it lately, after talking so much about the money squabbles you had about your sister. I understand that. I respect it. But I can see there’s been a change in you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, Lisa and I were talking the other day. You’ve always done your job well. You’re professional, courteous, thorough with all your contracts. But lately it seems like you’re living at a different level.”

Elizabeth smiled. She’d been praying about an opportunity to talk with Mandy and Lisa about what had happened to her spiritually. Was the situation with Tony that entrée to their hearts?

“One of my clients has really challenged me to get closer to God and start praying for Tony,” Elizabeth said. “Rather than make it all about Tony changing and being the man I want him to be, she’s encouraged me to allow God to change me.”

Mandy scrunched her face in thought and tried to guess the client. After two guesses, Elizabeth revealed it was Clara Williams.

“That sweet old woman has you praying?”

Elizabeth nodded. She told Mandy about the closet
 
—the war room
 
—and how she had finally given up and decided to let God take over. “I had made all of my problems Tony’s fault. I thought if I could just get him to live how I wanted, we could get along. But God wanted to do something bigger than change Tony or my situation. He wanted to show me my own heart. And that was a painful process.”

“But Tony was mean to you, about your sister, about the money,” Mandy said. “Are you going to become one of those women who just grit their teeth and take the abuse?”

Elizabeth smiled. “No, that’s the irony of this whole thing. At first, I thought exactly like what you’re saying. I thought Clara meant I had to let Tony make all the decisions. He has ten votes and I have one. That kind of thing. But we’re supposed to work together. He’s supposed to love me like Jesus loved the church. And he wasn’t doing that.”

“Not even close.”

“The counselor we’ve been seeing has given us permission to call each other out on any kind of ugliness. That’s part of what love is. I don’t want to nag or be overbearing, and he doesn’t want me feeling like he’s a steamroller. But the truth is, Tony and I both needed to change. I just saw it first.”

Mandy gave her a curious look. “Well, I’m glad for you, Elizabeth. I really am. But I don’t understand. If you give a man that kind of power, he is going to run over you.” Her phone rang and she glanced down. “I need to take this.”

Elizabeth nodded and went back to her desk and the contract she was preparing. The brief talk with Mandy showed her that even in the middle of the questions and doubt and pain, God could use her to maybe plant a seed in someone’s heart. That was the craziest thing about all this. She thought she had to get everything neat and tidy in her life in order to be used by God. But here she was at her weakest, her most vulnerable, with all the questions unanswered and in the middle of her struggles. That was the moment when God could break through and show Himself powerful. Even with all the voices swirling in her brain about the future, God could show up. That was reason to give thanks.

Clara liked to use the old hymns at times in her prayers and Elizabeth had found a hymnal at a used-book store. “It Is Well with My Soul” was one of Clara’s favorites, and she had told Elizabeth the story of the hymn writer, all the problems and loss the man had been through. The words of the hymn washed over Elizabeth there in the office as she pulled out her journal and looked at her own handwriting. Bits and phrases stuck in her mind, and she identified with the “sorrows like sea-billows.”

When she had first come to the verse that began, “Though Satan should buffet,” she had read the word
buffet
wrong. She thought it was like a smorgasbord at a cafeteria-style restaurant. But the
buffet
the writer was talking about was the smacks and whacks of the enemy she was feeling
 
—all the ways the devil was having a field day with her marriage, her family, her heart.

Though Satan should buffet, tho’ trials should come,

Let this blest assurance control,

That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,

And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

She could see why Clara clung to the words. No matter what happened to her and Tony, no matter how choppy the waters became because of the evil one’s influence, she had a choice. She could choose to be tossed about and blown off course, or she could be controlled by the love of God. She could choose to look at how far God had gone to show her love
 
—the death of His only Son. She could choose to see the rescue plan God put in place for her soul, how much He cared, how much He wanted to bless her. She could either look at the circumstances she was in, which were pretty dire, or she could see the big picture, that God was ultimately in control and would walk with her no matter what happened.

This truth, that God was with her, was like an anchor that sank deep into the surf of Elizabeth’s life and kept her in one place. It didn’t matter how much she bobbed on the surface of all the troubles
 
—her soul was anchored by God’s grace.

Tony took Danielle to the community center in the afternoon and warmed up with the team. Raising a sweat made him feel better. Getting his muscles loose and his body
going helped him focus on something else. But the cloud that hung over him was too dark to push completely away. It was like the bully at school when he was in third grade. Just the thought of walking onto the playground made him seize up with fear. He’d had to push himself, will himself onto the playground instead of cowering. Coleman’s decision was that specter now, along with the influence Tom surely had. Every time he thought of that man with the bow tie, Tony’s stomach clenched and all he could see was the box of stolen pills he’d put on the table. All the guilt and shame out there for everybody to see.

He shook the thought off again, stretched out a little more, and joined the group. Trish, Danielle’s coach, had done a great job with the team, instructing them on different moves that would score points with the judges and getting their rhythm down. In a competition like this, with all the spectators and distractions, repetition was the key
 
—getting the muscles to remember the feeling of the ropes’ rhythm and their body movement. She had tried to get the girls to the point that they didn’t even have to think about their routine, they just did it. And to his surprise, Trish didn’t seem threatened by Tony’s involvement. She could have thrown her weight around and balked at having him join them after she’d worked for so long, but instead, she encouraged him to take on the role of assistant coach.

“I can see you know what you’re doing with the girls,” Trish had said. “You ever coached before?”

“Not much,” he said. “But I had a lot of good coaches when I was younger.”

The girls were ready to begin the practice and Trish had given them some final instructions. She looked at Tony and held out a hand as if she were saying,
“Go for it.”

Tony looked at Danielle and the others and something welled inside. Maybe it was the emotion of knowing he might not be able to even compete with them because of his uncertain future, something that was out of his control. But in that moment, a truth came over him that took his breath away.

The way he saw his daughter and her friends must be the way God saw him.

Tony didn’t see the team’s faults and the way they fell short on small areas of the routine. He saw what they were capable of doing with a little encouragement. And if this was the way God saw him, as someone He could empower, who was Tony to disagree with God?

He leaned down, his hands on his knees. “Here’s the thing I see when I look at you guys. You have unlimited potential. You can do anything you set your mind to. The only thing that can hold you back is not being able to see that and go out and do it.

“When you make a mistake, when you don’t do the routine like you want, you can choose to beat yourself up and say nasty things about your performance. You can focus on the mistakes and try to get every jump right and get your form right and follow every direction. But you’ll never get
there by trying
not
to make a mistake. You can’t perform at your highest level focusing on the things you
don’t
want to do. Does that make sense?”