Prayers of a Stranger: A Christmas Story Read online

  Nine hours against the wind to London. A two-hour layover in a cheerless Heathrow waiting room. Another five-hour flight to Israel. By the time they landed in Tel Aviv, Amanda felt disconnected and completely spent.

  Emily staggered along beside her, leaning to her right as though her purse held bricks. They slipped into the line at customs, then passed into a circular chamber. The room was a work of art, a silent welcome to another world. The ceiling rose to a central opening through which poured both daylight and a waterfall. The pool at the base formed a circular enclave around which people sat and read and lounged.

  Emily asked, “Am I dreaming?”

  “If you are, I’m having the same dream.”

  “I feel as though I’m standing in David’s cave.”

  Amanda found herself thinking of all the people she had read about, the families that had struggled for generations to escape and come to Israel. The sacrifices they had been forced to make. A thousand different languages, a million different tales of hardship and toil. And here was Israel’s response: a jewel of a room that spoke what words could not ever say, a song as constant and timeless as the waterfall. Welcome home.

  Their tour guide gathered them in stages and camped them by the airport café. Amanda was not hungry until she spied the breakfast pastries; then she ate two and shared a third with Emily. They were light as air and drizzled with a coating of honey and ground pistachios and diced apricots. Emily declared, “Every breakfast I ever have will be compared to this.”

  Finally their guide shepherded them out to the waiting bus. They rumbled swiftly through the flatlands and began grinding up into the Jerusalem hills. The tour guide had a nasal voice and a tone that suggested she knew no one was listening. But her job required her to speak just the same, so she described how the modern highway was laid upon Roman stones and followed the same course as David’s army. She spoke of the more recent invaders and pointed out the rusting hulks of armored personnel carriers and tanks, remnants of the ’47 uprising that led to the birth of the new Israel. Amanda tried to listen, but the words just spilled over her, especially when Jerusalem’s ancient walls came into view. A crown of golden stone rose on the hilltop, and suddenly the burden of fatigue was much easier to bear.

  As they pulled into the hotel forecourt, the tour guide said, “You will all wait patiently in line while your names are read off by the receptionist. There will be no argument over room placement, please. Not everyone can have a view of the Old City.”

  As they filed obediently off the bus, Amanda realized that Emily’s cheeks were wet. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m better than that.” Emily wiped her face. “I’ve dreamed of this all my life.”

  The guide’s impatient voice was as insignificant as a buzzing fly. Amanda took her friend’s hand and said, “I’m glad I came.”

  The next four days were one constant blur, each full to bursting. Amanda felt so rushed her feet scarcely touched the ground. Day one, they took a walking tour of Jerusalem. Day two was the Mount of Olives and the Valley of the Tombs and the highlands and the Roman coliseum. Day three was the Valley of Armageddon and Nazareth and Caesarea. Day four was the Sea of Galilee, Tiberius, Capernaum, and the Golan Heights.

  By the time they arrived back at the hotel each evening, Amanda was scarcely able to keep her eyes open through dinner. Her nightly conversations with Chris were a swift good night, a soft whisper of love that she needed but was too exhausted to hold on to. The third evening Emily actually fell asleep on the bed beside Amanda’s with the phone still in her hand and Frank calling out to her. Amanda and Frank shared a good chuckle before her own head hit the pillow.

  The next thing she knew, their wake-up call, unsought but arranged by their guide, drilled into her dreams. Then they were up and rushing through breakfast and out the door and onto the bus and away again.

  Amanda and Emily were mostly happy with the schedule, at least at first. In the mornings they were too excited to even notice their jet lag. Their bossy guide rushed them through one site after another, and tended to talk too much when they traveled by bus. Amanda tried to shut out the droning nasal voice and concentrate on the scenery. She had never seen anything like Israel, the startling combination of past and present, divine and intensely earthbound, the eternal and the present problems, all bundled together with tension and welcome and fear and joy, every possible emotion and all the time.

  But on the fifth morning Emily showed no interest in getting out of bed. “Where are we off to today?”

  “The Red Sea. No, wait, that’s tomorrow.” Even after a cup of coffee Amanda found it hard to draw her thoughts into focus. She put it down to jet lag and an overdose of new sights and sounds. She searched her purse and found the schedule. “Today is the Jordan Valley, the Dead Sea, the museum of the scrolls, the caves, and the Engedi National Park.”

  “And the day after?”

  “Saint Catherine’s monastery,” she read. “That’s a long day. We leave at six, and we have a packed dinner.” She refolded her schedule and glanced at her watch. “We’re due downstairs in twenty minutes.”

  Emily did not move. “I feel like it’s all been a waste.”

  “What are you talking about? We’re covering the entire country in ten days.”

  Emily gave no sign she had even heard. “All the struggle and the years of dreams. Leaving Frank behind. Hauling you away from your job and Chris. All for nothing.”

  Amanda slipped into nurse mode. “You stay right here. I’ll go fetch you something to eat, and we’ll skip today’s tour.”

  “What about little Miss Drill Sergeant?”

  “You just leave her to me.”

  The tour guide took the news that Amanda and Emily were not joining them as a personal affront. “That is out of the question. You are letting down your friends.”

  “That is precisely why we are not going.”

  “If she is sick, we must call the doctor.”

  “She’s not sick. She’s tired.”

  “She can rest on the bus.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks.” Amanda showed her most steely smile. “Have a nice day.”

  Amanda returned to the room with coffee, breakfast pastries, and an apple. She plumped up Emily’s pillows and waited until her friend had finished eating to say, “Now, why don’t you try and explain this in words I can understand.”

  “I didn’t come here to see Israel. I came to grow closer to our Lord.” She toyed with her cup. “That probably sounds silly.”

  “No, Emily. It doesn’t sound silly at all.”

  “I keep feeling as though we’re being rushed past the chance to dive into the real Israel.”

  “Why didn’t you say something before now?”

  “Because I like everything we’re doing. It’s just at night, when I lie here feeling worn out in my bones, I feel like we’re running too fast to see anything at all.”

  Amanda took the cup from Emily’s hands and set it on the table between their beds. “So what do you want to do today?”

  As they left the hotel Emily leaned over and kissed Amanda on the cheek. “Thank you with all my heart.”

  “All I did was inform Miss Bossy-Pants that we needed a day off.”

  “Exactly. I could never have stood up to her like that.”

  Amanda smiled at the thought she had done anything out of the ordinary. Standing up for people had been her job description for the past year. “Where are we going?”

  Their hotel was separated from the Old City by a narrow valley. They took the path through a public garden and across the bus parking lot, climbed the hill, and entered the city by way of the Jaffa Gate. Young children plucked at their sleeves and begged them to come see the wares in various shops. Emily’s eyes shone with a different light as they left the plaza and entered the narrow winding lanes. Shadows cut jagged edges from the cobblestone lane. They heard a cacophony of tongues from the people they passed. Amanda felt a giddy sense of release and d
id not even care when they lost their way. They asked directions time after time and took almost three hours to arrive at their destination.

  There was no way of knowing whether the miniature grove across the street from the Antonio Fortress was indeed where the Healer’s body had been laid to rest. Nor did it matter. The quiet garden with its carpet of fragrant pine needles was indeed the place Amanda had been looking for—only it had taken Emily’s need to separate themselves from the group for Amanda to realize it.

  A group of stocky women in kerchiefs and long dresses knelt in the dust before the cave’s opening and traced prayer beads through rough-chapped hands. Emily and Amanda sat down on a stone bench and studied the three caves with their narrow circular openings. The stones meant to seal the burial caves were carved as great wheels set in narrow grooves, so they could be rolled into place and the family emblem applied to the wax seal. A crowd of visitors from some Asian nation—Amanda thought they were probably Filipino—began to sing. The rising chorus sounded like prayers. Living, he loved us; dying, he saved us; / Buried, he carried our sins far away; / Rising, he justified freely forever: / One day he’s coming—O glorious day. When they were done, Amanda hummed her own song, savoring the words she did not need to speak. The Word became flesh and dwelled among man.

  By the time they left, the morning was well and truly gone, and the afternoon heat was intense. They lunched at a falafel stand, then paused a second time for glasses of fresh-pressed pomegranate juice. They spoke only to work out their next destination, which was back up the Mount of Olives in time for the sunset. Amanda bought water and fruit from a third stand, and they left the city and crossed the Kidron Valley to climb yet another hill.

  By the time they entered the ancient stand of olives, her legs were trembly and her feet ached. Emily puffed determinedly along beside her. The setting sun recast the ancient walls of Jerusalem into a crown of russet and gold. The sky was sliced by starlings who cried their shrill farewell to another day. The wind gentled, then stopped altogether. The olive grove became a haven, an open chapel to those who stood or sat or knelt and watched as the human concept of time gave way to eternal glory.

  They remained there in silence until the first star glimmered in the pale blue sky. As Emily rose to her feet, she said, “Our Lord came here to beg that the cup of destiny be taken from his lips.”

  Something about the way Emily turned away then, almost as though she was chased down the path by her own words, left Amanda certain she knew what was coming.

  Her friend waited until they had emerged from the grove and were crossing the parking lot to say, “Frank and I are facing a very serious crisis.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Twice each week Chris led a men’s morning Bible study at their church. The previous evening he and Frank had shared dinner and watched a football game he doubted Frank even saw. At the time, he had put it down to the man missing his wife and worrying over the coming surgeries. He’d reminded his neighbor about the study and, as he had several times before, invited him to come.

  Frank arrived on time, joined Chris at his table, and did not speak a word. He was not alone in his silence. Many of the regulars spent the hour sipping coffee and frowning at nothing. The group had started as a trickle, just a few of Chris’s friends, then they had brought a couple of buddies, and so it had grown. That morning they numbered around seventy.

  As usual Chris led them in prayer, they collected their meal and ate, then he stood up and led them in study. They’d been going through the Psalms since the recession started. So many of the verses they covered were right on target for how many of these men felt about their world.

  After some concluding remarks, Chris began the final prayer by asking who had special requests. Frank followed it all with a look of somber reflection.

  Normally Chris didn’t speak about his own life. He felt the leader needed to remain somewhat apart and help the group focus on the needs of others. But that morning, as he watched Frank frown at the table between his hands, he took a step back and glimpsed a different perspective.

  Chris had spent the entire year segmenting his life. The worries at the office and his worries over Amanda had remained isolated from each other. He did not talk about his company’s plight at home. He did not speak of Amanda’s crisis or the problems of his marriage at the office. If possible, he did not even think of them.

  But as one person after another made their prayer requests, Chris felt almost overwhelmed by a gathering tumult. He did not want to share with this group; if he started, he would not know how to stop. His company was foundering; that morning he had to journey to Orlando for a meeting he dreaded. His marriage held a mere shadow of the passion he and Amanda had once shared. He missed his wife, and he was jealous of her time apart. He could not leave his job for a day, much less a week and a half. More than anything he wished for the closeness they had once known. He wanted to feel as though she traveled for them both.

  Frank raised his hand and the room snapped back into focus. “This probably isn’t done, a visitor asking for prayer help from strangers.”

  “There aren’t any rules, Frank. You’re welcome to say whatever you want.”

  “My wife and I have a problem child. She was the brightest star in our family, and then one day when she was nineteen the flame went out. We learned later she had gotten into drugs.”

  The man’s voice was flat as pounded tin. There were a few murmurs of sympathy from the group, a few refocusing of distant gazes as Frank went on.

  “She’s promised to go straight so many times I stopped counting. Three years ago she came home, claiming it was all behind her. A week later she vanished again, taking all my wife’s jewelry with her.” Frank gripped his hands on the table, one with the other, the skin of his face so taut it was pale as old bones. “And now she wants to come home again. She’s pregnant and she’s living just south of Orlando all on her own. The baby is due in three months. She tells us the problems are all behind her. Again. She wants us to help give them both a stable environment.”

  Chris waited until he was certain his neighbor was done, then asked, “What do you want, Frank?”

  The man’s gaze tracked around the room, as though he had trouble identifying who had spoken. “I don’t want to argue anymore. Not with my wife. And not with my little girl.”

  A voice from the back of the room said, “I hear you, man.”

  Chris found it hard to shape the words he had spoken so often to this group. “It’s important that we try and focus on the positive. Especially when our world is clouded by worries. Give ourselves something to aim for. Try and determine a course that is in harmony with our hearts.”

  “What I want.” Frank’s voice sounded strangled. “I can’t tell you how alien that sounds. You might as well be speaking Greek.”

  Chris felt the man’s emotions resonate through his entire being. He saw the fear etched into Frank’s features and had to force his response around the emotions that clenched his throat up tight. What he was asking of Frank was precisely what he needed to do himself. “Try. Please.”

  The room watched his struggle in silence, ready to wait with him all day. Finally Frank said, “I want to do the right thing. For Emily, for our daughter, for the baby, and most of all for our marriage.”

  Normally Chris led the prayer time. But today it was hard enough just asking, “Who wants to start us off?”

  As one man after another of the group stood and prayed, Chris clenched the lecturn and listened to his own internal prayer. He needed to rediscover the positive, search out a genuine purpose to this time apart. Do more than just survive another day, another meeting, another crisis at work. Give a significance to these lonely hours.

  The answer came to him with the group’s final amen. Not a solution to his problems, but rather a way he might give meaning to this one day. Look beyond his trials and focus on the unseen, at least for this one morning.

  As they walked outside, Chris thanked h
is neighbor for coming and asked, “Where is your daughter living?”

  “I don’t know exactly. All she said was she’s working part-–time in some church’s youth center. First Methodist of Kissimmee.” Frank must have seen something in Chris’s face because he asked, “You know it?”

  “I’ve heard of them, sure.” He wouldn’t tell Frank anything more. Not yet. “They’ve got a good name for helping the community.”

  Frank crossed the parking lot. “I wish you could know what it’s meant to me, being here today.”

  “I wish you could know what it’s meant to me, having you come.”

  Frank started to respond, but instead he merely beeped open his car, tapped his hand on the roof, and declared, “It’s a good morning to be alive.”

  Chris waved his neighbor away and found himself thinking about Amanda. For once the hope of returning to the tender relationship they had known seemed real, a flame that fed upon the light he had seen in Frank’s face.

  Avery Electronics was started in the early days of World War II. Kent Avery, the current CEO, was the fourth of their family to run the group. They specialized in electronic systems for military jets. But government projects were drying up, so Chris had been reassigned to develop business within the commercial markets. He and his new division had been more successful than anyone could have hoped. But not enough to keep the company going. Since taking on his new role, Chris had attended several board meetings. He knew the numbers. The company was poised on a knife’s edge.

  The lawyers Chris was meeting in Orlando represented a Brazilian company called Campaeo. They were the largest manufacturer of planes and jets in South America, and were setting up a new factory in Melbourne Beach. Even before the facility was built, they had a reputation throughout central Florida.