There was no note, noHey, Jack, about last night. Just…this. This story is about a lost sheep. My hands shook as I thoughtof myself as the lost sheep, wandering the hillside of life in darkness and despair. Was God looking for me?
I hoped so.
I opened my car door and got inside, turning on the ignition. The moment the car roared to life, a song blared out of the speakers, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
It was the song Hannah had sung just last night. How? I didn’t listen to Christian music; this channel wasn’t even one of my preset stations. The brick wall of shame and hatred that I carried for myself, that I’d built around my heart, began to crack with each phrase of the song.
I wanted to turn it off, but I remembered Pete’s advice about waiting for three songs, so I sat there with tears streaming down my face, just sitting in this uncomfortable, vulnerable feeling until the second song came on.
When it did, I burst into sobs. It was an oldie, one of my mother’s favorite songs. She had been a believer like Hannah.
“Amazing Grace.”
“I’m sorry, okay!” I whimpered to the empty car. “Forgive me, God. I’m worthless. I don’t even know why You let me live and not her. I’ll never understand it. I…but I can’t do this alone anymore. I need help. I need You,” I told Him.
Because at that moment, there was a presence in the car that I could not explain. A supernatural feeling had come over me and I knew that Pete was real—maybe not to everyone else, but last night, on that dock, for me, he was. And right now, I needed God, because if I kept going down this road of self-hatred and shame, I was going to hurt myself. Thoughts of self-harm had danced in my head since the night of my mother’s death, and I just wanted to be free of it all. I wanted someone else to carry the weight. I couldn’t do it anymore.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I whispered. To my mother, to God. I shouldn’t have tried to drink my pain away. I shouldn’thave driven. I knew that. But now I had to live with it, and this wasn’t living.
When the third song came on, I couldn’t help the smile that graced my face.
An angelic female voice trilled out of the speakers, speaking about how worthy Jesus was of our love and praise. Suddenly, it just all made sense to me. God made sense to me. This was the Truth.
It was just like Pete had said. By the third song, he had cried out to Jesus to be saved.
“Save me, Jesus!” I begged, desperate for relief from the pain I’d been living with for years.
I’d never in my life heard this song, but right now, it was transporting the power of God into my car, because the presence that felt like it had been with me here that past two songs was nowinme.
One second, I was a broken man, drowning in shame and self-hatred, carrying a thousand-pound stone on my shoulders, and the moment I’d asked for Jesus to save me…it was gone. As if I’d been pulled up out of the water.
And not only that, the peace I’d felt last night when Hannah sang was with me now. But this time, it felt permanent. Relief and happiness filled my body like an effervescent fluid, and I laughed with tears streaming down my face.
The weight, the clouds, and the shadows were all gone. For the first time in years, I felt…normal.
It was all real. The crazy Christians who had said that Jesus saved them…They weren’t crazy.
“Thank you.” I broke down again, grabbing my face as I came to the realization that this entire time God had been waiting for me and I’d just sat there, stewing in my darkness for years when I could have just called out to Him. Deep down I’d always believed in Him. I just…didn’t know how to find my way back.
Hannah.Her name rose unbidden in my mind, and I pulled out my phone and dialed her right away. It went straight to voicemail. She hadn’t blocked me now, had she? I had to tell her about my newfound freedom. I had to tell her that she’d been instrumental in my finding God.
Without her, without going to her concert last night, I never would have. And not just that. I wanted to tell her how I felt. Because the unworthiness of good things that I’d lived with since my mother’s death was now gone.
I deserved love, and I wanted it with Hannah. If she’d have me.
I dialed her again and frowned when it went to voicemail for the second time.
God, let her forgive me,I prayed.
She’d told me how she felt. She’d kissed me, and I’d pushed her away. If she could find it in her heart to forgive me and give me one last chance, I’d be the luckiest man alive.
Chapter Thirty-Three
HANNAH
I wanted to do this right. I wanted Jack to know that, even though he’d been through a horrible ordeal and made an awful mistake, he was still loved by God.
I stopped off at the bookstore in town and bought a men’s black leather-bound Bible and a small notepad for taking notes. Sitting in my car, I penned a note to Jack and laid it on top of the Bible. Then I opened the Bible and began to highlight some of my favorite stories and verses about forgiveness, redemption, and love.
