Kay's Story pt 23 - Jasna's Parents

The next day saw the arrival of Jasna’s parents and many discussions with the doctors.  Hans Mültmann was a towering man with a personality to match his commanding stature.  With curly dark hair, glasses, and kind blue eyes, Elianna found him to be a charming gentleman, very different from Ferdinand.  Mrs. Naomi Mültmann was a frail slip of a woman who looked scarcely older than Elianna.  The poetic, delicate beauty she possessed was combined with a quiet, compassionate air.  She enveloped Elianna in a hug that made her think of her own mother.  It was so firm and thankful and overt.  She had passed on to Jasna her milky, snowy skin, merry crimson lips, and cheeks all flushed as though she were a child returned from galloping through the snow.  Her hair was the kind that one sees in paintings of medieval princesses, pale as moonlit dandelions. 

     Hans spoke animatedly with the staff about possibly treatments and surgeries for Jasna.  The options looked grim for her, but there was a specialist in north London whom Mr. Mültmann was sure could heal his daughter.  Due to her delicate state at present, she could not be moved out of the hospital.  Mr. Mültmann asserted that he’d ride to North London that very afternoon and bring the specialist to Jasna instead.  The staff tried to warn him of the necessity of appointments and reality of schedules.  Mr. Mültmann only scoffed, “Pshaw!”, drew on his coat and hat, and gave everyone a look that dared them to try to stop him.

This steely determination to acquire the absolute best for his daughter warmed Elianna’s heart even as it ached for Jasna in her helpless condition.  She thanked God that the Mültmanns had the means to call on the best help. 

Even so, Elianna knew this was no accident.  God was still in heaven, doing all that He pleased, and would not have let this happen without good reason.  Elianna thought of her promise to share with Jasna all she could about the glory and beauty of Christ and thrilled in her heart to have such an opportunity.  Ferdinand caught this look of grateful pleasure on Elianna’s face and grimaced in frustration.           

“What have you to grin about at a time like this?” His scowl resembled the lowery skies they’d considered together a few days previous.

In her seat beside the window, Elianna clasped her hands in her lap and looked down into them.  Mrs. Mültmann and Jasna were inside the room with the doctor administering a few more tests, so Ferdinand and Elianna were outside in a quiet waiting area.  The first thing that came to mind was the verse she’d read over and over in Sylvia’s journal recently. 

“Thy mercy, O Lord, endureth forever…  You will not forsake the work of His hands,” she uttered in a small, gentle voice.

            Ferdinand raked his hands through his hair, shaking his head, as if trying to expel his agitation in any other way than through words.

“Mercy, you say?” he said, retrieving the silver flask from the inside of his jacket pocket and taking a drink.  “You think Jasna deserved this?”

Elianna’s stomach knotted and her chest tightened under the weight of Ferdinand’s palpable anger and challenge.

“I think we all deserve much worse,” she said quietly, looking up at Ferdinand standing at the large window only after he didn’t respond for several moments.  It indeed looked like a dark tempest was churning behind his green eyes and pained brow.

            Without a second thought, Elianna rose and went to him, putting a small hand on his broad shoulder.

            “Are you alright, Ferdinand?” she asked, in the sweetest dulcet tone he’d ever heard.  The loveliness of her pure, deep concern softened him, and whether it was from the swig of whisky or merely the sound of her voice, Ferdinand felt the intensity of his anger dispel.  He sighed a weary breath. The sincerity in her gaze shone like springtime sun across an azure sky.  Gone was all halting self-consciousness as she drew near with care.  Overwhelmed by the accident, lack of decent sleep, and her pristine beauty, Ferdinand’s eyes welled up with tears. 

            “I have failed, Elianna,” he said in a voice just above a whisper.

            She searched his face, and felt her own mimic his expression of pain and regret.

            “In what?” she asked.

            “In looking out for Jasna.  In protecting her,” his voice caught and a tear spilt over onto his cheek. 

Kay's Story pt 22 - David's Change

“Oh don’t be silly!  This is no time for teasing.  Tiresome—my foot!”

            Elianna’s entire countenance seemed to smile.  There was a soft peacefulness in her features that made Jasna think that talk of David made her younger.  He was like some secret fountain of youth, gurgling up in her mind, smoothing the anxiety and time from her face.

            “Alright, if you insist.  The note was a little longer than the first.  But not much.  It said,

            ‘Dear Elianna,

                        I think you’re pretty swell for a girl.

            —David’

            “That was all.  About a week later I heard a rustling in the woods behind me while walking home.  It turned out he’d been following me.  I had a flash of boldness and yelled at him to quit hiding and come walk home with me.  He not only did, but also talked all the way home like a magpie that had been deprived of chattering.  It was all kinds of banter about the pets he had, how he was going to be when he grew up, how he despised geometry but loved reading adventure novels, and on and on.  Then he said goodbye without a smile and that was that. 

            “He started walking home with me fairly regularly—regularly—that’s a funny word to pronounce, don’t you think?  I still don’t know quite what came over me, but I told him very frankly that I aimed to tell him about God and Jesus, and that I would let him choose the day to hear it!  He said his mother had got religion and he thought it was nothing but poppycock—so said his pa as well.  I said I didn’t care what he or his pa thought, and that if he wouldn’t have it he could walk home alone and I’d start praying that he’d break both arms and never be able to shoot a gun.  He tried to disguise his shock but I knew better.  Then he pretended to be angry and I told him sternly I’d have none of his huffing and puffing.  He said me and my sissy religion could go hang, and what good were girls anyhow?

            “After two weeks of walking home by himself and giving me the silent treatment, I got another note.

            ‘Dear Lianna, I’m sorry.  How ‘bout Tuesday?’

            “I remember clutching that wrinkled, splotchy paper to my chest in my happiness and running beyond the Mayhurst fields to pray, to cry joyful tears of thanks.  You know, it’s strange: David brings out boldness and joy in me that I never believed possible, while I bring out a shyness and gentleness that no one imagined could be in him.  That’s what happens when we’re together. 

            “Anyhow, Tuesday came and he listened gravely to me as I tried to explain everything just as the preacher had.  When I had finished my little sermon he thought for a moment and then said, “Look at that heron!’ I fell for it, and when I turned my head he kissed me!  I was madder than blazes and he went off running with a smug look on his face.  So it was my turn to give him the silent treatment.  I was rather severe for a week, and when I found another note from him, I ripped it up in front of his face without even reading it.  Then I even filled his knapsack with rocks and dirt during recess.  My friends said it was mighty risky and that he would fight me if he found out, even though I’m a girl. 

            “All this rivalry finally came to an end when David fell out of a tree and broke more bones than he could count.  He was lucky he lived, and when I went to see him he said he knew it was because he had refused to take my religious talk seriously.  He thought God had made him fall to teach him a lesson.  It was a  long autumn that he had to spend in bed, and it made a man out of him—he learned a lot of patience, and he read scores of books.  He had me read to him too.  I read him the autobiography of John Paton because it’s practically an adventure book for boys.  By the end of the book he said he had the notion to be the next John Paton, and if a man as brave as that loved God all that much, then he would love Him too.

            When he was finally able to walk about again normally, he was a different boy, unrecognizable—in good ways.  I think God answered mine and Mrs. Ashmore’s prayers by making him fall.  I remember finding a verse in the psalms that said, ‘It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.’  I went and showed it to him and he agreed.  Then he showed me a verse he had found in Psalm 51: ‘Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou has broken may rejoice.’  He said that his bones that had been broken were now rejoicing in God, and it wouldn’t be so if it hadn’t been for me.”  Elianna looked up at Jasna.  Her breathing had become very heavy and her eyes were now closed.  Dawn would be there soon.  She crept quietly to the nearby empty bed and fell fast asleep, dreaming happy dreams of climbing trees with a young boy and eating apples.

Kay's Story pt 21 - Praying for David

“Well, there was this point in the sermon that made so much sense to me as a child.  The preacher gave an illustration about him and his little girl.  She had disobeyed and hurt him one day, but she had been too proud to ask forgiveness even after he had punished her.  At the end of the day she finally broke down and ran to her father in tears.  She said, ‘O daddy I can’t stand not being able to hug you!  I’m so sorry; won’t you forgive me?’

            “And then I’ll never forget what the preacher said to everyone there.  Forgiveness matters because hugs matter.  A close relationship is restored.  He connected that with the way God offers forgiveness of sin to those who trust in the punishment they had earned.  He made a way to God—to be restored in an intimate relationship we had shattered and made impossible by our disobedience.”

            “That makes sense to me too,” said Jasna.  “So what did you do exactly?”

            “Well, I didn’t really do anything right then.  I remember a flash of white light go off in my mind, and with it this unmistakable sense that I believed in Jesus Christ.  I prayed in my heart that God would forgive me and save me from His wrath and into His family.  It was so clear to me all of a sudden.

            “Oh Jasna, you wouldn’t believe how much joy started to grow in me—like a bubble expanding and expanding all through the night so that I could hardly sleep!  I didn’t know little girls had the capacity for so much joy.  It was like my heart was full of merry sunshine.”

            “Wow.  I can’t imagine thinking and feeling such things when I was seven,” said Jasna.  “You must have been the cutest, most adorable seven year old there ever was.”

            “Not as cute as you, I’m sure,” retorted Elianna.  Jasna stared wistfully at the ceiling with a nearly imperceptible smirk on her face.

            “Actually, you’re probably right about that.  I was quite the cute little heartbreaker at that age.”

            “You vain goose!  As soon as you get better I’m going to tickle you for that!”

            “My dear Elianna, such things would not become a lady,” said Jasna.

            “That’s it.  I’ll tackle you as well!  In the most ladylike fashion you’ve ever seen!” said Elianna, suppressing giggles.

            “Shhhhhh!  You’ll wake Ferdinand!”

            They both convulsed with silent laughter until their eyes were wet with tears. 

            “Oh it’s so late!  We are crazy loons if there ever were any,” said Elianna.  “Aren’t you sleepy yet?”

            “Maybe a little.  But you haven’t told me enough about David yet.”

            “Oh yes.  Somebody distracted me.  Where was I, let’s see…”

            “Heart full of merry sunshine.”

            “Yes.  Good memory!  Well, the reason I told you all that was because it made me start praying for David.  The new joy and peace I had found in God made me want him to know it as well.  It made me pray for him every time I saw him, and every night before going to bed.  I found out later that it wasn’t just me who began praying for him.  His mother, who had experienced something similar to me, prayed hard as well.

            “One day after I had heard him crying in the woods David swore three times at the school teacher.  After getting licked for it, the teacher brought him back in and made him sit next to a girl for the rest of the week, which was utterly humiliating for him.”

            “Why?”

            “Oh David was a thoroughgoing chauvinist in those days.  He hated girls.  What I still don’t understand is why Mr. Hamilton didn’t think that it might be a punishment for me.

            “But God was at work, and I thank Him every day for that providence.  David didn’t speak to me or look at me for two days.  Being very shy, I finally wrote a little note and put it in his knapsack.”

            “What did it say?”

            “It said, ‘I don’t hate you.  I’m praying for you.’”

            “That’s it?”

            “That’s it,” Elianna nodded.  “The next day you would have thought that he hadn’t read it at all.  He snubbed me the same as ever.  But at the end of the day I went home and found a piece of paper folded up tightly in my knapsack.  It said (I still remember the bold, distinct handwriting), ‘Dear Elianna, Thanks. –David.’”

            Jasna let out a soft “Ha!” and smiled warmly.  “So peculiar!”

            Elianna reached into her handbag on the floor by the bed and drew out a worn Bible.  Jasna watched as she opened it and pulled out a little slip of paper, looking very aged.  “This is it,” she said, handing it to Jasna.  “I always keep it with me.”

            “What a precious memory,” whispered Jasna. 

            “Yes.  David thinks me a hopeless sentimental for keeping it like this, but I believe that secretly he’s glad.”

            “So, carry on.  What comes next?”

            “You can imagine how elated and surprised I was.  But the next day he was just as silent and smug towards me.  His pride couldn’t bear to be seen talking to the girl who was his punishment.  Needless to say I was saddened and disappointed, but still I kept praying for him.  By the time the week was over, and he was back in his old seat far away from me, he suddenly began to acknowledge my existence.  He started by saying hello to me every day with a grinless face and downcast eyes.  Then a few weeks later he wrote me another note.”

            “Do you have that one with you?” asked Jasna.

            “No,” smiled Elianna, “but I did save it.  It’s in a little box back home.”  She paused.  Her eyes twinkled.  “Are you sure you want to hear any more of this tiresome tale?”

Kay's Story pt 20 - Meeting David

“Oh my; that is quite the request,” she sighed.  She looked out the window with something in her eyes that made it clear to Jasna that visions of the past were dancing in her mind.  She waited silently and patiently.  Elianna had looked rather exhausted just a moment ago, but now her whole countenance had changed as though it were faintly lit with joy.  She then said very quietly, “I was designed for him.  That’s the only way I could explain it.”

“It?”

“The friendship we have—had.  Something that probably only happens once on earth every thousand years.

“You know, it’s fitting that you asked about him right after we spoke of Christ.  Because if I tell you about David you will start to see the glory of Christ in him.  There’s no way you can’t.”

“Perfect,” Jasna whispered. 

Elianna continued, “But he wasn’t always a man like that.  He grew up as heathen as a tavern rat.  Nothing his parents did could curb his rebellious nature.  He was wild—alarmingly so.  One time he put poison in the watering trough of one of the neighbor’s barns.  He did it because he hated their son for being smarter than he was with his figures.  Four of their horses died from that.  And David was only 6.  When he was seven he ran away from home because his parents wouldn’t buy him a gun.”

“Wise parents,” Jasna interjected.

“He stayed out in the woods for three days, and then they caught him in town stealing food from the mercantile.  Up until he was eleven it was seldom that a week went by without him fighting some boy—or girl—at school.

            “Oh Jasna, you can’t imagine his poor, poor mother!  To this day she looks ten years too old because of what he put her through.”

            “It’s a good reason to avoid marriage,” Jasna groaned.  “So where were you in all of this?”

            “Well, I was three years younger, watching him at school in horror.  I was afraid of him for a long time until one day when I was talking home from school and heard something like crying.  It happened to be David Ashmore sitting on a stump alone, whimpering like a baby.  I hid behind a tree and listened (I was always an old soul for my age, and incurably curious).  All I was able to make out was one phrase: ‘I hate myself.” And that forever changed the way I saw him.  There was no longer fear, but a form of pity and compassion.  That was when he was eleven.

            “I should tell you that a year earlier a peculiar thing happened.  A revival preacher came to town.  David’s mother and I both ended up at one of his meetings—she alone, and I with my family.  I don’t even remember the preacher’s name, but the way he spoke was like hearing thunder and sonnet at the same time.  Powerful, yet tenderly and vulnerably beautiful.  God saw fit to change my little heart forever through his words.  And the heart of Lady Ashmore as well.  It was one of the first times I had ever really understood the reason for God sending His Son Jesus to die for the sin of His people.  The preacher explained that we were God-haters by nature, which he proved from the Bible and through pointing out how our daily lives show our total lack of concern or affection for the God who made us and the world, and who keeps our hearts beating.  Then he went on to talk about how the stars and the planets and the sky show us the glory of God.  Sunsets and the full moon reveal something about the artist who created them.  He asked us, what kind of God would make the haunting, whispering fragrance of the violet?  Must He not be unimaginably beautiful and intricate and tender? 

            “Then he said, try to imagine what kind of artist would make thunder tear the sky asunder, and give rain to evil people like us.  Must not such a God be awesome in power, bigger and greater than we could fathom, and brimming with mercy and generosity?”

            “That makes sense.  I never thought of it that way,” Jasna said.

            “It made a lot of sense to me too,” Elianna continued.  “And I began to truly feel the weight of my disregard for God.  God had made everything I loved and thought beautiful, and yet I made no effort or time to thank Him, to live as He commands me to live, or to know Him through His word.  It was an awful feeling of remorse in the pit of my stomach.  The foolishness and wickedness of my heart toward this God who had showed me nothing but kindness and filled the world with splendour humbled me.

            “As the preacher went on about the wonders of God a fierce longing boiled up within me to know and be close to this God.  He seemed like the only thing worth spending my life in pursuit of.” 

Elianna paused. 

“By the way, I’m telling you all this because it directly relates to David.  You’ll see how soon enough.  Don’t worry that I’ve forgotten what you initially wanted to hear about.”

            “Oh please go on; I didn’t even notice.  I love hearing about you, too,” said Jasna.