“He did die,” I growl. “I watched the light leave his eyes.”
“But God brought him back. Are you mad at Him for bringing Tucker back?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why can’t you understand how we feel? How grateful we are that God brought you back too?” Tears stream down her cheeks. “Everyone walks on eggshells around you, afraid that they’ll set you off, but maybe it’s time someone does. Maybe, Dylan Hunt, you need a wake-up call. Because if you had seen all of us when they told us you were gone, that we would never see you again—” She trails off and takes a deep breath. “Well, then you would start seeing just how much you’re loved. And our love is nothing compared to what God feels for you.”
“I’m so mad, Lani,” I choke out, a strangled sound that can barely be called speech. The panic begins to fade away, and I come down from the attack. Slowly, but enough that I can breathe again.
“I know you are, big brother. And those demons you carry? They’ll latch onto that anger and drag you straight to hell if you let them. Don’t let them. You want to be angry? Be angry at them. You’ve always fought for those who can’t fight for themselves. But now you need to fight for you.”
“Two times in the same week? Three if you count Sunday. It’s good to see you, Dylan.” Pastor Ford takes a seat in the pew across the aisle from me.
I’d called him shortly after Lani bandaged my hands.
“Thank you for meeting me.”
“Thank you for calling.” He studies me but doesn’t mention my wrapped knuckles. Given he’s a man who doesn’t miss much, I know he sees them and is likely just waiting for me to open up. For me to explain how it happened and if it was what drove me to finally show up here, ready to talk.
Maybe not ready, but if not now—then when?
Because Lani is right. My demons want me to keep suffering. They want to drag me back into hell, and I’m so tired of fighting them alone. So very tired.
“I wanted to die.” I toy with the phone in my trembling hands. “And not just when I was in that cell, but after too. After I was home. If I weren’t so afraid, I probably would have taken it into my own hands a long time ago.” The confession is one I haven’t ever spoken out loud—to anyone.
They’ll never know how close I came to finishing what no one else seemed to be able to do.
He’s silent for a moment, and I can’t tell if it’s because I caught him off guard or he’s choosing his words carefully. “Do you still feel that way?” he asks.
“Yes,” I reply honestly. “Not all the time, but more times than I care to admit.” Emotion burns in my chest, and even as I’ve reached the point where I want to desperately turn back, I keep going. “I don’t understand why God saved me and not them. Or why He let me go through that in the first place. The things they did to me—” I trail off, tears burning in the corners of my eyes. My chest tightens, heart hammering. “I’ll never talk about it, but the memories are there. And even the slightest brush of contact takes me back to that place. Why would He save me so I can live in hell?”
“God isn’t the one who’s put you in a living hell, Dylan.”
“It feels that way. He could make it stop. So why doesn’t He?”
Pastor Ford falls silent as he stares forward at the cross. “You know the story of Job, right?”
I nod.
“Then you know that he was a blameless man who trusted in God completely. Yet he lost everything. His children, livestock, health, friends—even his wife tried to get him to curse God and die. Yet he continued to worship God because he knew that we shouldn’t only accept the good things. That in this world, both good and bad people will suffer, yet those of us who have put our faith in Him have the promise that one day, our suffering will end.”
“So I should slap on a smile and pretend I’m not dying inside? Is that the trick? I just act okay, and one day I’ll feel that way?”
“No.” He takes a deep breath. “Dylan, you can’t face this alone. He is the only hope you have of finding the peace you desperately seek. In every moment, especially the darkest ones, you have to lean on God for strength. Pray—even if you’re doing so with tears running down your cheeks. Even if you can’t find the words. Kneel, and surrender to Him. He doesn’t care how you come to Him, just that you do. Stop living in the guilt you carry for surviving, and accept the gift He granted you because you did.”
I lean forward and bury my face in both hands as I fight the urge to get up and sprint out of here. Lani’s words are the only thing keeping me here.
“You’ve always fought for those who can’t fight for themselves. But now you need to fight for you.”
I want to fight for myself. I want to be better. To find at least some semblance of the man I was before. But I fear he died back in that pit and the rest of me was just too rotten to go with him.
“It doesn’t feel like a gift, Pastor. It feels like a curse. A weight around my ankles. I’m living half a life. Watching my brothers start their own families while knowing I could never have that. Lani will eventually settle down too, and then I’ll be alone. It’s torture.”
“There is not a thing God can’t do, Dylan. Saying you’ll never have that just because you’re struggling now is like saying it’ll never rain again in the middle of a drought. You have to choose to face what happened and move through it with God. He can bring you through it, just as He brought you from that cave.”
I can’t speak, my throat tight as I fight to hold back tears.
“God didn’t hand David a crown to make him king,” he says softly. “He sent him Goliath. He didn’t keep Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from going into the furnace, but He remained with them in the flames. God doesn’t promise we won’t face trials, but we are never going through them alone, Dylan.”
