Little Do We Know(51)

Addison opened it.

“Hi,” she said. She looked surprised to see me. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m kidnapping your brother,” I said, gesturing toward the van. “I packed a big picnic lunch, and I thought we’d go on an easy hike in the foothills. He seems like he needs cheering up.”

“Luke isn’t here.” Addison had a weird look on her face. “He left early this morning.”

“I thought he wasn’t supposed to drive?”

“He’s not. He talked Mom into it. He said he had to get out of here for a few hours, that he was going stir-crazy, and Mom caved.”

“Where did he go?”

“He didn’t say. But I’m pretty sure the only reason my mom let him go was because he said he was spending the day with you.”





The sanctuary was packed. Alyssa, Logan, Jack, and I were sitting in the front row. When the pastor introduced SonRise, the four of us stepped up onstage and took our spots behind our microphones.

I looked down and saw Aaron at the bottom of the steps, wearing chinos and a gray V-neck sweater. His hair was brushed to one side and he looked all clean-cut and boy-next-door, but I missed the cap. I wondered where it was. Probably up in the sound booth.

The sound booth.

Everything was silent for a moment, until Alyssa counted us down. “Four, three, two, one.”

I could barely stand to look at Alyssa. I’d kissed Aaron. Her future husband. I’d kissed him and he’d kissed me. Now he was standing in front of us, moving his hands in time with the music, and all I could think about was how those fingers felt on my back, on my skin. I glanced over at her, smiling out at the crowd, and guilt flooded over me.

The four of us swayed in unison, two times to the right, two to the left, and then back to the right as we sang, “Bom…bom…bom…bom.”

Logan had the first lines.

“How fickle my heart and how woozy my eyes.

I struggle to find any truth in your lies.”

I spotted Luke right away, sitting in the second to the last pew on the far-left side of the sanctuary. He was wearing a button-down shirt and his hair looked nice, like he’d tried to make his dark curls behave with a bit of styling gel or something.

He looked at me and waved. I smiled and forced myself to focus on the stained-glass window near the back of the sanctuary, concentrating on the red, blue, and green glass panes so I wouldn’t lose my place in the song. When it was my turn, I sang: “And now my heart stumbles on things I don’t know.

My weakness I feel I must finally show.”

I tried to connect with people in the audience like Dad taught me to, looking for the ones who seemed to be lost in thought, or those who might have a special need to hear the words I was singing. But my attention kept drifting back to Luke. For some reason, I felt like he needed to hear the words more than anyone else in the room.

All four of us raised our voices at once for the final lines and by then, my eyes were firmly locked on his.

“Awake my soul.

Awake my soul.

You were made to meet your maker.”

The congregation burst into applause as the four of us held hands and bowed in unison. Then we tipped our heads back, looked up at the ceiling, and whispered, “Thank you, Jesus,” in unison, like we always did. In that moment, while I was still lost in the music, all my questions slipped away and I meant it.

We took our seats and I glanced over my shoulder, trying to look casual as I searched for Luke. I couldn’t see him; there were too many people between us.

“All month, we’ve been talking about the Gospel of John,” the pastor said. “The purpose of this gospel, as stated by John himself, was to show that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and that believers in him might have eternal life.”

John 3:16 appeared on the wall behind him in bold letters.

I listened to the sermon closer than usual, trying to hear it from Luke’s point of view. It was strange to think about hearing these words for the first time, when I almost took them for granted. They were all I’d ever known. I realized that most of the religions I’d been studying didn’t even have a bible with the book of John. The entire New Testament didn’t exist for them. None of what our pastor was saying up there was core to their whole belief system the way it was to mine.

All my life, I’d believed that Jesus was God’s son. That he walked the earth performing miracles, healing the sick, and feeding the hungry. He spoke about peace and tolerance and forgiveness. And when he was crucified, he rose from the dead to give the rest of us access to a heaven we wouldn’t have had otherwise. His life was a gift. His death was a gift to me, and people like me.

I thought back to the day I decided to be saved. I was ten years old. I didn’t even remember making the decision to do it that day; I just felt this magnetic pull and I stood, stepping away from my friends in the back pew and into the aisle. As the music played, I took what felt like a million steps until I reached the front of the room.

Our pastor was waiting there for me. When I arrived, he held my hands in his. “Do you understand that you are a sinner?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you ready to repent of your sins?”

“Yes.”

“Do you invite Jesus to become the Lord of your life, to rule and reign in your heart from this day forward?”