On the Trail of the Truth Read online

  That winter some of the town leaders got together and decided Miracle Springs ought to have a mayor. The town had grown a lot in the last two years, and was still growing some, with new families coming in. There was no election, it was just announced one day that a retired banker, recently come from the East, had agreed to act as mayor. He’d had experience in that sort of thing before. So Jason Vaissade became the first mayor of Miracle Springs.

  Chapter 7

  Learning to Let Go and Trust God

  The weather had been nice for a couple of weeks. It was warming up and folks were saying the winter had finally broken and spring was on the way. We were more than a week into March, so any other year they would probably have been right.

  One morning, when we were staying at Mrs. Parrish’s house in town, I woke up before dawn. I usually got up pretty early, and liked to lie in bed and read or go for walks before the rest of the family got up.

  This particular morning I got up while it was still dark. I put my clothes on and sneaked out of the house as quietly as I could. The morning was beautiful. I felt as if I were the only one alive. I took in the cold morning air in long breaths. A few stars still twinkled in the sky, with just the faintest hint of the gray dawn starting to mix in with the blackness.

  I walked out into the street. It was cold and I had several layers of clothes on, but I could tell the sun was going to come up and it would be a nice bright day. Everything was completely quiet. Marcus Weber wasn’t out in the stable with the horses yet, and he was usually the first person to be up and at it most mornings in Miracle Springs. The roosters weren’t even about their business yet either, although they likely would be before long.

  I love early mornings! After I’ve been up a little while, my mind gets awake and active and has its best thinking times. Maybe it’s the quiet, maybe being alone. As much as I like people, I never get tired of being alone either, and my brain always seems to take alone times to turn about some of its best thoughts. Morning is always the best for praying too.

  I suppose the two go hand in hand—praying and thinking. When you’re praying you are thinking, kind of thinking in God’s direction, pointing your brain toward God and then letting your thoughts go out of you and into him. At least that’s how I like to imagine what it’s like when I’m praying. And the other side of praying, listening to God, works just the reverse—I try to pay attention to the thoughts that are coming into my brain. And if I’ve been talking to God about something, then I figure those thoughts coming toward me are the thoughts coming out of God toward me—his thoughts that he’s sending in my direction.

  Well, on that particular morning I was thinking and praying, and opening my thoughts toward God and trying to listen to his thoughts toward me. And I found myself remembering the talk Mrs. Parrish and I had about alternatives, and choices, things I might some day find myself doing, and how a young lady like me ought to be preparing herself for the future and thinking about what she wants to do. And pretty soon I was walking along not even paying attention to where I was going, talking back and forth with God—talking in my thoughts I mean, not out loud—and asking him what it was that he wanted me to do and prepare for.

  My favorite passage in the Bible is in the third chapter of Proverbs, verses five and six: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” That morning I felt as if God was directing my footsteps, because without even thinking where I was going, I found myself walking about the town praying and talking to God as I went.

  I walked for five or ten minutes, and found myself standing in front of the Gold Nugget saloon, where we’d first met Pa and where we’d had our first church service in Miracle Springs.

  Then I walked farther on down the street past Mr. Bosely’s General store. My heart was full as I recalled everything that had happened, all that God had done since those first days here.

  As I passed the bank, I thought about Mr. Royce and all the evil that had come because of him. But seeing his bank also reminded me of what Mrs. Parrish had done to save Pa’s mine. Maybe that incident was the beginning of her and Pa loving each other like they did now.

  God had brought me so far, would he bring me safely the rest of the way? Yet even seeing how everything had worked out in the past, it was still easy to slip into worrying about what was going to become of me.

  “I’m growing up, and sometimes it’s hard to know what I’m supposed to do!” I had told Mrs. Parrish in one of our talks.

  “God will let you know in his time,” she said. “You can trust him. If you let him, he will work in every bit of your life—you can depend on it.”

  Even as I was thinking these words of Mrs. Parrish’s, I found myself coming back around to the Freight Company and to Mrs. Parrish’s house—our house.

  Oh, God, I found myself thinking, you have been so good to me! We were so alone back then . . . and now you’ve given us so much! Thank you for Pa, for what a fine man he is. Thank you for Uncle Nick, for Katie, for the claim and the cabin, and for the life you’ve given us here, and all the new friends we have.

  I stopped and looked around me. I was standing right in front of Mrs. Parrish’s office. The light was creeping up in the east, and it wasn’t dark anymore, though it was still only a gray light. Inside through the window, the office was empty and black. On the glass was painted in small gold letters: Parrish Mine and Freight Company.

  “How can I thank you enough, Lord, for . . . for my new mother?” I whispered. There was nothing else to say—that one prayer was enough. My heart was full of gratitude for her—for all she’d been to us, for the friendship she and I had, for how she had helped me love Pa better, for all she had explained to me about living with God, for how she had helped me understand myself and my own feelings more deeply, for the talks we’d had, for our trip to San Francisco, for how I’d learned to pray and bring God into the little things of my life because of her. I wouldn’t have been half the person I was if it hadn’t been for Mrs. Parrish—and I sure wouldn’t have been standing there praying, and thinking about verses from the Bible, if she hadn’t taught me how important it was to live my life with God as part of it.

  I didn’t even realize it at first, but suddenly I was crying—quietly, just a few tears. And a great sadness was coming up out of my heart, although I didn’t know why right at first.

  I don’t want to leave this place, God, I thought. I love these people and Pa and Almeda and Zack and Tad and Becky and Emily . . . and Mr. Weber, and everybody, Lord! I don’t want to leave . . . I don’t want to, Lord!

  All at once I knew why I was so sad. I’d been filled with such happiness only a few moments before, in the memories of this town and people. But retracing steps along the sidewalks where I’d walked dozens of times in the last couple of years was a little like saying goodbye to Miracle Springs.

  “Is that why you woke me up so early, Lord,” I asked, “and drew me out of bed—to say my farewell to this place?”

  My future and what was to become of me had been on my heart a lot—ever since the day of Pa’s and Almeda’s wedding. Even when my mind wasn’t actively thinking about it, down deeper the question was still running around inside me. Every once in a while the doubts would surface and I’d get to thinking again about that conversation we’d had about a girl preparing herself for her future, or I’d remember what Ma had said about me needing to think about growing up. I suppose I was growing up slower than a lot of girls might—especially being a reading, thinking person always trying to figure things out in my head. But maybe now it was time that I did get on with the business of growing up, and I couldn’t help thinking about it a lot.

  The town still surrounded me, still quiet just like a moment before, but now I felt a pang of pain at the sight, as if I would not be able to hold on to it forever.

  “What are you fixing to do with me, Lord?” I asked. “Where are you leading me? What do you
want me to do? Where do you want me to go?”

  Go! Out of my own prayer the word slammed against me. “Oh, God, you’re not gonna make me go away, are you? But I don’t want to go! I’ve only had my pa back two years, and now I’ve only had a mother again less than a year, and I don’t know if I can stand to be torn away from them! Please, God, don’t make me go away! I don’t want to be Miss Hollister, God. I want to be just who I’ve been all these years! I want to keep being a daughter for a while longer. I’m not ready to be a woman, a grown-up all on my own yet!”

  I was crying hard now. The praying words dried up, but not the tears.

  Two or three minutes later the tears began to stop. And as they did another set of words from the Bible crept into the back of my mind. I hadn’t thought about them for a long time—I couldn’t even remember when I’d heard or read them, but all at once there they were, as if God had sent them to quiet down my spirit and remind me of something I needed to remember right then. The words were: Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

  “Do you really mean that, God?” I asked. “Will you give me what I want? You won’t make me leave Miracle Springs?”

  I started walking again. By now the first colors of pink were showing in the sky to the east. Folks would be stirring before long. The roosters were hollering their heads off all over town.

  As I walked I knew God was talking to me. I didn’t hear an actual voice speaking out of the sky. But I had been thinking—and even crying—in God’s direction. And after I’d “had my say,” maybe it was God’s turn to do the talking. Walking along I felt my mind and heart filling up with words, ideas, feelings, verses from the Bible, reminders of things Mrs. Parrish had told me or things I’d heard Rev. Rutledge say in church, about feeding on God’s truth. When I look back on the experience of that morning, I think God was using everything going through my mind to speak to me. His thoughts were now coming in my direction.

  I felt God speaking to me that morning. The thoughts and feelings came too fast and in such a jumble, and of course I didn’t understand everything all at once. But as I wrote it down and thought about that morning after it happened, more and more of it made sense to me. It was as if God was saying something like this to me:

  “Yes, Corrie, I will give you the desires of your heart. I do that with all my children who delight in me. But I cannot do it unless a man or a woman, a boy or girl . . . unless you, Corrie, do indeed delight yourself in me. That’s what the psalm means. If you delight in me, then I will give you the desires of your heart.”

  I want to delight in you, God, I said to myself, but I don’t think I know what that means.

  Again I felt God’s thoughts coming into my mind.

  “Just this, Corrie—to delight in me means that you want to do what I want, not what you want. Your desire is to do my will rather than your own, because you trust me to take care of you, you trust me about everything. I created you, I created all things, and I love you so much more than you can possibly realize. You can trust me to do the very best for you in every way imaginable—the very best!”

  I don’t understand. I thought that verse said you would give me the desires of MY heart?

  “When you trust me completely, as your Creator and Father and friend, when you trust me so much that you know I will do the best for you, when you trust me enough to want my will in your life, that becomes the desire of your heart. The desire of your heart is to do my will. And when you want my will for your life, and you want that more than anything else, then I will give you that—I will certainly work out my will in your life. And it will be the best possible life you could ever have! You will have the desire of your heart, and everything you could possibly hope for shall be yours—because your life is in my hands, not your own. Do you remember how that whole passage from Psalm 37 goes, Corrie?”

  Suddenly I did remember! Rev. Rutledge had preached from Psalm 37 about two months ago and I had loved the words so much I’d memorized them:

  Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.

  “I do not always fulfill the worldly desires of my children. I do not give them everything they selfishly might want. But for those of my sons and daughters who want me, who want to know me, I will fulfill that heart’s desire. And everything else in life will be given in abundance along with it. I cannot give myself without giving my blessings and my love and my abundant provision.”

  The flow of thoughts stopped. I was outside town now, unconsciously walking in the direction of the church and school. I looked up. There was the building off in the distance. I thought of the laughing, yelling voices of the children that’d be echoing from inside it in a few hours. I thought of Miss Stansberry and wondered if I would someday be a schoolteacher too. Then I thought of the church, about that summer when it’d been built, and about Pa and Rev. Rutledge, about the dedication of the building and the picnic and seeing Mr. Grant and the soldiers. I thought about all the many church meetings and services we’d had in that building since then, and all the growing I’d done—sometimes having to do with the church services, sometimes not.

  Had the Lord directed my path here, like the proverb said, so that I could say goodbye to this church and school building like the rest of the town? Something down inside was telling me a change was coming in my life, and I was afraid. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea at all.

  “Trust me, Corrie . . . you can trust me!”

  This time the words came into my mind so clearly that I knew exactly what God was saying.

  I drew in a deep sigh from the cold morning air. Even though I was all alone, I felt suddenly embarrassed, because I knew my worrying about my future was silly. Of course I could trust God to take care of me! Even if I didn’t want to leave Miracle Springs, God wouldn’t lead me to leave unless it was best. I did want my life, my future, everything I was as a person—I wanted it to be what God wanted, not what I wanted. I did want God’s will. I wanted to be able to trust him, even for my future and all its unknowns.

  Then I started to realize that maybe God hadn’t gotten me up early like this and had me walk around town, filling me with these thoughts about my future and what I might be doing a year, two years, three years from now, because I was going to leave Miracle Springs. I might leave someday, or I might not, but maybe the goodbyes weren’t to the buildings and the things I had looked at that morning, or to the people. Maybe God was trying to get me to think about my life in a new way, wanting me to say goodbye to the old way of looking at things, goodbye to worrying about what was to become of me. Maybe the future God was wanting me to move into wasn’t necessarily in a new place, but in a new way of trusting him, of delighting in what he wanted for me.

  Sunrise had filled the sky with brilliant reds and oranges. I could hear the sounds of the morning in the distance—dogs barking, a few wagons moving. Marcus Weber’s hammer slammed down on the anvil, ringing in the distance. He was likely fixing a wheel or shoeing one of the horses.

  I walked a little way off the dirt road, behind the trunk of a huge old twisted scrub-oak tree, and knelt down. I immediately felt the cold on my knees, because the grass was still wet from last week’s rain and the morning dew. But I didn’t mind. I bowed my head and prayed again, this time out loud, though just barely above a whisper.

  “Oh, Lord, I do want to delight in you! I want your will for my life, whatever you want me to do. If you want me to teach children in a school, or if you want me to keep working in the Freight Company, I’ll do either of those if you want me to, God. Or whatever else. I want to trust you, and so, Lord, I want to give my life to you, like Rev. Rutledge was talking about that Sunday, to make the kind of lady you have in mind for me to be. I do give you my future and whatever you want to do with it, even if it means som
eday having to leave Miracle Springs, though I don’t want to. Please help me to trust you more completely. I’ll do what you want and go where you say, ’cause I know you know what’s best for me.”

  That was all. No more words were there. I slowly got up and began walking back toward town, breathing in deeply of the morning air.

  I felt good! In church you sometimes hear people talking about “burdens being lifted” off their shoulders, and maybe that’s a little what it felt like. The worry was gone. It felt as if I had given it to God, and he had taken it, just as if I’d handed him a heavy sack and now I wasn’t carrying it anymore.

  I’d been crying earlier, thinking about having to say goodbye to familiar sights and faces. But now I felt like smiling. The future was going to be exciting, not fearful! Because I had given all of it to God, even though I didn’t know what it was, and he was going to make it the very best for me—because it would be what he wanted for me. Maybe I felt lighter and happier because for the first time I really was trusting God to make things turn out, instead of worrying about them.

  As I walked into town, more thoughts from God started coming into my mind. They were different, yet still part of that psalm which said we would be fed by truth. I hadn’t thought of that part of the verse before, but now I found myself considering what it might mean. Maybe I had to get to the point of saying to God “I trust you” before he could make sense out of the rest of it to me. In my mind, God seemed to say:

  “Wherever you go, and whatever you do—here in Miracle Springs or far away to wherever I might send you someday—I want you to love and follow the truth, and live by it, and let it feed you. The truth, Corrie Belle Hollister, my daughter that I love. I am making you into a woman, and I have plans for you—whether people call you Corrie Belle or Miss Hollister. Whatever they call you, wherever you go, whatever you do—follow the truth, Corrie . . . follow my truth. Find out what my truth is. Then follow it, live by it, and never let it go. For in truth shall you be fed, and so shall you dwell in the land, and by following the truth will I be able to give you the desires of your heart.”