Page 15 of Faith for the Cowboy
Harper laughed as she stood. “Never.” She carried her dishes to the sink, then returned to the table. “I just need to gather my things, and then I’m ready to go whenever you are.”
Lawson nodded in agreement, and Harper made her way to her room to gather her things. Not that there was much to get. She put her phone in her crossbody bag. Then she wondered if she should take a Bible to church. She kept her index finger on the corner of her mouth as she thought about this. Did she still own a Bible? Well of course she didn’t. Everything she had was lost in her SUV, but did she still have one at her parents’ house? That’s the only one she could think of. It didn’t matter if she was expected to take one to church today. She didn’t have one with her. Besides, she was sure that if the pastor did that familiar thing where he said, “If you have your Bibles with you, open it up to…” and he said a book and chapter of the Bible, she wouldn’t remember where any of those were. So it wouldn’t matter anyway.
She and Lawson were both quiet on the way to church. She couldn’t say what he was thinking, but she knew that she was a bundle of nerves. Would she remember how she was supposed to act in church? Would the Macklins be able to tell that it had been a very long time since she had attended?
Lawson pulled into the parking lot and parked Bessie in a convenient spot. As she climbed out, Harper looked up at the church. It was a beautiful, old, white, traditional church building complete with a tall steeple. She had seen it driving by in town, of course, but she hadn’t really looked at it very closely. It reminded her so much of the church she had attended with her parents and her brother growing up. Suddenly, she remembered the last time she went to church. One of the women on the promotional team had invited her after a rodeo in Oklahoma. She had agreed to go. Harper hadn’t been sure what to expect but when she walked into the modern building, It looked nothing like the church she went to growing up. The large room was built with auditorium style seats, and the stage was bigger than the one Harper had seen at some concerts. Not that there was anything wrong with what the church looked like. It didn’t really matter. That was one thing she remembered learning from her childhood, but it just felt big and different. As she walked into the foyer of this church building with Lawson, she had a completely different feeling.
It felt like home.
She stuck close to Lawson and followed him as they made their way into the sanctuary and to the row filled with the Macklin family. Harper breathed a sigh of relief that they slipped in and took their seats just before the music started. It was enough that she had to tell herself to keep breathing as she walked into a church for the first time in years. She didn’t need to add awkward introductions and people saying they were sorry about what happened to her.
Harper didn’t sing, but she listened as the congregation sang songs, some familiar and some new. She felt as if her heart started to open to the words that they were singing. Her heart began to beat faster as she listened to the congregation sing about Jesus. It had been a very long time since she had heard that name. When the pastor spoke, he did indeed ask everyone to open their Bibles, but then he read the passage out loud. Without meaning to, Harper found herself listening closely and hanging on to every word that he spoke. It was as if he was speaking directly to her when he said that God cares about us and our brokenness. He shared the story of when Lazurus died. Harper had heard it before, but not in this way. The pastor said Lazarus was Jesus’ friend and that he died while Jesus was away, and Jesus cried. Jesus cried? Somehow she had missed that part of the scripture before now.
Why did Jesus cry? Didn’t He already know what was going to happen? Didn’t he have a plan, like people always said? It made Jesus seem more real that He was sad when His friend died. It also made Him seem more compassionate, even if that was part of God’s plan.
Harper tried to resist the pull to know more. But she couldn’t. This was a different Jesus than she had always heard about growing up. It was a different Jesus than people talked about when she lost her brother. And somehow, she felt like she wanted to know more. To truly know this Jesus.
Lawson sat next to Harper in his parents’ row in the church and heard some of the same stories he had heard his whole life. Why was it that nothing seemed to change here? Why was it that his family still came and listened to the same old, same old and acted as if some miraculous thing had happened there that Sunday? Stories that were thousands of years old. He glanced over at Harper, expecting her to have the same distant look on her face. He was surprised to see that she was listening carefully, as if she was very interested in what the pastor had to say.
No, she was probably just being polite. She couldn’t have found this very interesting. She had already said she didn’t want to have anything to do with the God who took her brother away from her. And could he blame her? No, she felt the same way he did. Why did he come here week after week just to please his parents? He knew it was for the same reason that he hadn’t told them he was competing in rodeos. Even though he didn’t agree with them, he still wanted his parents' approval.
Maybe it was time for that to end.
He was an adult after all. Wasn’t it time he started to act like one? Sure, he could still work at the ranch and spend time with his brothers and his parents. But he didn’t believe the same as them. Not anymore. And he had things he wanted to do on his own. It was time for him to tell them the truth. Time to tell them that he had other ambitions, and he didn’t subscribe to the same faith anymore. He would like to say he had just outgrown it. But his brothers hadn’t. And obviously, his parents were older than he was. Maybe they needed this. Maybe it helped them somehow to get through the difficulties in their life.
But for him, believing that God cared about what happened in their lives only made it more obvious that God allowed bad things to happen. He didn’t have a problem believing God was real. He wouldn’t say he didn’t believe in God. There was, after all, an incredible world that God had created. Working with animals had taught him that for sure. But he just couldn’t believe that God worked in people's lives.
And maybe it was time to finally admit that.
10
Harper aimlessly walked along the fence line near the front of the ranch. She had excused herself after lunch to have some time to think. Lawson had given her a funny look when she got up and walked out. On the way home, he had asked her what she thought about the church service. She had been honest and said that she thought it was nice. She hadn’t said much else, since he didn’t seem interested in that line of conversation.
The truth was she had a lot of thinking to do. She wasn’t ready to jump to a decision after one Sunday at church because she got warm fuzzy feelings. But she couldn’t walk away from the fact that she was interested.
The thing was she didn’t know what to do about it. Her mind wandered as she stared out over the wide expansive land that stretched out as far as she could see. The Macklin land. Not just land that they had earned, or that they worked hard for, but that they gave credit to God for blessing them with. Mr. Macklin had prayed at lunch and thanked God for all their many blessings and all the wonderful family that they had surrounding them. So where did that leave her?
“God, I don’t know if You’re there. I don’t know if You’re listening to me, or if You care about me. But I want to know the truth.”
Harper didn’t hear any voice speaking to her or see any writing across the sky. She sighed and kept walking. A few minutes later, she heard the sound of slow hoofbeats behind her and turned, expecting to see Lawson. He was probably coming to try to talk her out of thinking about church.
Instead, she was surprised to see Lydia Macklin. “Oh hi,” she said.
“Hi, Harper,” Lydia said, pulling her horse to stop and sliding down. She took the reins of the horse and slowly walked over to where Harper stood. “Are you doing alright? After lunch, you seemed a little quiet. I felt the Lord telling me I needed to come and find you.”
Harper wanted to cry. “Really?” she said.
Lydia reached out and put a hand on Harper’s arm and gave her a gentle smile. “Yes. I just had a nudge that you needed someone to talk to.”
Harper put her hand to her forehead. “I…I just don’t even know what to say. I went to church this morning, but I was just doing it to be nice, and accept the invitation since you have been so kind to me. Then it was so nice, and I felt so welcomed. When the pastor spoke, I felt like he was talking to me. Not just to me, but about me, saying that Jesus cared. I’ve just never felt that way before. Or at least not for a very long time.”
“I can understand that. I was the same way. I grew up in church and my parents taught me about the Bible, but I don’t know. I guess I felt like it was their faith, and I never really learned it for myself. So I had to do some wandering. I didn’t run off and turn into a wild, rebellious teenager or anything like that, but I had a time where I just wondered if I really believed all the things I grew up hearing. I wondered if Christianity was for me. I’m so thankful for an older lady in our church. Her name was Brenda. She gave me a notebook and told me to go through the Bible and write down any questions that I had as I read it. Then she told me to look for the places where Jesus reached out to the unlikely people. See, I guess that I saw church people as only good people, and I knew I wasn’t good. I realize now that it’s not that good people come to church. It’s because Jesus welcomes everyone, and He changes the lives of people who walk with him. I had to go on my own faith journey to meet Him and to find that out for myself.”
Harper let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “That’s how I feel. For a long time, I’ve thought Jesus didn’t really care about me. Why should He? I’m nobody special. I’ve been through some hard things in my life, and I blamed Him for that. I don’t know if I’m ready to follow God. But I want to have that assurance and that peace that I see other people have. I don’t feel like I’ve ever had that.”
“I understand,” Lydia said. “I won’t rush you, and I won’t try to convince you. All I can do is tell you that my life has been different since I decided to follow Jesus. To really follow Him, choosing that for myself and not just because my parents did it or because it was what I thought was expected of me. I do have one question, though. Do you have a Bible?”
Harper shook her head. “No, I was just thinking about that this morning. I guess maybe I had one a long time ago, but I don’t know where it is. I don’t have one now.”
