Every new place we walk into presents dozens of chances to tell this story, dozens of faces that look to me Dusty introduces me as the intern. As I open my mouth to let it exhale out of me, I choke on it.
Because there is much, much more to the story about that night at the chapel, the night I talked to Dusty and Cecily, the night I felt peace about life. There is much more to that story, but I don’t know if letting it into the air would expose me. A few nights ago, I toyed with the idea.
As Tom walked up to tell the tale of the chemistry fellowship he turned down to build ovens in East Africa, my heart pounded with the thought of telling the whole truth. What would they do if they know their intern unplugged herself from a metaphorical hospital bed and stumbled into their RV? That what I say is a tad veiled, because I can’t show weakness here for fear of them realizing they might have chosen the wrong person?
I know the Lord has His hand in this, but I don’t really want to tell them why I think He picked me. That night in chapel when Ross and I were twenty minutes late was the end of my rope. Darkness had descended on my life – it bleached out the deep colors of my hope and rinsed the fire out of my eyes. All the daydreams I had about forests, candlelight, pirate ships, adventure, vindication… all my blood and thunder dreams shrank away to lick their wounds whilst I scrambled to maintain a pulse of some kind.
I don’t recall what brought it on, but it had settled over my life for months. I was a Junior at Pepperdine, madly in love with the man I am going to marry with the world at my feet. Yet there was a cage around me that I couldn’t even see to fight off. It sounds cliché to say I was dead inside - because I know it sounds like a teenage facebook status, right next to a quote that reads “You don’t know me, I don’t even know myself” or something equally cheesy… but I can’t find any other way to put it. I was dead inside.
The prospect of another summer that consisted of a job, the country club pool, and sleepless nights pacing back and forth while everyone slept, a movie playing soundlessly in the background… was too much to handle.
That night, the night Lifebread came into my life, I waited for Ross in the lobby of my dorm, looking at the clock with tired eyes. We had decided to go to Chapel even though we both didn’t want to. It was 8:20, and Chapel started at 8:00. He came downstairs, and we set off for Stauffer Chapel.
We crept in silently and sat in the back of the auditorium right as Dusty went to the front. He called to us to do something with our lives, and he invited us to apply to go to Africa with Lifebread. I listened to him, and something about the way he spoke intrigued me. Africa was the farthest thing from anything I was and am familiar with at all. I hated the way my life had settled, and I knew I wanted to shake things up.
The ridiculousness of it all overwhelmed me in that moment. I couldn’t go to Africa… I had just signed up for 18 units in summer school, and I really needed a job. The prospect taunted me and climbed into my ribcage, and I resented that. I hated wanting to go to Africa and knowing deep down that it couldn’t happen. I rose from the pew silently and left the building. I knew it was only a matter of time before Ross followed me out, he always looks after me at times like that. I heard his footsteps at the bottom of the stairs of the amphitheater when I was almost at the top. I wearily made my way to the wooden bench and sat down. He sat wordlessly next to me, and I put my head on his shoulder and cried. I could hear the chapel fill with melody… and I told Ross it was time to go, but we wound up staying for a little while longer. People filed past us as chapel let out, and that is where the other story picks up… Ross told me to go talk to them, and I did. I walked away with a stomach full of electricity. I felt my mouth spark with words, and before I knew it, I was telling Ross that he should come, too. Expecting a rational, “I would love to, but I can’t,” I was blown away when he stopped for a second on the ramp up to the fountain and said, “You know what? Maybe I will.”
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