“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” Jeremiah paused. “In the final verdict, the people didn’t want to see the truth.”
Ben rubbed his eyes. He let out a yawn, more to clear his head than out of tiredness. A thought marinated in his mind until the right words formed.
“It also says that God sends a strong delusion on the land. And that he hardens a person’s heart. More than once, we find that. How can we blame the person if God hardens their heart?”
“Notice when and why that hardening occurs,” Jeremiah replied. “It’s long after the people refuse to repent or acknowledge God. He gives them what they want. Their ruin is simply the natural outcome of their disbelief, of their love of evil. It’s no different than if you lived on a diet consisting of only chocolate cake. Your heart has given out, and you blame the doctor for your condition even though he told you a hundred times to change your behavior.”
Ben smiled. “I notice how many times you use chocolate cake to make a point.” The smile dropped from his lips. “What I wouldn’t give for a slice of Victoria’s chocolate cake right now.”
Jeremiah nodded in agreement. “Or a burger from Dooley’s.”
“Or enough food so we didn’t have to go to bed with pain in our stomachs.” Ben stared straight ahead, eyes narrowed into slits. The thoughts continued to roll around his mind. Between clenched teeth, he asked, “Do you think he’s forgotten about us? Or … or that it’d be better if it all ended?”
Jeremiah understood the implication. “You’ve got family to take care of, Ben. Don’t ever think about doing that.”
“I wouldn’t,” Ben said. “I just ….” The words faded into the background, drowned out by the noise and their ineffectiveness.
“If we’re still around, it means he has a purpose for us, a future in mind. On the other hand, he could take us at any minute. Either way, we serve at his pleasure and for his glory.”
“I wish I had your confidence. If only I could tell you how many times I doubted.” Ben shook his head slowly. “I’m sure when it’s my time and he calls me to my judgment, the only words out of his mouth will be, ‘Depart from me o ye of little faith, you who doubted me.’”
He bowed his head. Jeremiah felt his shame.
“If only non-doubters were allowed into glory, heaven would be empty.” Jeremiah’s voice came out soft, pained as though trying to convince himself of the truth of what he said.
“How many times did you doubt?” Ben asked. “Once? Twice?”
“A million times. Give or take a few thousand.”
Ben checked Jeremiah’s expression for sincerity. “I find that hard to believe,” he said. “Name one time you doubted.”
“Three days come to mind immediately.”
“Three times is not a million.”
“Three days,” Jeremiah corrected. “Probably a thousand times a minute. You do the math. Not to mention all the other times.”
“I never knew,” Ben said. He hesitated. “I wish I could have been there for you.”
“You were when you could be. You weren’t when you weren’t supposed to be.”
Jeremiah stroked his chin. The rough, sparse beard, which never grew past a second day shadow, scratched the webbing between his thumb and index. “I never told you about one of them,” he said.
Ben turned his full attention to Jeremiah and waited silently until his friend found the courage to speak.
“I was working at the Hollander School as a philosophy and history teacher. I must’ve been … oh, twenty-eight at the time. You would’ve been stationed in Richmond. Or Newport. It doesn’t really matter. I loved it. The people. The job. The future I saw for myself. I’d never been happier. Come to think of it, I’d never truly been happy. I don’t consider myself a morose person, just that I don’t think I’d ever experienced what it meant to be loved before. A wall surrounded me, one of my own construction, which prevented me from getting close to others. From having to get close to others. But the people there, a few in particular, intentionally chipped away at the wall. With a sledgehammer, now that I think of it. Katie and Mary and … and ….” Jeremiah grimaced. “Her name slips my mind, but I can still see her face clear as day.”
“They loved me. Not in any inappropriate way. They actually loved me and told me so. And I believed them. If you had known how difficult it was to believe that was possible.” Jeremiah’s breathing slowed down. One deep breath entered and released, his hurt escaping with it. “Then, they left. All good things must come to an end or else growth can’t occur. Theoretically, I knew that to be true. Still, if I had the choice, those days never would’ve ended. I guess that’s why God doesn’t always give us the choice.”
“My last day there. Not the day they threw me out, but the day I went back to collect my stuff. They had it waiting for me in my old room. All the memories, the good and the bad, dumped into five boxes with my name on the sides. Police officers escorted me the whole time as if I was dangerous, as if I would’ve done anything to harm the people I loved. It was so surreal.”
“Their love for me was gone. Completely, in an instant. All I felt was hate. And fear. An intense fear like I’d never experienced before or since. I’m not sure I can adequately explain it. It was like the air was thick and full of energy, of hate, a blanket of darkness lying over the entire building. I could feel an evil presence in that blanket, alive, powerful. Every way I turned, it waited for me, laughing, clawing at me. I cried out to God to save me, but … but he had abandoned me. I was alone, in that evil, at its mercy, a mercy which it didn’t possess.”
“I threw the boxes in the back of the car and fled as fast as I could.” Jeremiah scratched his chin again. “I’ve been in worse situations. In hindsight, I even realize God was there the whole time, restraining the evil that wanted to destroy me. It was that moment that changed the direction of my life. You could argue it was the best thing that happened to me. But it wasn’t. And not for the reasons you might think.”
Another deep breath as he closed his eyes. “That day, I learned to hate. I couldn’t see how God was using the situation for my good. All I could see was the hate, my hate. I wanted them destroyed, punished for how they betrayed me. Those cowards, those fools, those people who said they were my friends, who lied to me, turned their backs on me in my moment of need, pretended they didn’t know who I was as they escorted me to the street like I was the one that would do them harm. So afraid of saving their own pathetic lives they didn’t realize they lost them that day.”
Jeremiah opened his eyes and laughed at himself. “Good thing I’m over it, though.”
Ben didn’t join in with him. The tone of the laughter, the way Jeremiah’s hands pressed into each other, bore witness to the hurt. He focused on the computers in the middle of the room. Each week, another keyboard lost a person to caress its rows of letters. Theresa was the latest to fall, the strain of cholera ravaging the city too much for her body. He had known her before the siege. Pleasant enough, raised in an environment in which she had never seen another way. If her parents hadn’t bought into the lie, maybe she might have had a chance. He had known the parents as well. They were without excuse.
Two workstations at most remained occupied at any time. The analysts flicked distracted fingers at the keys and stumbled back and forth between their desks and President Zedekiah’s office. Whenever they could, they slipped off to a room in the back where they tried to catch a moment of sleep. Both were there now, lost between the realm of nightmares and the terrors which waited for them when they woke up.
Ben raised his head towards the ceiling. The muffled thuds of sporadic detonations moaned out their destruction.
“You’re right,” he said.
“About what?” Jeremiah replied.
“You never told me that before.”
“It wasn’t something I was proud of.”
“Nothing to be ashamed of either,” Ben said.
“When I look back on it, I see how God used it to mold me, to strengthen me.”
Ben nodded in agreement. “It did.”
A short laugh, derisive in its self-condemnation, snuck out through Jeremiah’s nose. “Of course, it took him more than that one incident to get through to me,” he said. “You know those verses, don’t you? ‘Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.’ Apparently, I’m a slow learner. Nearly forty years to get to that producing character part. The hope part came pretty quickly, though.”
Ben’s eyebrows furrowed. “Hope? You found hope in these surroundings?” His arm swept across the room as though the world lay before him.
“No. I found it elsewhere. In eternity. That’s what we’re called to, isn’t it?”
Ben arched his back in a giant stretch. His neck rolled around on a creaking spine. One more stretch to the right and he grew contemplative again.
“What do you think heaven will be like?” he asked.
“Pretty much the opposite of this,” Jeremiah replied. “With a few extra perks.”
“I had a dream about heaven once,” Ben said. “I still remember most of the details even though I had it years and years ago. I’m not sure if I remember it because it was so vivid or because of when it occurred.”
“When was that?”
Ben cleared his throat, regret that he had brought the subject up clogging his airway. “That night … the one when Victoria and I came to get you.” “Oh,” Jeremiah replied. “I remember that night too.”