I Have Loved You…
Stories
Object:
Contents
"I Have Loved You..." by Craig Kelly
"Daily Bread" by Peter Andrew Smith
* * * * * * * * *
I Have Loved You…
Craig Kelly
Hosea 1:2-10
He instinctively flinched as the spit stung his eye.
"I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I WANT YOU DEAD! DEAD, YOU HEAR ME?!? YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!"
As he rubbed his spit-coated eye, he was suddenly knocked into the bare white wall, leaving him momentarily dazed. When the haze cleared, he snapped his head up, fully expecting to see a fist rushing toward his face. What he saw, however, jarred him just as much as that fist would have.
The force that had knocked him over was actually two men dressed completely in white rushing into the room to wrestle the spitter down onto the hospital bed, wrapping leather restraints around her wrists and ankles as she flailed about frantically, desperately trying to escape, perhaps to try to make good on her threat.
The sight of his wife tied down to a hospital bed stung worse than the spit. He turned away, his tears washing his eyes clean. He had known for a while that this had to be done, but knowing didn't make it any easier. He found himself leaning back against that white wall, using it to brace himself, fighting the urge to collapse into a heap of tears and despair on the cold, linoleum floor.
Behind him, he could still hear the cacophony of screams and expletives, with the clang of the restraints against the metal bed railing providing a chaotic rhythm. With the euphoria of her high now fully dispelled, the true music of her heart was now being played at full volume. No love, no joy, no peace, just chaos. Such was the woman he loved.
This drug rehab facility had promised "tough love," doing whatever it takes to break the spell that drugs had placed on their patients. However, seeing his wife in restraints screaming in agony, he didn't know if this tough love was aimed at the patient or the patient's loved ones. He looked back at her in her bed, knowing that if he could somehow take her place and free her from all of this, he would.
The screams eventually died down, replaced instead by quiet sobbing. She looked up at him, her eyes, now streaming with tears, filled with a pleading desperation instead of the red-hot rage that had been there not long before.
"Baby, please, please, let's just go home. I promise I'll be good. Things will be back to the way they were before. I'll be good to you, baby. I'll be so good. Just let me go home. I won't touch the stuff again, I swear." Her head fell back against the pillow, her tears soaking into the stark white pillow cover.
Just the way they were before? His mind went back through the years of their marriage. He knew she had a history when he married her. Yet all he could see was the goodness in her, the beauty. He loved her with an intense, white-hot, no-holds-barred love. It didn't make sense, but it wasn't supposed to. He chose her, not because of what she had done or even who she was, but just because he loved her. Did he need another reason?
And yet, practically from day one, her heart was not there with him. She needed -- she craved -- the drugs, the other men, the life away from him. He offered order; she wanted chaos. Even the child "they" had symbolized this faithlessness. He had no Asian in his ancestry, and yet his "son" had almond-shaped eyes. And still, he took that child in as his own. He knew the child wasn't his, yet he loved him with all the love he would give to his own son.
She would disappear for weeks, months at a time, hanging out with pimps and drug lords, catering to their every whim, desperate for another hit. He would drive through every dark alleyway and side street looking for her. At times, he would even see her leaning on a car, dressed in a tight, revealing top, short mini-skirt, fishnet stockings, and stiletto heels, selling herself to some nameless john. After a while, she would come home bruised, beaten, and half-naked, hoping he would take her in. And through the hurt and the rage -- yes, rage -- he felt, he still had that burning love for her. He would yell at her, scream, cajole, and even plead with her. Every time, after a while, he would find her gone, doing the same thing all over again. Every night he would cry himself to sleep, his arm reaching across the bed, longing to feel her body there, shuffling over to cuddle with him.
She wanted things to go back to the way they used to be? His blood began to boil. The white in the room began to turn deep crimson. She wants to use me again? She wants to just keep me on a string, carrying me along while she does whatever she pleases? Does she not know the depths of my feelings, the passion of my love for her? Does she not know what I have continued to bring her out of, how I would keep taking her in time and time again? How can she keep doing this to me? NO! NOT THIS TIME!
A guttural scream escaped his lips as he raised his hand to strike her. Her eyes grew wide and she began to tremble as she anticipated the pain of the blow across her face. His hand stayed up for what seemed like an eternity as she could see the rage that was once in her eyes now transferred to his.
His tears continued to stream down his deep red cheeks, practically ready to boil under the heat of his rage. Yet his hand started to lower. She started to smile, thinking his anger might pass once again.
Then he struck her.
When she was with the pimps and dealers, she had often been beaten. She had suffered broken limbs, rapes, deep lacerations, the works. More than once, she had been left for dead.
Yet this slap in the face hurt. It really hurt.
Without saying a word, he turned his back and walked out of the room. She looked up as she saw him walk out of the room and turn a corner. She wanted to scream after him, telling him to go to hell, but the words stuck in her throat. All she could do was lay her head back on her pillow and wail.
* * *
He looked somberly down at his desk. The legal papers were still there, sitting silently in front of him, waiting patiently. They had all the time in the world. At the top, printed in ink as black as midnight:
PETITION FOR DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE
His mind drifted back to the words he had heard hours (Was it really hours?) earlier: "As your attorney and as your friend, you've got to end this. Cut her off. Spare yourself this agony."
He looked up at the framed picture sitting on his desk. His wife was smiling broadly, reaching, it seemed, from ear to ear. She was in her wedding dress, the white train flowing for what seemed like miles. Her hair was in a very becoming up do, the brilliance of the red showing even through the veil. Her eyes sparkled like perfectly cut diamonds. She was radiant.
End it? Cut her off? Could he do it? Should he? He thought back to her wedding dress, the gleam in her eyes, her smile as she walked down the aisle. He remembered the love that pulsed through him like electricity that day. He thought back to the way his heart jumped every time he would look at her.
Slowly, he rose from his desk and walked over to one of the bookshelves that lined the walls of his study. He turned on the small bookshelf stereo and pressed the PLAY button on the CD player. The room was soon filled with the flowing strings and perfect choral harmonies of Bach's Mass in B Minor. He collapsed back in his chair, tilted his head back, and let the music flow through him.
He loved her. Even now, he loved her. All he wanted was to have her in his arms again, to wipe the past clean and start all over. He wanted to know that she would have the same heart for him that he had for her. He just wanted to love her.
But she hurt him. She cut him. She bruised him. He loved her, and she spurned him again, and again, and again. How much more of this could he really take? He knew that right now she couldn't be faithful if she tried.
But he loved her.
After a short while, the choir began to sing the Agnus Dei:
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
have mercy upon us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
have mercy upon us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
grant us peace.
Have mercy upon us. Give us your peace. Take us back. Take me back. Forgive me.
His tears fell on the divorce papers, making the ink start to run. All he could do was sit there and cry.
Take me back. Forgive me.
Slowly he rose, wiping his face. Taking the tear-stained papers, he walked over to the corner of the room. The paper shredder let out a high-pitched whirring sound as he fed the papers through it.
He looked up, not smiling, but feeling a lightness and peace he hadn't felt in what seemed like years.
The day is coming. There will be reconciliation. I will take her back.
He walked back to his desk and raised the picture of his wife to his lips, kissing it tenderly.
"I'll see you again soon," he whispered as Bach's mass filled the room.
Craig Kelly writes copy for CSS Publishing Company in Lima, Ohio.
Daily Bread
Peter Andrew Smith
Luke 11:1-13
Joanne had always wanted to be a nurse. She loved to line up her stuffed animals on the bed and play hospital as a little girl. She was certain of what she was to do with her life in school even when others were searching for interests and activities. Joanne studied hard and was accepted into a prestigious nursing program. Her focus and determination allowed her to graduate near the top of her class. She carefully considered all the places she could work and chose to take a position at a small hospital desperate for help.
Joanne began her first day as a nurse with enthusiasm and excitement. She was finally able to do what she had always wanted to do with her life. When that initial day ended she went home and cried herself to sleep. There was so much pain and suffering and so little she could do.
The next day and indeed the rest of the week was filled with further heartache and despair. She started to seriously wonder if her lifelong dream had no place in the real world. She imagined that nursing would be an opportunity to help people but instead she found there was little she could do to ease people's despair and helplessness. She dreamed of bringing hope and healing to the sick but she saw little change in the lives of the people under her care.
At the end of that first terrible week, Joanne's shift supervisor called her into the office and closed the door. The older woman looked at Joanne for a few moments.
"Are you okay?"
Tears welled up in Joanne's eyes. "No."
"The week not what you were expecting?"
Joanne broke down and poured out her frustrations and fears about nursing. The older woman handed her a tissue and waited until she finished crying.
"Do you want to keep nursing?" the supervisor asked.
"I do," Joanne said. "I have always wanted to be a nurse. I want to make a difference."
The supervisor took a deep breath. "Do you believe in God?"
Joanne nodded.
"Do you pray?"
"Sometimes."
"Then go home and pray about what you are feeling and ask what God wants for your life," the older woman said. "If you feel you are supposed to come back next week then pray before you start each and every shift."
"What should I pray for?" Joanne said.
"Ask God for the strength to do your work and the wisdom to do it well."
Joanne spent the next few days in prayer, asking God to show her what she should do and asking for the strength to do it. She felt she needed to return to work so when her scheduled shift arrived Joanne went to the hospital. Before going in she stopped to pray, asking God for strength and wisdom to help the people inside and to touch their lives with hope.
The day was tiring and exhausting but she got through it. The day after and the day after that were much the same. The work was difficult and frustrating at times. Yet there were also moments where she felt that she was helping and before Joanne knew it another week had passed. Her supervisor called her into the office.
"So you'll be staying?" the older woman asked.
"I think I will," Joanne said. "Things seem to be getting better here."
"They're not different at all," the supervisor said shaking her head. "Things are just as bad here as they were the week when you thought you couldn't continue. The difference is in you not this place. You went home and came back with more than yourself. You let God give you what you needed when you opened yourself up in prayer."
Joanne thought about the week that had just finished. It had been the same people and the same situations yet somehow she was able to handle them. She realized she had patience, hope, and a strength which were not her own when she prayed.
"How did you know prayer is what I needed to keep me going?"
"Because that is what I need to keep me going." Her supervisor smiled. "I need God's help each and every day. And it's what I tell every young nurse who comes here and discovers that they need more than themselves for this job."
"But what about the people who tell you they don't pray?" Joanne asked. "How do they find the strength to keep going?"
The supervisor shrugged. "I have no idea. They never come back after the first week."
Peter Andrew Smith is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada who currently serves at St. James United Church in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He is the author of All Things Are Ready (CSS), a book of lectionary-based communion prayers, as well as many stories and articles, which can be found listed at www.peterandrewsmith.com.
**************
StoryShare, July 25, 2010, issue.
Copyright 2010 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"I Have Loved You..." by Craig Kelly
"Daily Bread" by Peter Andrew Smith
* * * * * * * * *
I Have Loved You…
Craig Kelly
Hosea 1:2-10
He instinctively flinched as the spit stung his eye.
"I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I WANT YOU DEAD! DEAD, YOU HEAR ME?!? YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!"
As he rubbed his spit-coated eye, he was suddenly knocked into the bare white wall, leaving him momentarily dazed. When the haze cleared, he snapped his head up, fully expecting to see a fist rushing toward his face. What he saw, however, jarred him just as much as that fist would have.
The force that had knocked him over was actually two men dressed completely in white rushing into the room to wrestle the spitter down onto the hospital bed, wrapping leather restraints around her wrists and ankles as she flailed about frantically, desperately trying to escape, perhaps to try to make good on her threat.
The sight of his wife tied down to a hospital bed stung worse than the spit. He turned away, his tears washing his eyes clean. He had known for a while that this had to be done, but knowing didn't make it any easier. He found himself leaning back against that white wall, using it to brace himself, fighting the urge to collapse into a heap of tears and despair on the cold, linoleum floor.
Behind him, he could still hear the cacophony of screams and expletives, with the clang of the restraints against the metal bed railing providing a chaotic rhythm. With the euphoria of her high now fully dispelled, the true music of her heart was now being played at full volume. No love, no joy, no peace, just chaos. Such was the woman he loved.
This drug rehab facility had promised "tough love," doing whatever it takes to break the spell that drugs had placed on their patients. However, seeing his wife in restraints screaming in agony, he didn't know if this tough love was aimed at the patient or the patient's loved ones. He looked back at her in her bed, knowing that if he could somehow take her place and free her from all of this, he would.
The screams eventually died down, replaced instead by quiet sobbing. She looked up at him, her eyes, now streaming with tears, filled with a pleading desperation instead of the red-hot rage that had been there not long before.
"Baby, please, please, let's just go home. I promise I'll be good. Things will be back to the way they were before. I'll be good to you, baby. I'll be so good. Just let me go home. I won't touch the stuff again, I swear." Her head fell back against the pillow, her tears soaking into the stark white pillow cover.
Just the way they were before? His mind went back through the years of their marriage. He knew she had a history when he married her. Yet all he could see was the goodness in her, the beauty. He loved her with an intense, white-hot, no-holds-barred love. It didn't make sense, but it wasn't supposed to. He chose her, not because of what she had done or even who she was, but just because he loved her. Did he need another reason?
And yet, practically from day one, her heart was not there with him. She needed -- she craved -- the drugs, the other men, the life away from him. He offered order; she wanted chaos. Even the child "they" had symbolized this faithlessness. He had no Asian in his ancestry, and yet his "son" had almond-shaped eyes. And still, he took that child in as his own. He knew the child wasn't his, yet he loved him with all the love he would give to his own son.
She would disappear for weeks, months at a time, hanging out with pimps and drug lords, catering to their every whim, desperate for another hit. He would drive through every dark alleyway and side street looking for her. At times, he would even see her leaning on a car, dressed in a tight, revealing top, short mini-skirt, fishnet stockings, and stiletto heels, selling herself to some nameless john. After a while, she would come home bruised, beaten, and half-naked, hoping he would take her in. And through the hurt and the rage -- yes, rage -- he felt, he still had that burning love for her. He would yell at her, scream, cajole, and even plead with her. Every time, after a while, he would find her gone, doing the same thing all over again. Every night he would cry himself to sleep, his arm reaching across the bed, longing to feel her body there, shuffling over to cuddle with him.
She wanted things to go back to the way they used to be? His blood began to boil. The white in the room began to turn deep crimson. She wants to use me again? She wants to just keep me on a string, carrying me along while she does whatever she pleases? Does she not know the depths of my feelings, the passion of my love for her? Does she not know what I have continued to bring her out of, how I would keep taking her in time and time again? How can she keep doing this to me? NO! NOT THIS TIME!
A guttural scream escaped his lips as he raised his hand to strike her. Her eyes grew wide and she began to tremble as she anticipated the pain of the blow across her face. His hand stayed up for what seemed like an eternity as she could see the rage that was once in her eyes now transferred to his.
His tears continued to stream down his deep red cheeks, practically ready to boil under the heat of his rage. Yet his hand started to lower. She started to smile, thinking his anger might pass once again.
Then he struck her.
When she was with the pimps and dealers, she had often been beaten. She had suffered broken limbs, rapes, deep lacerations, the works. More than once, she had been left for dead.
Yet this slap in the face hurt. It really hurt.
Without saying a word, he turned his back and walked out of the room. She looked up as she saw him walk out of the room and turn a corner. She wanted to scream after him, telling him to go to hell, but the words stuck in her throat. All she could do was lay her head back on her pillow and wail.
* * *
He looked somberly down at his desk. The legal papers were still there, sitting silently in front of him, waiting patiently. They had all the time in the world. At the top, printed in ink as black as midnight:
PETITION FOR DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE
His mind drifted back to the words he had heard hours (Was it really hours?) earlier: "As your attorney and as your friend, you've got to end this. Cut her off. Spare yourself this agony."
He looked up at the framed picture sitting on his desk. His wife was smiling broadly, reaching, it seemed, from ear to ear. She was in her wedding dress, the white train flowing for what seemed like miles. Her hair was in a very becoming up do, the brilliance of the red showing even through the veil. Her eyes sparkled like perfectly cut diamonds. She was radiant.
End it? Cut her off? Could he do it? Should he? He thought back to her wedding dress, the gleam in her eyes, her smile as she walked down the aisle. He remembered the love that pulsed through him like electricity that day. He thought back to the way his heart jumped every time he would look at her.
Slowly, he rose from his desk and walked over to one of the bookshelves that lined the walls of his study. He turned on the small bookshelf stereo and pressed the PLAY button on the CD player. The room was soon filled with the flowing strings and perfect choral harmonies of Bach's Mass in B Minor. He collapsed back in his chair, tilted his head back, and let the music flow through him.
He loved her. Even now, he loved her. All he wanted was to have her in his arms again, to wipe the past clean and start all over. He wanted to know that she would have the same heart for him that he had for her. He just wanted to love her.
But she hurt him. She cut him. She bruised him. He loved her, and she spurned him again, and again, and again. How much more of this could he really take? He knew that right now she couldn't be faithful if she tried.
But he loved her.
After a short while, the choir began to sing the Agnus Dei:
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
have mercy upon us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
have mercy upon us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
grant us peace.
Have mercy upon us. Give us your peace. Take us back. Take me back. Forgive me.
His tears fell on the divorce papers, making the ink start to run. All he could do was sit there and cry.
Take me back. Forgive me.
Slowly he rose, wiping his face. Taking the tear-stained papers, he walked over to the corner of the room. The paper shredder let out a high-pitched whirring sound as he fed the papers through it.
He looked up, not smiling, but feeling a lightness and peace he hadn't felt in what seemed like years.
The day is coming. There will be reconciliation. I will take her back.
He walked back to his desk and raised the picture of his wife to his lips, kissing it tenderly.
"I'll see you again soon," he whispered as Bach's mass filled the room.
Craig Kelly writes copy for CSS Publishing Company in Lima, Ohio.
Daily Bread
Peter Andrew Smith
Luke 11:1-13
Joanne had always wanted to be a nurse. She loved to line up her stuffed animals on the bed and play hospital as a little girl. She was certain of what she was to do with her life in school even when others were searching for interests and activities. Joanne studied hard and was accepted into a prestigious nursing program. Her focus and determination allowed her to graduate near the top of her class. She carefully considered all the places she could work and chose to take a position at a small hospital desperate for help.
Joanne began her first day as a nurse with enthusiasm and excitement. She was finally able to do what she had always wanted to do with her life. When that initial day ended she went home and cried herself to sleep. There was so much pain and suffering and so little she could do.
The next day and indeed the rest of the week was filled with further heartache and despair. She started to seriously wonder if her lifelong dream had no place in the real world. She imagined that nursing would be an opportunity to help people but instead she found there was little she could do to ease people's despair and helplessness. She dreamed of bringing hope and healing to the sick but she saw little change in the lives of the people under her care.
At the end of that first terrible week, Joanne's shift supervisor called her into the office and closed the door. The older woman looked at Joanne for a few moments.
"Are you okay?"
Tears welled up in Joanne's eyes. "No."
"The week not what you were expecting?"
Joanne broke down and poured out her frustrations and fears about nursing. The older woman handed her a tissue and waited until she finished crying.
"Do you want to keep nursing?" the supervisor asked.
"I do," Joanne said. "I have always wanted to be a nurse. I want to make a difference."
The supervisor took a deep breath. "Do you believe in God?"
Joanne nodded.
"Do you pray?"
"Sometimes."
"Then go home and pray about what you are feeling and ask what God wants for your life," the older woman said. "If you feel you are supposed to come back next week then pray before you start each and every shift."
"What should I pray for?" Joanne said.
"Ask God for the strength to do your work and the wisdom to do it well."
Joanne spent the next few days in prayer, asking God to show her what she should do and asking for the strength to do it. She felt she needed to return to work so when her scheduled shift arrived Joanne went to the hospital. Before going in she stopped to pray, asking God for strength and wisdom to help the people inside and to touch their lives with hope.
The day was tiring and exhausting but she got through it. The day after and the day after that were much the same. The work was difficult and frustrating at times. Yet there were also moments where she felt that she was helping and before Joanne knew it another week had passed. Her supervisor called her into the office.
"So you'll be staying?" the older woman asked.
"I think I will," Joanne said. "Things seem to be getting better here."
"They're not different at all," the supervisor said shaking her head. "Things are just as bad here as they were the week when you thought you couldn't continue. The difference is in you not this place. You went home and came back with more than yourself. You let God give you what you needed when you opened yourself up in prayer."
Joanne thought about the week that had just finished. It had been the same people and the same situations yet somehow she was able to handle them. She realized she had patience, hope, and a strength which were not her own when she prayed.
"How did you know prayer is what I needed to keep me going?"
"Because that is what I need to keep me going." Her supervisor smiled. "I need God's help each and every day. And it's what I tell every young nurse who comes here and discovers that they need more than themselves for this job."
"But what about the people who tell you they don't pray?" Joanne asked. "How do they find the strength to keep going?"
The supervisor shrugged. "I have no idea. They never come back after the first week."
Peter Andrew Smith is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada who currently serves at St. James United Church in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He is the author of All Things Are Ready (CSS), a book of lectionary-based communion prayers, as well as many stories and articles, which can be found listed at www.peterandrewsmith.com.
**************
StoryShare, July 25, 2010, issue.
Copyright 2010 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
