A Second Chance

Lauren is a recently widowed young mother who struggles trying to reconcile her conflicting emotions regarding the death of her husband and her hopes for the future. Will Lauren trust in God's timing and lean on her faith to sustain her as she learns from the mistakes she made in her marriage and faces the challenges of being a single parent?

THE FUNERAL (1)
Lauren stared unseeingly at a man’s lifeless body in the casket – her husband’s. Her breath came in short spurts as she tried in vain to conjure up despair at the loss of her faithful companion of five years. The black lace mantilla she wore fluttered softly with the effort but her icy heart felt no such response. Closing her eyes she tried to picture him as he was when she first fell in love with him – a prize catch in the church, his warm personality overshadowing the fact that he wasn’t physically perfect, with his bright smile and friendly wink drawing her in and opening up her introverted tendencies. She had blossomed under his love. They started a romance quickly. Lauren had never even second guessed her choice – life was pulsing with purpose and hope when she was around him. They had married with everyone’s blessings and started their new life together. Matt had a heart for sharing his testimony with others and, because they were both involved in their church and supported mission work it seemed God was calling them to serve in that capacity and spread His good news to the other side of the world. Within a year they were off, taking a plane to Sri Lanka in the culmination of their whirlwind first year of marriage. Lauren touched a dahlia softly with her fingertips as she fondly remembered her first couple of months in a foreign land. The natural beauty that had surrounded them was breathtaking. The exotic aura of the setting was further enhanced by the highly ornamented architecture and elephant carvings as a decorative necessity. She had adjusted quickly to life there, within the first six months even venturing out by herself to go shopping, meeting with girls for discipleship times, and volunteering at the nearest orphanage. It was an adjustment that she was prepared to make – giving up customs and cultural beliefs she thought were normal and adopting new ways of doing things in order to fit in. What she had not been prepared for was adjusting to her husband – his friendly countenance had been replaced by occasional dark moods, his sweet words with biting, hurtful comments, his long passionate kisses with scarcely a perfunctory peck. Desperate, Lauren read all the marriage material she could get her hands on. Wanting to discuss the state of their union she would read excerpts from marriage books out loud or try to recruit him to join her in going through a his and her’s book. Matt’s initial response was to grumble, grudgingly comply, and then to rip apart all the suggestions the author was proposing. Frustrated, Lauren gave up her attempts to change her man and concentrated her efforts on rearranging her living room instead. She had the dull teak floor refinished, hung up raw silk drapes the color of persimmon and filled the corners with lively potted palms. It was one of the things Lauren loved about the island, the many varieties of palms with their graceful fronds dancing in the balmy breezes. It was around that time Lauren discovered she was pregnant. Matt's joy at hearing the news gave her hope that the undesirable changes she had seen in him were a result of the stress of the move and not the way things were destined to be forever. It occurred to Lauren that she was being hypercritical of her husband and his problems, especially when she recalled that “first take the log out of your own eye and than you can see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye” bit. She also felt convicted about her own personal relationship with the Lord. Missionaries were supposed to be this super sort of Christian, the heroes of the faith and she could scarcely discipline herself enough to have a daily quiet time, much less be the prayer warrior/spiritual giant she imagined people expected of missionaries. The guilt gnawed at her and was always there under the surface even though she put up a good front as the doting, loyal wife. In fact, most of what she did testified to that fact – she studied and tried to model herself after the Proverbs 31 wife by caring for her household, cultivating the gift of hospitality, extending her hand to the poor and speaking respectfully of her husband. She stopped short of buying land and selling goods only because she had no idea what she could make to sell and was equally daunted at the prospect of purchasing land. “If I only worked harder to be a better wife to Matt,” she thought, “maybe he wouldn't respond to me the way he does.” In August they welcomed their son Seth into the world. Joyfully, Lauren threw herself into the task of motherhood, spending long hours nursing Seth, singing to him and reading him simple Bible stories. Lauren was saddened by her husband's occasional relapses into his moods but her spirits were always buoyed by playing with Seth. Once when they had company over, Matt embarrassed her by contradicting something she had said in front of their guests. It was a minor detail and depended on the person's point of view but his insistence on it humiliated her. She acquiesced, finished telling the story (which had lost its appeal after their disagreement) and escaped to “tend to the baby”. It was amazing that no matter how down she felt, all it took was a few minutes of the itsy bitsy spider for Lauren's sense of disillusionment and hurt to evaporate. How she loved her son's sweet innocence and gurgling smiles. How it pained her to think how soon he would grow up and grow out of his pudgy dimples and perpetual optimism.
Lauren started as she felt a hand on her shoulder. “We are so sorry the Lord took him so early”, Bart and Sarah Sullivan, a kindly couple her parents' age broke her reverie. Delight at seeing them spread an unexpected smile across her face as she forgot the somberness of the occasion that brought them together. “I'm so glad ya'll came,” she exclaimed, genuinely glad to see them. “I know Matt would have enjoyed seeing you again.” They had really helped to support Matt and her in their mission work and even though Lauren had always admired them she felt she had never gotten to know them as well as she would have liked. Since late middle school their families had gone to the same church and they had children around her age. Though for some reason, she had never become real chummy with any of them either. “I know the Lord will give you special grace to get through this.” Sarah offered words of comfort as Lauren tried her best to look the part of the bereaved wife. Sarah was the sort of exemplary Proverbs 31 woman Lauren had always aspired to become. She longed to seek Godly counsel from a woman like her but was concerned that being honest about her struggles would only serve to paint her husband in a bad light and she sincerely desired to avoid any hint of malice or bitterness on her part, especially since he was no longer around. It was the same difficulty she had faced in marriage – those who had never witnessed his faults would not believe he was capable of such behavior and likely would think worse of her for mentioning them. She had kept hoping that prayer and patience would work its magic on him and that by some miracle the Holy Spirit would overcome the anger that so often ruled his heart. Sarah leaned in and gave her a quick squeeze as they took their leave of her. “If there is ever anything you need, don’t hesitate to call. We are available for babysitting since our own children haven’t blessed us with a grandbaby yet,” she winked. Smiling, Lauren nodded as they filed into the sanctuary for the service.
Glancing at the gathered crowd, she took her place in the front row beside her parents and pulled Seth into her lap. Harp music played softly in the background as people continued to file in. Lauren didn’t wonder at the size of the crowd, Matt had been such a popular guy, she expected a large number would come to pay their respects. It made her nervous though, as she knew that to fulfill one of Matt’s last requests, she would be performing a song at the end of the service. She was the kind that usually only sang in the privacy of her own home but she had unwillingly obliged after he insisted. Matt had always liked her singing, although, until now, she had only performed in groups and in choirs and not since high school. Nervously, she bit her lip as the first person to speak took the stage. She sat and listened and willed herself to relax as he went on about Matt’s friendliness, his love of being around people and his commitment to the Lord. This was repeated by three more people who also gave their testimonies to Matt’s character as Lauren crossed and uncrossed her legs, fidgeted with a tissue and thought ironically that she, who probably knew him best of all, in the end, probably loved him least. Lauren rose as the last person to speak left the stage. Passing Seth to her mother’s lap, she focused on getting to the stage without incident, carefully ascending each step slowly and concentrating on balancing in her three inch black pumps. Crossing to behind the podium, she pulled the microphone from its stand and surveyed the throng of puffy red eyes and compassionate faces, silent save for the frequent sniffle. Taking a deep breath and managing a tremulous smile, she began in a steady voice, “Thank you all for coming today to honor the memory of a man who has been such a big part of our lives. I know he, and I, feel so blessed to count you all as friends.” She paused to brush her mantilla back behind her shoulder and collect her thoughts. “One of the things I will cherish most about Matt is the ability he had to challenge me to do things I would normally never have done - including standing before you today to sing him a song.” She smiled self-deprecatingly, cleared her throat and continued, “I feel the need to let you know this is the fulfillment of a promise he had me make and I beg you would excuse my attempt to imitate Twila Paris – and so, as we say in the south, please bear with me!” The crowd sympathetically let out a few good-natured chuckles as she nodded to the sound booth and took a seat on the edge of a barstool. She crossed her legs at the ankles and studied the floor as the calming piano intro of “I Will Glorify” rang out. Lifting the microphone to her lips, she began the first verse softly while trying to steady her trembling voice. Reaching the line, “We will worship Him in righteousness, we will worship Him alone”, it suddenly struck her how personal and individual worship actually was. Being the last line before the piano interlude, she had time to digest this before jumping into the next verse. It occurred to her that she had always had an erroneous view of worship, that of singing songs and praying as part of a congregation, but she realized that true worship was and always had been what took place between the Creator God and herself, only what had passed between the individual and his God, any imitation of which was false. Raising her chin and lifting her eyes toward heaven, she sang out the next verse resolutely, “He is Lord Heaven, Lord of earth, He is Lord of all who live…” as she felt her spirit soar along with the words, she desired her praise to be an offering to her savior and a testimony to His faithfulness. As the ending note echoed quietly, resounding applause suddenly broke the stillness, pleasing Lauren and startling Seth, who began to whimper. Replacing the microphone in its stand, she dipped her chin and smiled as she descended the steps to her family and took Seth in her arms, cradling his face against her shoulder. The response made Laurens heart swell, as she realized she had not pulled it off in her own strength, but that out of truly worshiping the Lord she had been able to touch others by doing something her husband had asked of her. The last thing he had asked of her.