The Promise Box by Tricia Goyer Read Free Book Online Page A

authority to execute judgment also, because he is the
     Son of man.’”
    Tears filled the corners of her eyes. Lydia’s heart warmed at those words as if someone
     had started a kindling fire deep in her chest. She let out a low sigh. This was a
     good message for Mem, but what about her?
    When the sermons were done and another hymn was read, it was time to leave for the
     cemetery.
    Four men, her dat’s friends, carried the casket from the house to the black, horse-drawn
     hearse. They sat in silence as Dat drove the buggy. Lydia didn’t know what to say
     to bringhim comfort. She doubted any words could. And for the first time since leaving the
     Amish a deep missing came to her. As she drove in line with these faithful people
     she considered what returning—really returning—would be like. Not only to chronicle
     the “stepping into the old ways” as Bonnie encouraged her to do. But to consider the
     way of faith she’d left. To consider God.
    They approached the small cemetery, and her eyes moved to the grave—an open chasm
     waiting for the simple pine coffin. Men from their church had spent the past two days
     digging it, coming as they could between chores, the sweat of their labor mingling
     with an occasional tear.
    The black-dressed members of the community moved from their buggies and circled the
     grave. There were no tears now; those would be shared in private.
    The bishop said a few more words at the graveside. The whole thing seemed part of
     a dream. Lydia had edited books about death, dying, funerals, and grief. Those concepts
     were easy to express on the printed page, but in reality the emotions jumbled together.
    Anger, sadness, longing, mixed with a hint of joy that Mem no longer faced sickness
     or pain. Yet when they lowered Mem’s coffin into the hole in the ground Lydia’s knees
     trembled and her stomach turned. The blue sky and green of the trees faded to gray
     and the
kapp
s and faces of those around her blurred.
    “I can’t watch it. I can’t…”
    She turned and walked back down the road, the sound of shovelfuls of dirt hitting
     the wood behind her. She refused to look back, to see the reaction of the others as
     she walked away. Thankfully Dat didn’t follow as she went to stand by the buggy. The
     sky was bright blue and high. Really high, as if God had attached strings to the heavens
     and hiked it up.
    It was easier in Seattle to think that life was up to her, but here it was hard to
     think that. Being in her parents’ home exhibited a faith lived out even more than
     spoken. Witnessing her mem’s burial made her wish she could believe like them. How
     could they just accept it without question? Mem had told her faith was believing what
     she couldn’t see. Yet what she saw—what she knew about herself—was what made the believing
     impossible.
    “You all right?”
    It was only as she heard the voice that she realized footsteps approached. Lydia turned.
     Gideon walked to her, his face a mask of pain.
    She opened her mouth to answer, but no words came.
    “Forget I asked. Of course you aren’t all right. This day—I imagine this day is the
     worst one you can think of.” His gaze told her he understood. What pain had he faced?
     She couldn’t ask, not now. If she did the tears would come for certain.
    “It’s a bad day, all right.”
    “Can I walk you to the Sommer house fer the meal?”
    “Walk?”
    He sheepishly kicked at a rock on the ground. “I don’t have my own buggy here in Montana.”
    “A walk,
ja
—yes. It’s not far. It’ll be…good to stretch my legs. To give my heart space to ache.”
     She’d almost said
gut
instead of
good
. It surprised her how quickly her speech wanted to make the natural transition to
     the slower cadence and common Pennsylvania Dutch phrases she’d spoken for most of
     her life.
    Gideon nodded, then turned back toward the cemetery. “I’ll tell yer dat. I’ll be right
     back.”
    She nodded and watched him go.