A Bride for Donnigan (29 page)
From then on the reading of the Bible was a part of every day. Donnigan always gathered all of the family around right after breakfast and opened up the book. They began with Genesis. It was a thrill for Donnigan to discover how God had created the earth and all it contained. They discussed it with their little family.
“Did He make everything?” asked the chattery Fiona.
“Yes, He did,” said Donnigan. “It says so right here.”
“The birds?”
“The sky?”
“Worms?”
“Mama?”
“Washtubs?”
“Whiskers?”
“Snipper?” Snipper was their new dog.
To each of the childish questions, Donnigan offered a firm “Yes.”
“Really, Donnigan. I don’t think He made washtubs,” Kathleen gently rebuked him later.
“Well, He made what washtubs are made of—doesn’t that count?” replied Donnigan, unabashed.
Kathleen nodded. “Perhaps,” she agreed.
The older children enjoyed most of the Genesis stories, though they did not understand them all. But when Donnigan got on into Leviticus and Deuteronomy, he had a hard time holding even Sean’s attention. And the young Eamon was next to impossible.
“Are you sure we should be reading that to the children?” Kathleen dared to ask. “Maybe it is meant just for grown-ups.”
Donnigan wondered the same thing. He decided to do the reading on his own and then share the easier stories with his family in his own words. It seemed to work much better.
“We’re supposed to be praying, too,” Donnigan said to Kathleen one day as he laid the Bible aside. Kathleen just nodded.
“Do you know any prayers?” was his next question. “No,” she replied.
“I wonder where we can get some,” said Donnigan.
“Maybe the old folks in town would know.”
“I already asked them. They said the parson did the prayers—and he took the books with him.”
“Then I guess we’ll just have to do without prayers,” said Kathleen.
Donnigan rubbed his hand over the cover of the Bible, saying only, “I really don’t think we’ve got this all figured out.”
“I was thinking—if this one is a boy—you might like to name him.”
They were sitting by the table at the end of a long, exhausting day having a cup of buttermilk together.
“You run out of names?” asked Donnigan lightly.
“Oh no. We could call him Aiden or Keenan or Devlin or—”
Donnigan held up his hand.
Kathleen smiled and took another sip of the cold buttermilk.
“And if it’s a girl,” prompted Donnigan.
Kathleen tilted her head to one side teasingly Her dark eyes were shining, her hair, from which she had loosened the pins, tumbling about her shoulders.
She still looks like a child
, thought Donnigan to himself and felt a renewed urge to protect her.
“I might even let you name a girl,” responded Kathleen after having given the matter pretended serious consideration.
Donnigan nodded. “I accept that challenge.”
The baby was another son. Donnigan named him Timothy.
Eighteen months later a baby girl was added to the family.
“Well—who is she?” asked Kathleen as she pulled the wee one close and kissed her soft cheek.
“I would like to say Kathleen after her mama,” responded Donnigan, “but since that might get confusing—she’s Rachel Kathleen.”
Kathleen smiled. Little Rachel. She pulled the baby close and gave her another kiss.
The years had been kind to the family. Never had they faced serious illness or mishap. Except for the loss of baby Taryn, Kathleen had brought all of her babies safely into the world with no problems. They were healthy and ruggedly hardy from farm life.
Donnigan kept their bodies toughened yet agile with a balance of work and play, and Kathleen kept their minds active and alert as they pored over lesson books.
Each morning Donnigan read from the Bible. The children had learned most of the Bible stories over the years, and Kathleen was often amused to hear their childish discussion about God.
“They talk about Him like He was—was a part of their world,” said Kathleen to Donnigan.
“I hope He is,” responded Donnigan—but his voice was still filled with doubts.
“I mean—like He is—is as real to them as—as I am.”
Donnigan nodded. That was how he wanted it to be—but was he doing it right? Was he giving them what they needed? “Oh, God,” he often groaned in times of quiet reflection, “give me wisdom. Show me what to do. It would be a terrible thing to prepare them for only this life.”
“Why do we always read the Bible?” It was Eamon, their difficult one, who posed the question.
Donnigan laid the book carefully back on the table.
“Because,” he said with great feeling, “that is the only way that we can get to know God—who He is—and who He wishes us to be—how He wants us to live.”
Eamon shrugged, seemingly unconvinced—or else just un-concerned.
“We already know about Him,” said the five-year-old boy. He had been told the same stories often enough that he should know them by heart by now.
“Do we?” said his father. “Maybe we do. Let’s see. Tell me what you know about God—all of you.”
Eamon looked surprised.
It was the outgoing Fiona who responded first. “He made—everything.” She swung her hand in a big arc to include as much as she could.
“He made the waters come down,” said Brenna softly, “an’ all the animals went in the boat.”
“He’s sorta—magic,” said Sean.
“Magic? How?” prompted Donnigan.
“He can do things that no one else can do.”
Donnigan nodded.
“He deads people when they’re bad,” said Eamon.
“Kills people,” corrected Kathleen, and then felt shock at her own statement.
“He doesn’t kill people,” argued Fiona, casting a disgusted look Eamon’s way.
“He does too,” insisted Eamon. “What about the men the earth ate up? And what about when the flood came?”
“The people were already in the big boat,” cut in Fiona quickly.
“Uh-uh. Nope,” said Eamon, shaking his head emphatically. “Only Noah and his wife and them others were in the boat.”
“There were eight,” cut in Sean who always listened well to the Bible stories. “Noah and his wife and three sons and their wives.”
But Eamon didn’t seem to care much about the particulars.
“Well—all the other people got dead,” insisted Eamon.
“That’s ‘cause God was mad,” interposed Brenna softly. The fact didn’t seem to trouble her in the least.
“I don’t dead people just ’cause I’m mad,” said Eamon.
“You’re not God,” Fiona quickly flung back at him. Her voice was shrill and angry.
“Just a minute,” said Donnigan. The little conversation was getting totally out of hand and not at all what he had intended.
“Sit down—all of you. I think we need to discuss this.”
The children all sat down, as told, though Eamon looked reluctant to do so and was the last child to finally take his place on the kitchen floor.
Oh, God
, Donnigan found his very soul crying out,
help me with this. Please help me.
He turned back to the ring of children—the wonderful yet frightening responsibility that God had given to him. What were the right words? Did he have the truth to share with them? Or was he still dreadfully lacking?
“God made us,” he began. “And He wants us good—like Fiona said. But people didn’t stay good. Remember the story about Adam. He did bad. And after that it was very easy for all men—and women—to do bad, too.”
Donnigan stopped, took a deep breath and licked his lips.
“Now God didn’t stop with just making this world,” he went on, hoping that he had his thoughts right. “He also made a beautiful heaven. It has everything in it to make us happy—and nothing in it to make us sad. God made heaven for people. But He also made a hell. He made it bad. In fact, He made it just as bad as it could possibly be so that no one would want to go there. So that people would try
very hard not
to go there.”
Donnigan stopped again and looked at the little faces around him.
“I don’t want to go there,” put in Fiona, shaking her head emphatically.
“But people were still bad,” went on Donnigan. “God told them and told them to be good—but they liked being bad, better.
“From time to time, there was a man who wanted to be good. To do what God told him. So when God would find a man like that, He would talk with him, help him, and sometimes God even felt that it was important to get the good man away from the bad people.”
Donnigan stopped and looked straight at the squirming young Eamon.
“It is very easy for even good people to be—be followers of bad people. God knew that. So sometimes He took the good people away from the bad place where they lived. Like He did with Abraham when He called him away from Ur. Like He did with Noah and his family when He had them build the boat. He sent the flood of water to save Noah and his family from the evil around them. If Noah had stayed with the bad people, his family might have soon become bad, too.
“But sometimes, God used other ways. There were many good people—and bad people mixed in with them. Well, God knew that if the bad people were allowed to stay there and do the wrong things—then it wouldn’t be long until other people would be doing wrong things too.