Northern Lights Trilogy (78 page)

“Tora?” Elsa asked in wonder.

“Tora,” Kaatje answered. She felt her face heat with embarrassment as she related the intensity of the moment. “I told her I needed to take her home. To see you, Elsa.” Kaatje glanced at Trent. “I didn’t know you were here. I would never have—”

“No, no,” Trent said, holding his hands up. “You did nothing wrong.” He looked rueful. “She simply picked the least opportune
moment to reenter my life.” He laughed a little. “Isn’t that just like your sister?” he asked Elsa.

Elsa joined his laughter. “Yes. Tora always has liked making a grand entrance.”

“The question is, has she made a final exit?”

Kaatje pondered his concern, then said, “I don’t think so. I think she was taken aback, a bit bewildered to find you two … as you were. She probably spoke the truth. There is something different about her. Monumentally so. Let’s trust that God is at work on her. We’ll know soon enough about the outcome.”

“You are a remarkable woman, Kaatje,” Trent said. “To come through what you have. To bear the burden of what Tora laid at your feet … and still be able to forgive.”

Kaatje shook her head. “It was not me. As I said, I’ve imagined feeling many emotions upon seeing Tora again, but none of them held a trace of forgiveness. I asked for it, I begged for it, but until today, I could not conjure up one smidgen of forgiveness within my heart for Tora Anders.” She glanced at Elsa, then Trent, feeling hesitant to say what she had to say, yet unable to say anything else. “This is bigger than all of us. Never have I felt the Holy Spirit as I have today. He is here. He is present. And he is at work in Tora.”

Magda took one look at Tora’s face as she fled the Ramstad home and seemed to know just what to do. The old woman had followed Tora and Kaatje at a distance, and Tora had allowed it, feeling comforted by her presence. Now Tora followed her lead, unable to do anything else. She felt limp, exhausted, and worthless. She was empty, inside and out, and incapable of making another move on her own.

The old seer led her up the hill and down another. They made so many turns, Tora lost track of where they were in the city. Not that she cared. It would have made perfect sense to her to lie down and die there in the muddy tracks of the street, so tired was she. Suddenly, before them was a small clapboard church. Wearily, she climbed the steps
behind Magda and entered the white building. It smelled of newly sawn lumber and candle wax. At the front was a small altar and beyond it, a picture window that framed an incredible view of Puget Sound.

Magda led her to the second pew, and Tora sagged into it. Moments later, she reappeared with a glass of water and a man who followed her into the tiny sanctuary. He gave Tora a tiny smile, turned, and knelt in front of the altar. Idly, Tora gulped down the water and watched as the man prayed for a good five minutes. Magda slipped into the pew behind her, uncharacteristically silent. Tora remained still.

The pastor rose from his knees and came to sit in front of Tora, his arm over the back of the first pew. “Tora, I am Pastor Mellinger. Thank you for coming here.”

“I did not choose to. Magda brought me here.”

“For good reason.”

Tora’s eyes flew upward, meeting the young minister’s clear gray gaze.

“Once in a while, Magda brings me very special people.”

“I am afraid this isn’t one of those times, pastor,” Tora mumbled bitterly. She was angry at his supposition, at Magda for bringing her here. And just as quickly, she was incredibly sad. Tears came unbidden.

“You are brokenhearted,” the man said softly.

“Do not believe my tears, pastor. I’m capable of working them up at a moment’s notice.” She looked down, to the side, anywhere but into those clear gray eyes that seemed to see all as clearly as Magda did in her more lucid moments.

He studied her for a minute before answering. “Perhaps once. Perhaps once you used tears to your advantage. No longer. You have seen too much.”

He reached out and wiped one cheek, then the other. Tora remained motionless. His touch, obviously born of utter confidence and
love, stunned her. There was no hesitation on his part, no reluctance to touch a filthy woman of the streets.

“You are different now, Tora. Because of the pain you have suffered.”

“Yes. I am a bitter old woman of … twenty-three.” She laughed, the sound hollowly echoing in the tiny chamber. When had her birthday come and gone before?

“You cry the tears of Christ’s chosen. You are dear to his heart.”

Tora snorted. “Impossible. I have denied him too often for him to care about me any longer.”

“Do you want him to care?”

Tora glanced up at the pastor, studying his kind eyes. She wanted to shock him, stun him, shake him out of his assumption that he understood her. “I had physical relations outside of marriage. With a married man. I bore his child and left the babe at his wife’s feet. I abandoned my baby. And why? Because I wanted more! Why would Christ care about someone capable of such deeds?”

“Because he loves you. He died for you and your sins. His entire goal in life was to bring you back into accord with God. This is your chance.”

“Did he have to take everything from me to bring me back to him?”

The pastor considered her words and then asked, “I don’t know. Did he?”

His question surprised Tora. Had it taken losing all for her to consider returning to God again?

“Did he take it all from you? Or did you do it all yourself? In any case, it matters little. We are all sinful people. What matters is where you are now. Sin’s eventual penalty is death. We are all dying. All I see in you is emptiness and despair.”

“I tried to kill myself. I wanted to die. To end it all. To end the pain.”

“Jesus can fill that void inside you. He can make you whole again. He came and died for you—your penalty has been paid. He wants you to live. For him. For you. Are you hungry for the Christ, Tora?”

Tears flowed freely now down Tora’s face. How could she hope for such promises again? She had tried her best to be all she could, and what had it gotten her? Now this minister in a lonely church wanted her to trust that God could give her all her heart desired?

“I have nothing. What use can God have for me?”

He stared back at her, seemingly unperturbed. “You have your life. He will use you in ways that will amaze you.”

Tora laughed. “If you had known me, pastor … if you had seen me a year ago, you’d think it was laughable too. I’ve never let anyone use me. I’ve used others.”

“Perhaps, then, God
has
brought you to this place. To find a new path, a new direction.”

“He arranged for men to kidnap me? To be raped and thrown on a train to this place?”

As if she had slapped him, pain shot across the pastor’s face. It occurred to her that the old Tora would have used this moment to play her hand. To manipulate him to gain something for herself. But she was tired. She wanted no more games. She wanted answers. She wanted rest.

“No. Our God is one of love. Sin runs rampant across our world. You got in the way. Perhaps it was sin that led you to that crossroads. God wants to save, not condemn. But he uses these painful moments in our lives to show us how we can walk more closely with him. He uses these moments when we are weakest to build us up, to edify us. You will see. I promise. Someday, Tora, you will look back on these days and be glad for them.”

“You are joking.”

“I am not.”

They sat in silence for several minutes. The afternoon was wearing on, the sanctuary becoming darker. Pastor Mellinger rose and
stretched out a hand in invitation to Tora. After hesitating a moment, she took it and followed after him to the altar. He struck a match and handed it to her, nodding at the two thick candles that were on either side of the table.

Unable to do anything else, Tora lit the candles, watching as a warm glow lit up the front of the room. She stared past them to the view beyond, filled with the heavily forested curving shoreline of the Sound. The water was gray, almost black, under the dark, cloudy sky. She didn’t know how long she had stood there when the pastor spoke again.

“What holds you back, Tora? What holds you back from the God who saves?”

“Sin. The darkness that resides in my heart. The emptiness. I have nothing to give.”

“Ask for it, and forgiveness is yours. He fills you with what you need.”

“How can that be? I am unworthy.”

“No one is worthy to take from the hand of Christ. Still it is his gift. We cannot do anything else. He wants us to have it. But we must believe in him. You must ask him to be the Lord of your heart. Then, the gift is yours.”

She remained where she stood, moving her eyes to one of the candles and its sputtering flame.

“Sometimes, Tora, the hardest part of forgiveness is forgiving ourselves. Ask it of God, and he’ll fling your sin as far from you as east is from west. Begin with God. Then allow yourself time to forgive yourself.”

Tora glanced at the gray-eyed man for a second before nodding once. Instinctively, she knelt where he had when he first entered the room, in front of the altar. Pastor Mellinger took one candle from its brass holder and placed it in her hands.

“You have been baptized?” he asked her softly.

She nodded. “As a baby. And later confirmed.”

He left her side, and Tora stared again at the candle and its flame.

A moment later he returned, standing on one side of her as Magda stood on the other. “Tora,” he said softly, nothing but kindness in his voice. She raised her eyes, seeing that he carried a small basin.

He dipped his fingers in the basin and reached out damp fingers to trace a cross on her forehead. “Tora, remember that you were made a child of Christ, and that the Holy Spirit is always with you. Remember that the Christ died to free you from your sins.”

“I remember,” Tora whispered, staring at the candle as water dripped between her brows.

“Remember that all you have to do is ask, and forgiveness is yours. But you have to ask. You have to change your ways and ask him into your heart. You must be willing to live as a new creature.”

“I ask it.” She closed her eyes, hesitantly choosing words long forgotten. “Father … forgive me of all I have done. Forgive me for how I have failed you … and the others who loved … me.” Her voice cracked on the last word. Then she whispered, staring into the flame, “Make me … whole again. I have never followed you. Show me how.”

“You are different now. You are part of the bride of Christ, his church.”

“I do not feel different. Only broken.”

“You know where your family is, Tora?”

“I do.”

“Go to them. Go to your child, the child you left behind. Go to the woman who accepted your child as her own. Ask their forgiveness. Ask to serve them.”

Tora wept at the idea. “I cannot. Not yet.”

“When it is time, then. And when they offer you their forgiveness, accept it. It is your path. That is why you were brought here, at this time. Accept the gladness that he has given you. Give it an opportunity to flourish in your heart. Pray for vision. For understanding of where you are to go next.”

“Right now? Here?”

The pastor laughed, the sound warming her heart. “What better place? Magda and I will wait until you are done.”

She did as he bid, repeating the words she had spoken aloud silently. They came easier by the second, like a floodgate that had been opened upon a dry prairie field.
Dear Jesus, come near me. I need you. Not for the first time, but for the first time I can remember recognizing the fact. I am sad and I am empty. The pastor says you can fill that. You can fill the emptiness inside me. Please, Father, fill me. Enter me. Make me yours as surely as I’ve wished to be my own
.

Suddenly, true contentment and happiness flooded into Tora’s heart. It was crystal clear, as if God has made the candle speak out loud to her. It was not about wealth and stature, as she had thought all along. It was about being saved by God, and forgiven, and basking in the glory of his creation, regardless of her social stature.

It was about being his. And his alone.

Springs of Living Water