Riven (54 page)

But now even his old movie didn’t grab him. He switched channels for a while and found nothing, so he left the set tuned to a cable news network and grabbed the New Testament.

Brady had never read the Bible before. He’d pretended to follow along as a kid at Aunt Lois’s church now and then, but all the
thee
s and
thou
s and
begat
s lost him along the way.

This New Testament, though, Chaplain Carey had described as easy to read. And the few verses he had looked up while reading the Romans Road pamphlet read simply enough. Brady turned to the very front and found an introductory paragraph that said the first four books were called the Gospels and contained the story of Jesus’ birth, life, death, burial, and resurrection.

Well, if that wouldn’t help him get to know who Jesus was, nothing would.

“Got a visual on Heiress Boy!” someone shouted. “He’s readin’ a Bible! Chaplain musta got to him!”

“Oh, glory! Here we go!”

“Come to Jesus, boy! You once was lost but now you found!”

61

Adamsville

Thomas tossed and turned until Grace asked what was the matter. He told her he couldn’t sleep and was going to read for a while.

The truth was, he could not get Brady Darby off his mind. This was clearly the most crucial time in the young man’s life, and if he was going to move from seeker to follower, it would likely happen soon. If he was to decide against Christ, that would happen soon too.

Thomas knelt by the couch in the living room. “God, as usual, I don’t know how to pray for Brady, such a sad, lost, desperate man. I know Your will is that he come to You, and so that is all I ask.”

Soon Thomas crept back to bed and slept soundly. In the morning he awoke with an idea. “Grace, would you record some hymns for me to share with Brady?”

“Oh, Thomas, I can barely draw enough breath to talk, let alone sing. And people his age don’t appreciate hymns, do they? Has he even heard them before?”

“Yes, as a child. But I don’t think he ever really listened. Maybe you could change some of the words, make them sound like plain English. I even have an idea which ones might best speak to him. I’ll leave a list.”

Death Row

For his station in life, Brady had always been a surprisingly fast and facile reader, and while he had no idea what to expect from the Bible—even a modern version—one thing he hadn’t anticipated was that it would keep him up all night. Whatever he had thought the person of Jesus would look like in this history of the first century, he now realized he hadn’t had a clue.

This man didn’t act like a religious leader, a missionary, or a preacher, although He certainly preached. He spoke in riddles only those with true spiritual insight seemed to be able to understand, performed all kinds of miracles, and wound up dying and rising again, just as He said he would.

Brady found himself flying through the four Gospels, finding similar stories told in slightly different ways, then moved right into the amazing stories of the early church. Why hadn’t someone told him about this before? Maybe they had. Surely his aunt Lois had. But back then he wouldn’t have been listening.

Well, he was listening now. Brady simply could not get enough of this. He broke for the morning count, for breakfast, and for lunch, but otherwise, he just kept reading and reading and reading. He kept wondering whether the things he had read in the Romans Road booklet might actually be true. Was it possible that he could come to know and trust this same Jesus for his own salvation? Coming across those salvation passages from Romans again as he read the New Testament through helped him put them into context, and they thrilled him all the more.

Brady recognized a verse or two from childhood, something that had stuck, or almost stuck, as it flew by in a Sunday school class or a vacation Bible school. One, he realized suddenly, he had once actually memorized and then never considered again until now. John 3:16—“For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.”

If Brady had ever heard what followed those familiar words, he didn’t recall it. Yet now, in light of everything else, it all seemed part of the same package.

“God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him. There is no judgment against anyone who believes in Him.”

All through the rest of his reading, Brady kept turning back to that verse and reading it over and over. His emptiness, the despair that had gripped him since the night he had ended Katie’s life and his as well, was being slowly replaced by something. What? Hope? If only it were possible to “trust Him” and avoid the coming judgment.

Brady knew that meant spiritual judgment, the fate of his soul. His flesh, his body, had been condemned to death, and nothing would or should change that.

And then he was thrilled to come across the verse in Hebrews that the chaplain had repeated so many times:

“I will never again remember their sins and lawless deeds.”

If that was true, it might be the greatest miracle of all. For Brady knew he himself would never forget his sinful, lawless deed. Maybe he could one day get over all the stuff he had done that was so much like what so many others had done. But there weren’t enough years left on earth for him to even come close to erasing from his mind the worst night of his life.

At the predinner standing count, Brady noticed a surprised look on the officer’s face. This was a fleshy, rosy-cheeked man whose name plate read “Rudy Harrington.”

“What’re you up to in there, Darby?”

“Sorry?”

“Don’t play coy with me. What’ve you got? What are you reading? You got an adult magazine? You look as excited as I’ve ever seen you.”

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try me. And make it quick; I gotta keep moving.”

Brady held up the New Testament. “I’m reading the Bible.”

Harrington looked crestfallen. “Bah! I shoulda known. You Row guys always get religion before long. Unbelievable. Hey, guys, get this—Heiress Boy is Dead Man Squawking!”

And here came the wave of chicken clucking sounds.

“We know! We been watchin’!”

“Gettin’ saved in there, are ya, pretty boy?”

“Think the appeals court will buy this?”

Everybody laughed at that one, and Brady was as tempted as he had ever been to set them all straight. He wanted to demand to know if any of them had ever actually read the Bible. But then, he didn’t care what they thought. They were gearing up for everybody to watch the same TV show, and that would give him plenty of time to keep reading. Every time he started, he found something new, even when he was reading the same passages again and again.

For the first time since his incarceration, Brady ate every bite of his dinner, using all the salt, all the pepper, and drinking all the juice and coffee and tea. It didn’t taste any different, but his nausea was gone, and he felt the need for fuel.

When Harrington picked up his tray, he said, “Back on your feed, I see.”

“Yep.”

“Have a good one, Darby.”

That caused Brady to shoot him a double take. “You too, man.”

Finally, late that night when the rest were engrossed in their show, Brady was reading yet again when he realized he had been putting off something scary. It wasn’t that he was ready to pray the prayer of salvation as outlined in the Romans Road booklet. No, he wanted to be dead sure before he seriously considered that. But he did want to try praying.

What troubled him was the memory of his aunt Lois telling him once when he was a youngster that God might not hear the prayers of unbelievers, unless they were praying to become Christians. She had said something about having to pray in the name of Jesus and having to already be a believer to do that.

Brady hadn’t found that in any of his reading so far, and he figured maybe Aunt Lois was sincere but not entirely right.

It was time to try this.

“God,” he said, “in the name of Jesus, would You reveal Yourself to me? Somehow just tell me whether this is all true? Thanks.”

Brady opened his eyes and remembered that he had prayed before and more than once. He had prayed almost every time he had ever been arrested or even interrogated. He had made bargains with God, promised he would go straight if the Lord would just get him out of whatever mess he had gotten himself into.

But this was an altogether different type of prayer. It was a genuine request, and if Chaplain Carey could be trusted, God had to answer a prayer like that. But what did answers to prayer feel like? Would God speak to his heart the way Reverend Carey said He had spoken to him?

How would he know?

62

Adamsville

Thomas had to smile when he listened to Grace’s tape. He had always loved her sweet voice, but now, with her age and her illness, it had faded to a weak instrument, though she retained the ability to stay right on key. And her sincerity came through. Thomas’s smile came also from imagining the men in the cellblock overhearing it. Poor Brady would never hear the end of it. There could not have been a sound similar to it in that place—ever.

“It would have been better if you’d sung along with me, Thomas,” Grace said.

“No, no. It’s perfect. The lyrics are paramount. I think Brady will enjoy it. I just hope it helps.”

Death Row

Brady was startled awake by the officers clanging on the cell doors for the morning count and realized he’d slept through the night for the first time since coming here. He had to shake his head and remind himself of when he’d fallen asleep.

He wasn’t surprised at his exhaustion, after having read around the clock, including all night the night before. Last night he had finally dozed off late, just before TVs had to go off, and he recalled rousing in time to hit the switch on his. Soon after that, the blackness invaded, and Brady had braced for the ugliness of the ghastly images of the murder taking over his mind. He always knew when these were coming because something, anything, might remind him of the temperature, the light, the smell, the sound . . . and off his memory would go, unharnessed.

But he woke up before the murder played itself out. And it was predawn. And the guards were making the rounds, conducting the first count.

Brady had never before been able to sleep through the horror of his memories. But this time he had prayed. That was it! When it had all begun again, Brady had desperately pleaded with God for relief from the dreadfulness just one time.

“I know I don’t deserve it,” he recalled saying. “I know it’s part of the price. But, please . . .”

And God had answered! Was it possible? That had been Brady’s second prayer since reading the New Testament and the booklet the chaplain had given him. Maybe Aunt Lois
had
been wrong that God heard only the prayers of true believers. Could it be that the answer to the second prayer was also an answer to the first?

Brady had asked God to reveal Himself, and then it seemed God had honored his request to be spared the horror just once. And Brady had slept. Maybe no one else would make much of it, but Brady couldn’t deny it. He believed he had communicated with God, and way better than that, God had communicated with him.

“You know you don’t need to stand for morning count,” an officer said.

“I know,” Brady said, sitting quickly on his cot. “Sorry. Good morning.”

“You say what?”

“Good morning.”

“Yeah, sure.”

As soon as the officers had moved on, Brady prayed silently once again.
God, when You let me sleep, was that You revealing Yourself to me?

He wasn’t getting any audible response—nor did he expect any—but as Brady searched his heart, he believed that if God was impressing anything on him, it was something strange. It was as if God was making him think that the relief from the memories was simply what it was—an answer to a plea from a desperate man. The revealing of Himself to Brady, however, was something altogether different.

Brady’s eyes fell on the Bible and the book and the pamphlet.
That’s it!
If it was true that the Bible was God’s Word and His letter to mankind, as the chaplain had said,
that
was how He had revealed Himself to Brady.

Brady opened the Bible and
The Romans Road
and spread them out on his table. The other book, the one about how to begin the Christian life . . . well, Brady was going to be needing that one soon too.

He didn’t want to be in the middle of reading when breakfast was delivered, so he just waited. He’d already seen men panic when meals were late. Their minds got the better of them. They thought they’d been forgotten or abandoned or that the end of the world had come and they would starve to death in their cages. Brady just wanted breakfast to come so he could be done with it and get back to his reading.

When it did arrive, he found himself uncharacteristically polite to the officers again and again noticed their surprise. He ate everything, as he had the night before, and while he would never be able to say it was good, for some reason Brady found the fare less repulsive than before.

He replaced his tray in the meal slot and hurried back to his reading. He read faster and faster, poring over texts that were quickly becoming familiar favorites.

When Brady came again to Romans 10:8-11, it seemed everything around him faded. Nothing existed but the text as he slowed to a crawl and memorized, burning every word onto his brain.

In fact, it says, “The message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart.” And that message is the very message about faith that we preach:

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved.

As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.”