Walk With Me (24 page)

And in my dream, I saw that the Servant sympathized with Peter’s weakness, for the Servant Himself had been tempted in every way. But Peter condemned himself for his failure and could not forgive himself. Though it was the King’s grace that had cut through his chains of debt, Peter had always taken pride in his righteousness.

“Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin?” he cried. Then the Breath of the King reminded Peter that he could approach the throne of grace with confidence to receive mercy and to find the grace to help him in his time of need. At that moment, Peter heard a powerful voice echo through Desolate Canyon. “Thanks be to the King! For there is now no condemnation for those who follow the King, because the law of the spirit of life set them free from the law of sin and death.”

However Peter’s battle was not over. Soon he heard the honey woman calling again, “Honey, honey.” He put his hands over his ears and started down the trail without looking back. All day long she called after him. Peter kept his ears plugged as he walked and continued to cry out to the King. Once he caught sight of the honey woman on a boulder waving to him, and he hesitated for a moment. He could smell her honey coming on the breeze, and it was so sweet, he ached for it. What difference would it make if he just talked a little more with her? He was so thirsty, so incredibly thirsty. He started walking back to her, but again the Breath of the King spoke to him: “Flee, flee.”

Peter held his nose so he would not smell the honey woman’s fragrance; then he turned around and continued, not jubilant but distressed, for he was carrying a burden as heavy as a cross. When night came, he lay down exhausted. In the stillness he heard the honey woman still sweetly calling—and suddenly she was beside him again, like all the other nights.

“Why are you walking away from me? I won’t hurt you. I just want to give you some honey.”

Peter began to weep and again he heard the King. “Do you not know that your body is home to My Breath, which you have received from Me? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor Me with your body.”

Peter knew he could not stay next to the honey woman. But he couldn’t pull himself up. “I can’t,” he told the King. “I am too weak.”

“Not in your strength, but by the power of My grace,” the King said. “Remember the Servant. Remember I have given you My very Breath.”

Peter, knowing that the Breath of the King was filling him, staggered to his feet. In the darkness he could see a vision of the way ahead of him. There were angels and demons, heights and depths, the now and the yet to come—but he saw nothing that could pull him away from the grip of the King.

“I will not leave you,” the King told Peter. “I will love you. Nothing will be able to separate you from My love.” Then Peter remembered something he had read in the guidebook:

Peter trudged through the night, as if crossing the Valley of the Shadow of Death, but he was no longer afraid. He held on to the King’s love and faithfulness to protect himself from the urge he still felt to go back to the honey woman. By dawn he had walked some ways from the River of Unfaithfulness and found himself in a dry canyon. He still felt lonely, and he struggled again with the temptation to go back and find the honey woman. Peter had to remind himself that the Servant had died to rescue him—and that it was his duty to care for the little travelers.

Resolved to find his family, he began to shout for Celeste as he made his way back to the water. But the River of Unfaithfulness
roared through the canyon and drowned out his cries. Finally he climbed a path to a small overlook and saw dozens of travelers bobbing down the river, separated from their partners with no hope of getting back together. As Peter surveyed the dismal scene, he saw a traveler wading along the shore get swept away by the current. Peter shuddered to think he too might have been taken away by the River of Unfaithfulness.

He persevered through Desolate Canyon. Eventually the channel narrowed and one day he finally spotted Celeste and the little travelers tramping along on the other side. He called to them, but the river was louder and stronger than before. He feared he would never be able to reach his family. He was not strong enough to swim to the other side, and he had seen the shattered remains of rafts that other travelers had used, trying to cross the river. He walked on, and around the next bend he found a rope of mercy that had been tied to a tree so despairing travelers could reach the other side. Peter grabbed the rope, and with one strong shove he pushed off the bank and swung over the water, landing in the soft sand.

He expected Celeste would be overjoyed to see him. When he reached her, he was ready to ask her to walk with him, as he had done at the start of their journey.

But when she saw him, she just said, “Oh, so you’re back.”

Irritation flared up in Peter. Although his heart was again clean, it was still empty of love for Celeste. “Yes, I am back. You have no idea how much I struggled to get here.”

“You struggled? And what do you think I have been doing this whole time, left alone with the little travelers? Having a picnic?” She kept on walking as if he wasn’t there.

Peter turned to the little travelers and hugged each one, pouring out his love to them, for he thought it was hopeless to care for Celeste. She would never change.

They turned away from the river, and as they walked on, the canyon became quieter. But they were not yet free of river’s grasp, for one of the little travelers noticed a woman following them. “Who is that woman waving to us?”

Celeste looked behind and saw the honey woman.

“Honey, honey, how are you?” the honey woman called to Peter.

When Celeste saw Peter break into a sweat, she knew something had happened between them. She told the little travelers to sit down for a moment and marched over to Peter. “So is that what you were doing while I was taking care of the little travelers?”

Peter swore to Celeste that the chalice had remained deep in his pack the entire time and that the honey woman had never even looked at it. But Celeste did not believe him, for the honey woman was still calling after Peter, “Honey, honey, won’t you have some more honey?”

“Do you mean to tell me she’s following you for nothing?” Celeste asked. “That you never had any of her honey?”

Although Peter didn’t want to admit what he had done, he knew he needed to confess to Celeste. He told her how he had walked with the woman and taken some of her honey, but that he had left on his own to find Celeste. He knelt before her and pledged to keep walking with her—and her alone—to the King’s City.

Celeste was not impressed. “How can you expect me to trust you again? You have hurt me so much; I will never be able to forgive you for how you have betrayed me.”

The honey woman finally gave up and left Peter and Celeste alone. They continued through Desolate Canyon with the little travelers. And once again in my dream I saw that if it had not been for the little travelers, Peter and Celeste might have given up and returned to the River of Unfaithfulness. For they never considered the vows they had made or the cords around their wrists.

The path out of the canyon led Peter and Celeste straight to Revenge Chasm. They looked across the deep black fissure that cut far into the earth. On the other side, for the first time in a long while, they could glimpse the Highlands and the King’s City beyond. The view of the Highlands did not inspire them as it once had, but they still wanted to reach the King’s City. However, the chasm was too wide to swing across with a rope of mercy. They followed along the edge, looking to see how they might continue their journey. After a little while they came to a bridge of forgiveness that had been built across the chasm by the Servant.

The little footbridge was the narrowest track Peter and Celeste had come to, a single plank of cedar wide enough for only one traveler at a time. And though it appeared sturdy, there was no proper railing to grasp. The only thing travelers could hold on to was a single rope of mercy that had been tied onto trees on both sides. It didn’t look very taut or strong, and every traveler who contemplated the crossing wondered whether the rope would hold if he lost his footing.

Celeste was the first to reach the plank and when she did, she drew back. She knew that before she could walk across, she would
have to bandage her wounds, otherwise she would fall. Most of her injuries had been caused by her partnership with Peter: the blisters from his relentless pace, the bruises and sores from his uncaring, the gashes from his anger. Whenever she felt sorry for herself, she liked to stop and catalogue her wounds. Then she would take a pick of resentment and scrape at the scabs so they never had a chance to heal. For as strange as it sounds, she had grown fond of her blisters and cuts and gashes, especially since giving up her postcards. Her wounds made her feel superior to Peter, and by keeping them fresh, he could always see the pain he had caused. And now she had received the most painful wound of all, his betrayal with the honey woman.

She had left behind her rag of compassion soaked with the Servant’s tears when she had made her way up Loveless Peak. But there was another one at the bridge that travelers could apply to their wounds. Celeste didn’t want to take it. To bandage her wounds and cross the bridge, she would have to forgive Peter. But then she would have no more power over him. No, she thought, she could not give that up. She wanted to punish him for what he had done to her. She had to find a way to make him pay. Until then, she would hold on to her wounds.

“We’ll have to find another path,” she told Peter. “My blisters make me limp so badly, I’ll never make it across the bridge. If you had let me rest so they could have healed, I might have been able to cross, but I don’t see how I can now.”

One of the little travelers pointed to the sign at the stairs to the bridge. “Have mercy on your fellow traveler as I have had mercy on you, The King.”

“This has nothing to do with having mercy,” Celeste said to her family. “I simply can’t walk on the bridge with my blisters.”

Peter didn’t argue, for he didn’t want to give up his own wounds either.

As they walked away, they met a guide named Pardon. “What are you doing here?” the guide said. “Why haven’t you crossed over the chasm? Didn’t you see the bridge?”

“It’s her fault,” Peter pointed to Celeste. “She keeps picking at her blisters.”

Celeste turned red when she heard that Peter had learned her secret and then seethed inside that he had told it to the guide.

Pardon shook his head. “Loving travelers, this is not what you learned about the way of the King. You were taught to love your enemies, to do good to those who hate you, to bless those who curse you, to pray for those who mistreat you, to give without expecting anything back. Can I see your account books?”

“What are you talking about?” Peter said.

“You know what I mean. Although love keeps no record of wrongs, no one who stays on this side of the chasm does so without keeping a detailed accounting.”

With great reluctance, Peter took out from his bag a small notebook in which he was keeping a ledger of Celeste’s debts. Every time she wronged him, he wrote it down so he could justify not caring for Celeste. Since Celeste had failed him, he did not have to love her. Celeste was taken aback when she saw his list, though she was keeping track of his failures too, on a thick wad of paper.

Pardon talked to them a long time about the foolishness of keeping lists. “Please be merciful, like the King is merciful. Don’t
be unkind, stingy with your love, hard on each other, jumping on failure, criticizing faults. Love keeps no record of wrongs.”

He pleaded with them to burn their accounts, reminding them the King had offered them forgiveness while they were still His enemies, before they had even wanted to surrender. “Long before you even knew you were lost, the Servant came to bring you back, though you had done nothing to deserve His selfless sacrifice. Now offer this same charity to your partner.”

Celeste waited for Peter to burn his notebook. But Peter had decided he wouldn’t destroy his until Celeste destroyed hers. Pardon finally left them, grieving over their stubbornness and lack of mercy.

Peter and Celeste wandered along, hoping to find another way around the chasm. The path was crowded with other travelers who had balked at crossing the bridge of forgiveness. The air was dismal and dark, filled with toxic fumes and sulfur clouds of loathing that blocked the light. The travelers stumbled along, unable to see where they were going. Although they claimed to be walking in the King’s light, their lack of sympathy for their partners had brought a blinding darkness.