Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
“It’s not friendly, but it’s private.” Jesse Lee held the door for them, and Kenna went first into the small office with a metal desk and file cabinet.
Jax motioned to a pair of nondescript chairs, and she chose one.
Kenna was trying to live in the present and take every moment as it came. She didn’t want to think about the past. Not even to recognize the good that had happened. She couldn’t think about any of it, or all of it crashed over her. “To be honest, I don’t really know what this is about.”
Jesse Lee wheeled himself behind the desk where a chair would have been. “It’s just a conversation. It can be about whatever you want.”
Kenna glanced at her husband, who looked totally unashamed. “I’ve been bamboozled.”
Jax shook his head, a grin on his face. “The story of how Jesse Lee and I met is also the story of the biggest blunder of my life. Want to hear it?” He leaned back in the chair next to her, relaxing for what seemed like the first time in months.
Watching him let go of the undercurrent of tension allowed her to as well. “Go for it.”
“Jesse Lee was a suspect in a series of thefts of government property from a corporation that dealt with funds associated with covert operations.” Jax cleared his throat.
“We figured out the suspect must have scaled the outside wall of the building and entered through a vent in the HVAC system big enough for a small person.”
“I couldn’t have done it because my shoulders are too wide.” Jesse Lee grinned.
Kenna smiled.
“On paper he was the prime suspect. Only when we kicked his door in to arrest him did we realize there’s a problem with him having scaled a wall.”
“Maybe he’s Spiderman?” Kenna winked at her husband. “You still arrested him?”
“If he didn’t do it, he likely knew who did. There was a strong enough connection that we brought him in. I figured he just had a partner.”
“I didn’t,” Jesse Lee told her.
“And you didn’t do it?”
“Oh, I did it.” He chuckled. “But I didn’t take the money. Someone in the company was doing that. All I was doing was planting incriminating information in their system, so someone realized that embezzlement was happening.”
“Jesse Lee took a deal for exposing the real crime,” Jax explained. “He did some jail time, but only a few years.”
The other man shrugged. “I didn’t have the, uh, respect for the law then that I do now.”
Kenna glanced between them. “How does that get you guys from cop and suspect to friends?”
“Prison Bible study.” Jesse Lee tapped the Bible Kenna hadn’t noticed on his desk.
“I got saved. I knew Jax was a Christian, so I wrote him a letter. He responded, and we struck up a friendship for a while. He helped me figure out what to do when I got out, and it’s been years but I’m real glad to see you, buddy. ”
Jax nodded. “Me, too. And we needed a friendly face.”
“It’s good you were in the neighborhood.” Jesse Lee looked at her. “I know a little bit about trauma. I know what it’s like to rebuild your life from nothing, more than once. And I know what it’s like when it feels as if your faith has slipped away.”
She swallowed against the knot in her throat. “Jax told you?”
“Only a rough overview.” Jesse Lee leaned back in his wheelchair, lacing his fingers over his abdomen. “Enough to know I’d like to help you, if I can.”
“It’s not like I don’t want my faith back.” She shook her head. “It’s that I don’t know how to reach that part of me. When I try to grasp it, it’s almost like it’s gone.”
Jesse Lee nodded. “I doubt I’ll tell you anything you don’t already know. That’s not what this is. It’s more about reframing what you do know so you can start to see it in a different way.” He glanced at Jax. “Maybe both of you, not just you Kenna.”
“Even if I fix what’s wrong with me, there’s still an enemy out there.
The fear will still be in me because it’s the reality of our lives.
We face this stuff every day.” She scrunched up her nose, unsure why she felt the need to unburden herself with this person she’d just met.
Probably because Jax had found her a safe place to talk where she wouldn’t be judged for losing her faith, and as a bonus she could be certain that he wasn’t with Dominatus.
“As Christians, the point isn’t to shy away from reality. Or bury our heads in the sand. Fear can make you smarter. But when it’s overwhelming to the point you can’t move, then it’s no longer a help. It’s a hinderance.”
“That’s what it feels like.” Paralyzing was the word.
It seemed like she’d been stuck since she was captive and couldn’t get herself free of the mire. Every day, it was trying to pull her under.
Kenna didn’t want to drown.
“But there are things that are true regardless of how we feel, or the situation we’re in. Whatever is happening.” He paused. “You still believe God is real, and that He loves you?”
“Yes.” She didn’t want to say it, but… “It feels like I failed a test.”
“And God is surprised at that, or He’s disappointed in you?”
Kenna frowned. “Maybe I don’t know enough about being a Christian to answer that. My faith is still pretty new. I only became a believer a couple of years ago.”
“Some things take a lifetime of learning, and we all go at our own pace. The point is, we keep moving forward. That includes failing and getting back up.”
“I feel like I’m still down.”
Jesse Lee smiled. “There’s a song by a Christian band called ‘Dare You to Move,’ and one of the lines is, ‘I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor.’ But the truth is, sometimes we need a hand up.
That’s what the body of Christ should be.
What we’re designed to do for each other.
Especially when life puts us on the floor. ”
Kenna sniffed back tears.
“Your belief in God doesn’t depend on your circumstances. His love for you doesn’t change, even if you can’t feel it. What’s true is just true. Always was and always will be.”
Jax glanced at her. “We’ve both worked with people who blocked things from their mind during intense trauma. I’ve done it, and I wonder if you did as well. As a coping mechanism.”
“I blocked a lot out of my mind, but I was fully aware of what was happening.” She held his gaze. “Basically thinking about anything else, or anyone. Except you. Even with that, I couldn’t think about you much. I wouldn’t let myself go there, or it was going to swallow me alive.”
“And you think that doesn’t make you someone of incredible strength?”
“It didn’t work.”
“No? I think you held your ground through incredibly horrific circumstances. After all, you’re here, aren’t you? You and the baby are safe.”
“Because you rescued me.”
“Because God is good,” Jax said. “And He has a future for you that you haven’t yet realized. It sounds hokey, but if you weren’t meant to be here, then you wouldn’t have survived.”
Jesse Lee said, “When we believe we’ve sinned, it’s on us to repent. Whether Jax and I believe your lost faith is your fault or not, if you’re looking for a turnaround in your heart and mind, confess and believe. That’s how you were saved, and it’s how you get back on track.”
“It wasn’t a once-and-for-all thing?”
Jesse Lee tipped his head to the side and back, in a kind of nod.
“In a way, yes. But we drift. We forget. Or we mess up. Returning to the Lord can be a daily thing, or every minute. Not necessarily saying a ‘sinner’s prayer’ every time, but the act of praying your way back to that close relationship might need to be something you do nearly constantly for a while.
As a reminder to you that you need to keep Him close. ”
Kenna shut her eyes.
“It’s going to take you time to heal, but think of it like recovery,” Jesse Lee explained.
“We do the work, and at first, it’s a lot.
It’s every moment and every second. Then it becomes more automatic.
We don’t have to think so hard, or cling so closely.
Although, that’s never a bad thing. It just becomes more natural to know you’re still abiding in Him. ”
She glanced from him to Jax. “That’s what you do?”
“I learned it in recovery. I guess it’s been a while, so I didn’t remember. But now, it’s so natural.”
She put her hand on his arm. “Thank you for bringing me here. You shouldn’t feel bad that you didn’t think to phrase it like this.”
“She’s right, bro. This is what the body of Christ is.”
Kenna squeezed his arm, and Jax glanced between them. She said, “You and I have zero perspective when it comes to each other.”
He smiled. “That’s true enough. Maybe I needed to hear it as well, because I need to be reminded what’s true regardless of the circumstances.”
“We all do. Things are fine when life is peaceful and happy,” Jesse Lee said.
“What counts is what you do when the storm comes. You two have faced plenty, together and apart. Those are the times when your faith is solidified. When you get to choose to stand on what you believe regardless of what’s happening around you, or if you feel Him close. ”
“But I didn’t do that,” she said. “Which is why I feel like I…failed.”
“We fight against an enemy we can’t see.
Not just all the visible ones you face.” Jesse Lee flipped open his Bible and ruffled the pages.
“And it’s a slap in the face to the enemy when we repent and admit we can’t do it without God’s help.
We do fail. All of us. Every day, we come up short.
But keeping us in our guilt and shame is his biggest tactic.
Because we can’t get up off the floor if we feel like we deserve to be down there. ”
Kenna had felt the weight of what happened, more than just the trauma in her heart and mind. She had been carrying around the burden of guilt that she wasn’t supposed to carry.
Jesse Lee bent his head to the page. “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion.” He looked up.
“We’re all a work in progress, no matter where we’re at or what we’re going through.
How we failed. If we’re currently thinking we’re a success.
” He smiled. “We all need to get on our knees, literally or figuratively, and put our lives back on the right track.”
Kenna wound her arm around Jax’s elbow and laced their fingers together. She leaned her head on his shoulder. “I need to do that. I need to pray.”
Not only did she need to repent and allow God to take the guilt she’d been carrying, but she needed Him to flood her life with His love. It was the one thing that was going to give her the peace she so desperately needed.
She had to cling to Him until this was over and forever after that.
It was the only way they were going to survive.