Accept the mystery, said the minister of the local church. If you can love God even though your questions go unanswered, youll be the better for it.
Admit that you need Him, said the popular book of spiritual advice he bought. When you realize that self-sufficiency is an illusion, youll be ready.
Submit yourself completely and utterly, said the preacher on the television. Receiving torment is how you prove your love. Acceptance may not bring you relief in this life, but resistance will only worsen your punishment.
All of these strategies have proven successful for different individuals; any one of them, once internalized, can bring a person to devotion. But these are not always easy to adopt, and Neil was one who found them impossible.
Neil finally tried talking to Sarahs parents, which was an indication of how desperate he was: his relationship with them had always been tense. While they loved Sarah, they often chided her for not being demonstrative enough in her devotion, and theyd been shocked when she married a man who wasnt devout at all. For her part, Sarah had always considered her parents too judgmental, and their disapproval of Neil only reinforced her opinion. But now Neil felt he had something in common with themafter all, they were all mourning Sarahs lossand so he visited them in their suburban colonial, hoping they could help him in his grief.
How wrong he was. Instead of sympathy, what Neil got from Sarahs parents was blame for her death. Theyd come to this conclusion in the weeks after Sarahs funeral; they reasoned that shed been taken to send him a message, and that they were forced to endure her loss solely because he hadnt been devout. They were now convinced that, his previous explanations notwithstanding, Neils deformed leg was in fact Gods doing, and if only hed been properly chastened by it, Sarah might still be alive.
Their reaction shouldnt have come as a surprise: throughout Neils life, people had attributed moral significance to his leg even though God wasnt responsible for it. Now that hed suffered a misfortune for which God was unambiguously responsible, it was inevitable that someone would assume he deserved it. It was purely by chance that Neil heard this sentiment when he was at his most vulnerable, and it could have the greatest impact on him.
Neil didnt think his in-laws were right, but he began to wonder if he might not be better off if he did. Perhaps, he thought, itd be better to live in a story where the righteous were rewarded and the sinners were punished, even if the criteria for righteousness and sinfulness eluded him, than to live in a reality where there was no justice at all. It would mean casting himself in the role of sinner, so it was hardly a comforting lie, but it offered one reward that his own ethics couldnt: believing it would reunite him with Sarah.
Sometimes even bad advice can point a man in the right direction. It was in this manner that his in-laws accusations ultimately pushed Neil closer to God.
More than once when she was evangelizing, Janice had been asked if she ever wished she had legs, and she had always answeredhonestlyno, she didnt. She was content as she was. Sometimes her questioner would point out that she couldnt miss what shed never known, and she might feel differently if shed been born with legs and lost them later on. Janice never denied that. But she could truthfully say that she felt no sense of being incomplete, no envy for people with legs; being legless was part of her identity. Shed never bothered with prosthetics, and had a surgical procedure been available to provide her with legs, shed have turned it down. She had never considered the possibility that God might restore her legs.
One of the unexpected side effects of having legs was the increased attention she received from men. In the past shed mostly attracted men with amputee fetishes or sainthood complexes; now all sorts of men seemed drawn to her. So when she first noticed Ethan Meads interest in her, she thought it was romantic in nature; this possibility was particularly distressing since he was obviously married.
Ethan had begun talking to Janice at the support group meetings, and then began attending her public speaking engagements. It was when he suggested they have lunch together that Janice asked him about his intentions, and he explained his theory. He didnt know how his fate was intertwined with hers; he knew only that it was. She was skeptical, but she didnt reject his theory outright. Ethan admitted that he didnt have answers for her own questions, but he was eager to do anything he could to help her find them. Janice cautiously agreed to help him in his search for meaning, and Ethan promised that he wouldnt be a burden. They met on a regular basis and talked about the significance of visitations.
Meanwhile Ethans wife Claire grew worried. Ethan assured her that he had no romantic feelings toward Janice, but that didnt alleviate her concerns. She knew that extreme circumstances could create a bond between individuals, and she feared that Ethans relationship with Janiceromantic or notwould threaten their marriage.
Ethan suggested to Janice that he, as a librarian, could help her do some research. Neither of them had ever heard of a previous instance where God had left His mark on a person in one visitation and removed it in another. Ethan looked for previous examples in hopes that they might shed some light on Janices situation. There were a few instances of individuals receiving multiple miracle cures over their lifetimes, but their illnesses or disabilities had always been of natural origin, not given to them in a visitation. There was one anecdotal report of a man being struck blind for his sins, changing his ways, and later having his sight restored, but it was classified as an urban legend.
Even if that account had a basis in truth, it didnt provide a useful precedent for Janices situation: her legs had been removed before her birth, and so couldnt have been a punishment for anything shed done. Was it possible that Janices condition had been a punishment for something her mother or father had done? Could her restoration mean they had finally earned her cure? She couldnt believe that.
If her deceased relatives were to appear in a vision, Janice wouldve been reassured about the restoration of her legs. The fact that they didnt made her suspect something was amiss, but she didnt believe that it was a punishment. Perhaps it had been a mistake, and shed received a miracle meant for someone else; perhaps it was a test, to see how she would respond to being given too much. In either case, there seemed only one course of action: she would, with utmost gratitude and humility, offer to return her gift. To do so, she would go on a pilgrimage.
Pilgrims traveled great distances to visit the holy sites and wait for a visitation, hoping for a miracle cure. Whereas in most of the world one could wait an entire lifetime and never experience a visitation, at a holy site one might only wait months, sometimes weeks. Pilgrims knew that the odds of being cured were still poor; of those who stayed long enough to witness a visitation, the majority did not receive a cure. But they were often happy just to have seen an angel, and they returned home better able to face what awaited them, whether it be imminent death or life with a crippling disability. And of course, just living through a visitation made many people appreciate their situations; invariably, a small number of pilgrims were killed during each visitation.
Janice was willing to accept the outcome whatever it was. If God saw fit to take her, she was ready. If God removed her legs again, she would resume the work shed always done. If God let her legs remain, she hoped she would receive the epiphany she needed to speak with conviction about her gift.