THE NEXT TWENTY-FOUR HOURS WERE like a roller coaster that only went down.
It was past midnight when she was finally brought up to the room. She insisted Shaun go home and sleep since the night nurse assured her nothing else would be done until the morning. “I’ll call you as soon as they tell me when things will get going again.”
“I won’t be able to sleep knowing you’re here alone.”
“You’re exhausted. You’ll sleep. Believe me. You definitely won’t if you’re here, at least not well. Better chances in your own bed. Just go.”
She slept on and off, woken frequently by unfamiliar noises, vitals checks by the night nurse, and runaway dreams that left her breathless when she woke. Her breakfast was brought in at seven-thirty, and she gave up trying to sleep after that.
In the new semi-private room-which she shared with a woman whose heart monitor beep drove Savannah batty-the television with limited channels was her only source of entertainment, and nothing on the airwaves was interesting enough to hold her attention for long. As a result, her thoughts ran wild, dreaming up scenarios that all ended with her wishing she had pen and paper to write down her wishes for her funeral. She felt worse than she had when they’d first arrived in the ER. True fear was starting to set in.
She was taken after breakfast to the echo lab, Shaun arriving just minutes before the appointment, and underwent the echocardiogram. After that it was back to her room, where Shaun settled in to the chair beside her bed with a book and Savannah tried to take a nap. It was a pointless attempt-her keyed-up nerves were enough to override her exhaustion.
“Jessie wanted to know if she should come,” he said out of nowhere.
“What did you tell her?”
“That we would let her know when we found out anything, but that she didn’t need to come unless she really wanted to.”
“When does she leave for school again?”
Shaun thought a moment. “The 27th.”
“She’s got a lot on her plate with work and getting ready for the next semester. No sense in her wasting time here. Besides, anytime you visit someone in the hospital they always look worse than they really are. I wouldn’t want her getting scared when things aren’t really that bad.”
“Aren’t that bad?”
She kept her eyes to the ceiling. “I’m working on positive thinking.” She sighed and looked to the window, but the sunlight that snuck in through the cracks between the curtains and the walls hurt her eyes. “I should have asked you to bring my Bible.”
“Want me to find you one?”
“Would you?”
“Of course. I’m sure we’ve got one in the car. Give me a minute.”
He returned a bit later with a flimsy paperback version that had seen better days. “I should have thought of that when I came this morning. I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t worry about it. I’m not really in the mood to read. I wanted it more for the comfort.” She held it in her hands and frowned, disappointed. The unfamiliar feel of the cover couldn’t compare with the soft, worn leather of her personal Bible. She flipped to the Psalms and let her eyes skim the page until they caught a familiar verse:
Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
She had written out those lines after her first miscarriage and taped them to the bathroom mirror. The verse had still been there when she’d had her second miscarriage, but sometime in the years after she’d removed it; the paper had curled from shower humidity and the words were ingrained on her heart and memory. Why hadn’t they come to mind during the last two weeks?
A disturbing thought came to her as she stared at the Scripture. She hadn’t prayed once-besides the brief and panicky, “Dear God, don’t let my heart go out!” after seeing the X-ray – since coming to the ER. Shaun hadn’t even suggested they pray together.
What had happened to her faith?
Like a panoramic movie, the last ten years of her life scrolled through her mind, revealing the incremental decline of her spiritual life. She saw herself on stages across the country, at the head of endless lines of fans wanting her signature in their books, at planning meetings and publisher meetings and marketing meetings. She didn’t see herself in church, or hidden away in prayer, or reading Scripture. She’d become a businesswoman for God, selling the promise of a meaningful life and cashing in on the desperate longings of harried mothers who wondered if their existence amounted to anything more than carpool schedules and menu planning to stretch a buck.
“Shaun, we need to pray.”
He looked up from his book, concern clouding his face. “Why, what’s wrong?”
“We haven’t prayed at all since we came in. We haven’t prayed together at all since I’ve been home, even. And before the tour…” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I haven’t seen it. I’ve been so caught up in the… the business of ministry. I feel like such a cliché.” A humorless laugh escaped, and her chest burned with the effort. “What if all this is meant to be a wake-up call? We’ve lost our passion, we’ve lost sight of our – our need for God.”
Shaun’s face was sympathetic. “Oh babe, I’m sorry you’re feeling like that.”
“But you see it too, right? It’s not just me imagining this? I mean, when was the last time you and I were really on our knees together? It’s both of us. We’re going through the motions like this is just our career and not a ministry, not a mission.”
Shaun nodded slowly, his eyes trained on the Bible in her lap and his expression unreadable. “No, you’re right. You’re absolutely right.”
“We need to repent. Now.”
Shaun looked to the doorway, then took her hands as she bowed her head. Tears slipped from her cheeks as she asked forgiveness for their prideful independence and lack of desire. Her spirit ached almost as much as her chest as she cataloged all the ways she’d turned Abide & Abound into just another job, all the ways her relationship with Christ had been reduced to a business contract, and Shaun mumbled his agreement along with her. As she prayed she felt a renewed sense of connectedness not only with God, but with Shaun. They’d been more like coworkers than man and wife for a while now; maybe this would reignite the flame they’d once had.
They murmured their amens, Savannah wiping the tears from her face and Shaun giving her hands a brief squeeze before sitting back down in the chair beside her bed. A lightness in her soul gave her a surge of hope. No wonder her body was in revolt. Her spirit had been sick. But maybe now that they were back on track, she’d begin to heal.
Savannah began reading the Psalms again. Now the words were leaping off the page and into her heart. A mix of remorse and relief had her alternately thanking God and confessing her sin as she read for the next hour. After a nurse interrupted her to check her vitals, she looked to Shaun. “Listen, regardless of what we find out today, I want you to call Pastor John and see if he can come over tomorrow. I think we’d really benefit from praying with him. Maybe we should start meeting with him once in a while, to keep us accountable. What do you think?”
“Accountable? What do you mean?”
Savannah was disappointed by his defensive tone. “Just… I don’t know, making sure we don’t slip back into that rut again. You don’t think that would be helpful?”
“That makes me feel like you don’t think I can be trusted to do the right thing without someone breathing down my neck.”
The comment was out of character. Savannah gaped in surprise. “Shaun, what on earth would make you think that? That’s not what I said at all, and it’s certainly not what I meant.” He had always been more private than she when it came to his faith, but she never would have expected him to respond like this. “You used to meet with Alex and Kurt and William once a month for breakfast – that’s the kind of thing I’m thinking of, just a checking-in now and then, someone to ‘report’ to besides just each other. That obviously isn’t working.”