Excerpt From Work In Progress In His Hands

This is another excerpt from my work in progress "In His Hands" which will hopefully soon reach the rewriting process. This scene is takes place on a Lord's Day evening after the services. Maia has been being taught by the Greens who have adopted her, the basic things about the Scriptures and the Sunday School class has been doing a basic study on the attributes of God. All of that is in earlier scenes, and here is the scene for today.


DAVE SWALLOWED the last of his coffee for the night. They had arrived home from the church service an hour before and had gone to conversation almost immediately about the sermon. It had been a treatment on the supposed accidents in life and how they were all part of the plan of God. Like the morning message, it set Dave thinking. Were there really any accidents?
      Maia hadn’t commented much on the sermons aside from that she would have to think about them for a little while, which was to be expected, it being her first exposure to any real Christianity and certainly to that level of theology. That was one thing that Dave could give Pastor Vic, you pretty much never got a sermon that didn’t tie into a deeper theological thread. At first he had been concerned that it would drive Maia away from the idea of preaching, but she seemed anxious for the next service, surprised it was only a few days away. He had seen some scribbled notes here and there on the paper she had in her Bible, and the load of papers that she had brought from the class from the previous lessons. She seemed to dwell more on the one from that morning though, and less on the others, except the one from the week before on the Sovereignty of God—his personal favorite subject—that had some underlining on it. She seemed to be looking for something and he supposed she had made the markings in the afternoon after Sunday dinner. He had only seen them by accident, when they spilled out of her Bible halfway through the sermon—quietly, thankfully—and he had leaned over to pick them up. She had given a sheepish half-smile and thanked him silently.
      She hadn’t said much that even though, she had just sat on the couch by Mom and listened. She twiddled her fingers together while listening, but he didn’t really know what wheels were turning behind her skull, it was really hard to tell. They hadn’t bothered change; he and his father had only removed their suit jackets and ties, those detestable things, and set them aside.
      He placed the mug on the side table and returned his father’s gaze. “It kind of makes me think of Ruth,” he said, “and how she ‘just happened’ to enter into the same field that Boaz who ‘just happened’ to be her near kinsman, was in charge of, and he ‘just happened’ to favor Ruth who turned out be his wife in the end and ended up in the lineage of David and in eventuality the lineage of Christ.”
     John Green grinned as he sipped his own cup of coffee, “Interesting isn’t it? You ever think about the fact that Ruth was a Moabite, a Gentile, and Christ would become the Light of the Gentiles?”
     “Goes to show you there are no accidents,” His mother added, “We see how the awful thing that happened to Naomi and Ruth ended out being turned into something good.”
      “All by the workings of Providence.” Father finished.
      Maia asked, “What happened to them? I haven’t read that story yet.”
      “Well,” John began, “Naomi and her husband had two sons, and a famine came in Israel, so they went to Moab, another country, and settled. The two boys married two Moabite women, and then they died along with their father. The two sisters-in-law had a choice to make—leave, or stay. One of them left, but Ruth stayed with Naomi. When Naomi moved back to Israel, she changed her name to Mara which means ‘bitter’ because she said that the ‘Almighty hath dealt bitterly with me’ she blamed God for the awful thing that happened to her.” He sipped his coffee.
     “Why did she blame God?” Maia said.
     “Because she understood that God controlled all things, and that maybe He could have kept them from dying. She didn’t know what God was doing at that time, He was preparing Ruth for Boaz who would have kids and then David, who was part of Christ’s bloodline.”
     Janet Green leaned in, “You see, God brought something good out of something seemingly evil, He knew what was going on.”
      “Okay.” She sat back and nodded. “I get it.”
      Dave wasn’t sure if she got the whole thing—but she knew what she needed to know for the moment. Truth was, he had a question beginning to eat away at his mind about what they had called and accident for so long, and the fact that it was no accident.
      “A lot of food for thought,” Father said, “something we had better sleep on. It’s late, so let’s all get ready for bed.”
      “Okay,” Maia stood and Dave rose up, snatching his coffee mug from the side table and went over to where his Dad was draining his mug, and took it from him after he had finished.
     “Thanks, son.”
      Dave took them into the kitchen and placed them in the sink, running a little water into them so that the coffee did not dry up and stain the bottom. The whole time though he had a question growing in his mind about Maia.
      Mother walked in the room and set her cup on the counter, still holding the coffee inside. “What’s on your mind?”
      Dave shook his head, “Nothin’”
      She tilted her head, “Yeah, right.” She picked up the coffee again and leaned against the counter. “Seriously, what’s on your mind?”
      He cocked his head in the direction of the living room, “Maia.”
     “What about her?”
     “The Providence of God.” He said. He decided to go ahead and rinse the cups and the few other plates in the sink that had somehow migrated there without being rinsed beforehand.
     “You mean what she went through?” She asked.
    “Yeah.”
     “I wish I knew. I was thinking the same thing actually when we were talking about Ruth. I think Maia was as well, but she didn’t say anything.”
     Dave nodded, “You and me both.” He set the dishes on the counter and reached for a towel. “I know she was thinking something about that, who in their right mind wouldn’t? I mean, it’s such a terrible thing that happened to her, it just doesn’t…I don’t know.”
     “Doesn’t seem fair?” She offered.
     “I guess.” He folded the used towel neatly. “I know the guy was shot, yeah, good, done. But I’m not sure that was completely just humanly speaking, he died, she didn’t—now she’s got to live with the horrors of what he did. Granted, he’s in Hell, the wrath and vengeance of what he did is being enacted against him, but in the meantime, what about Maia?”
     Mom shook her head, “I don’t know, Dave. I really don’t, we’ll have to pray about it some more I guess. It’s a good thing Pastor Vic it preaching those messages now, huh?”
     “No coincidences.”
     “That’s right. We had better take strong heed to them then.” She looked at the clock and dumped the few sips of coffee in her cup down the sink. “Good night, Dave.”
     “Night, Mom.” Dave replied.
     She headed upstairs. Leaving the downstairs empty. As he went through he shut off all of the lights, and started walking through the hallway when he looked at their family picture from four years ago, four people stared back at him from that picture and he sighed.
     No accidents.
     He shut the light off and went up the stairs.