Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: RASH (04/12/18)
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TITLE: A Rush To Judgment | Previous Challenge Entry
By Marlene Bonney
04/17/18 -
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Blinking away stinging tears, Lacy gripped the steering wheel, her ring-less fingers digging into her palms like surgeons’ clamps. She drove away, destination unknown, watching but not seeing the scenery as she approached the freeway entrance. The money she had diligently squirreled away during her marriage was only going to get her so far—but far enough that he would never find her.
“I’m glad I didn’t tell him about the baby,” closing her heart to the anticipated scene of revealing a gaily wrapped positive pregnancy test for his next month’s birthday.
Clay would never know where she went. He didn’t deserve to know. Lacy would protect the unborn babe from the cheating sorry excuse of a husband. The child would not be subjected to the pain Lacy had suffered growing up with all that fighting between parents who, driven by the anger of an unfaithful spouse, loved their pain more than their hurting children.
Lacy had suspected Clay for the past several months, had even secretly finally followed him last night, knowing in her gut that he had lied to her about working overtime at the plant. She had watched from her hidden parking spot as he entered the fancy restaurant and was led to a table where a fashionably dressed young woman already sat. Overcome by a bout of nausea on her way home, Lacy had finally given in, collapsing in a miserable heap at the master bedroom’s bathroom door. She had continued to heave, the bile of rejection battling her broken heart. . .With the determination of a “no turning back” attitude, Lacy would never confront Clay. He did not deserve it, and she could not relive her childhood. . .
The roped-off tragic car crash site was one of the worst Sheriff Conley had seen, charred remains of the victim unidentifiable. The massive tree trunk would bear scars of the head-on strike, but the ravaged embankment would heal over time. Detectives never saw the purse that was violently thrown from the car’s open sun roof yards away. . .
Clay Sterns paced around his empty house in a daze, an evening that had become a ritual over the past three weeks. Unanswered questions he was beyond even knowing how to ask God echoed silently in the air like wispy dandelion fluff. Lacy’s nearly empty clothes closet and missing luggage told of a planned departure, not a kidnapping or crime scene. For the hundredth time, her bereft husband was overcome with sorrow about the unsolved mystery. The doorbell rang insistently, muffled by his acute despair but finally penetrating his consciousness.
“Mr. Sterns? A kid found this a ways from a fatal car accident up in Folk County,” handing over a clear plastic evidence bag. Lacy’s familiar purse glared through it like a piece of gold in a miner’s sieve.
Inside, Clay found his wife’s journal, positive pregnancy test, and her wedding ring that completed the missing puzzle pieces of her disappearance. If only she had asked him about that meeting, if only he had revealed his surprise sooner, if only, if only, if only. . .
“Cynthia, this is Clay Sterns. I won’t be needing your travel agency’s services any longer. I want to cancel the second honeymoon trip. . .”
How often do we jump to conclusions as rash as Lacy? We complain to God about an unanswered prayer and think He has abandoned us, when, in truth, He is planning something greater for us. He is sovereign and sees the bigger picture while we are blinded by the here and now. If we would just rest in the assurance of His unmatchable love and wait, realizing He is willing to watch us suffer temporarily for a better answer.
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Romans 8:25-28 New International Version (NIV)
25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[a] have been called according to his purpose.
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