LXXV

THERE IS NO FEAR IN LOVE; BUT PERFECT LOVE CASTS OUT FEAR

1 JOHN 4:18

BROCK STORM and then MARCY SMITH

“Hey, Marcy,” I said quietly as I switched on a light. “What cha doin?”

She jumped about a foot, and Sevenia’s phone clattered to the floor.

“Nothing!” she blurted, and then realized the absurdity of her declaration. “I mean… I wasn’t trying to steal nothing.”

It was ten minutes before three in the morning. Sevenia, on spring break from high school, had been staying at our place all week and sleeping in the same room with eight year old Oralee. It had been almost a week since we had found Oralee and sixteen year old Marcy seeking shelter under an old railroad bridge. Both girls had been enslaved in a house of prostitution, but had escaped.

“Are you gonna hurt me?” Marcy asked with a terrified look in her eyes.

“No, of course not, Marcy,” I replied trying to sound as much like Mr. Rogers as possible.

Sevenia had left her phone in our kitchen to charge overnight. I had been lying in bed awake when I heard a notoriously squeaky stair creak ever so gently. It sounded like someone being sneaky. I snuck downstairs myself to investigate. That’s when I discovered Marcy messing with Sevenia’s phone. I didn’t believe she was doing anything malicious. But what I did suspect was nonetheless heartbreaking.

“Please sit down, Marcy,” I said soothingly as I sat at the kitchen table.

She eyed me cautiously as she sat. It was as if she expected me to suddenly start to pummel her any second. The sad thing is it had likely been her reality with the vile wretches that had been her captors. So I couldn’t blame her at all. What I needed to try to do was put her at ease. To let her know we loved her.

“Listen, Marcy, we certainly don’t want to force you to stay here,” I said gently. “I’ll even help you get to wherever you might prefer to be, simply to ensure that you are as safe as possible. That said, we would love for you to stay here with us and make it your home. Personally, I would like to see you live with us until you are into adulthood and ready to transition to life on your own, whenever that may be.”

Marcy was chewing on her lower lip and avoiding looking me in the eye. She snorted and shook her head.

“Would you mind telling me what’s on your mind?” I gently asked.

“You don’t know me,” she replied so quietly, I barely heard her.

“I want to,” I said. “I mean in a fatherly sort of way.”

“No real father would want me for a daughter.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You do know what I am, right?” she said with the same hostility as the other night when she hurled a barrage of punches into my midsection.

“I know what you were,” I replied softly. “But even if that’s what you still want to be, it doesn’t change how much I care about you.”

“Why? Tell me why you would possibly care about me?” she asked, wiping tears from her eyes. “Is it because I’m outwardly pretty and look like your wife?”

“To be honest, that is a small part,” I said, patiently lacing my fingers together and resting my hands on the table. “I mean, you do remind me of a young version of Dee. But there’s other more important reasons. Namely, we just plain like you for you.”

“After what happened the other day with me wigging out and punching you repeatedly? Now you just caught me messing with Sevenia’s phone. You really expect me to believe you like me?”

“Would I be sitting here trying to talk you into being our foster daughter, and hopefully adopted daughter, if I didn’t?”

She chewed nervously on her lower lip and stared intently at me for about ten seconds before she averted her eyes. She shook her head, wiped more tears, and quietly said. “I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.”

“Your name, Marcella, means strength and warrior,” I told her. “You proved that just by what you did for Oralee.”

“My name, how did you know that?” she asked quietly.

“Dee told me,” I said, and then we looked at each other for a long moment. I sensed she wanted to look away again, but she didn’t. “We value your soul, just like you valued Oralee’s.”

We gazed at each other, and her eyes appeared, I don’t know, hopeful. “You know, it would absolutely break Dee’s heart if you left. Ora’s too.”

“What about you?” she inquired uneasily.

I took a chance and reached across the table for her hand, and she let me hold it. What  I said to her, I could tell she didn’t expect.

“Marcy, do you know how to check the oil in a car, or how to change a flat tire?”

She frowned and shook her head.

“I want to be able to teach you those things,” I said. “I want to be one of the people in your life that you can’t wait to share your achievements with, or simply your hopes and dreams.”

“You mean like a dad?” she asked with a small voice.

“Not just a dad, your dad,” I replied, and then felt myself tense as I prayed I was saying the right things. “The way I see it, a father should be of use to a child, and not the other way around. That’s what I want to be for you and Oralee.”

Marcy put her hands in her face and began to cry. I worried that maybe I shouldn’t be trying to talk and reason with her. She was psychologically wounded, and I was no psychologist. Yet, Dee and I had love. I believed love trumped being articulate. Destiny and I were unable to have kids of our own, yet we were still on the young side of adulthood. God put Marcy and Oralee into our lives for a reason. When she stopped crying and removed her face from her hands, I decided to go out on a limb.

“How about it, Marcy, would you do me the honor of becoming my daughter?”

“Our daughter?” Destiny asked as she stepped from the staircase wiping tears from her eyes.

Marcy and I turned in surprise to look at Destiny. Then Marcy began nodding her head emphatically, and then blurted, “yes!”

MARCY SMITH

Have you ever experienced something that seemed too good to be true? A fellow sex prisoner told me one time, ‘if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.’ What I’m trying to say, is if we can’t hope, what do we have?

All I know is that it seemed that one minute I was in the pit of hell, preparing to end my life. Then I was homeless, and desperate to live and find a better life for a little girl, if not for myself. I was beyond skeptical about our situation. I can’t say that I had any hope because as we shivered and our stomachs growled, I found myself longing for my room at the brothel.

Yet the little girl’s faith eventually overruled my doubts, and then we found ourselves experiencing a little taste of heaven. This bit of paradise was a cozy old farmhouse known as the Knight-Storm residence. And the saints that lived there welcomed us in. I wondered if the little angel’s bright light hid my darkness. Sooner or later they would discover that I was unsavory.

Then I lost control of my emotions and wigged out on Brock. This shined a light on my darkness. The cock roaches infesting my soul were exposed. They ran and hid when I broke down and cried. But they had been there for everyone to see. It was time for me to flee.

As nice as everyone was to me, I couldn’t handle the shame. Every time they, especially Brock, looked at me, I felt like phantoms of the countless men who had violated me were swirling all around me, keeping my whole being in a state of filthy disgrace. My soul was beyond dirty. Even though Destiny and Sevenia had tried to scrub it with industrial strength spiritual detergent, it still wouldn’t come clean. It was tattooed with demons.

But then Brock found me and brought a laser. He had caught me with Sevenia’s phone, but I wasn’t trying to do anything dishonest. I was simply trying to contact someone I knew in Boston. He knew what I was up to, and that I was only trying to bolt, nothing more.

It was then that his words began to erase the devils from my being. I saw Brock in a new light. Not that I saw him in a bad light before; he was just a hard guy for me to read. All guys were! I think that’s because he’s not like the men I was used to. Especially for a guy built like Hercules.

His laser was love. I couldn’t believe such a cool, awesome couple like Destiny and Brock would want me for a daughter. After sixteen years of never having real parents, was it even possible to have REAL parents?

But a father is exactly what he felt like when he told me he wanted to teach me things, and share my hopes, dreams, and sorrows, even as an adult. Most of all I sensed the love of a father in his countenance, and not an ounce of male lust. I recalled watching him with Amy, who he and Dee refer to as their spiritual daughter. The way he taught her karate, the fun, lighthearted rapport between them, and mostly the deep affection I could tell they both have for each other. I wanted some of that!

My biological mother abandoned me when I was between three and four years old. She literally left me on the doorstep of a church parsonage. I have no pictures of her, only a vague memory that I don’t even know for sure is real. From the few pictures of me as a child, I know I didn’t look happy. Maybe that’s why nobody ever adopted me. Maybe that’s why the foster parents I had were always so cold. I never had a taste of a mother’s love until I was sixteen and Destiny became my destiny, so to speak.

It was the way Dee held me after I had that mental breakdown. The gentle words she spoke into my ear. I relished it as if I were five years old. It gave me a glimmer of hope. Ironically, having hope also frightened me and compelled me to flee. If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

Supposedly, that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That’s only partially true. Life, loneliness, anxiety, depression, frustration, and desperation can wear you down until it kills you. Often by one’s own hand, even if it’s something like an accidental overdose, or simply being reckless.

I was incredibly hardened by the world. Oralee, Sevenia, and Destiny didn’t quite soften me up enough to trust and stay. Then Brock threw it over the top. It was his demonstration of love that completed softening me, opening my heart to not only accept love, but give love.

I not only gained amazing parents, but I also met many incredible people along the way and made what I hoped were lifelong friends. There were two bonds I made with individuals that almost equaled the bond I had with Destiny, Brock, and Oralee. They were the psychologist Destiny set me up with, Jamie Northrup, and Pastor Kirk Samson. In a short time I would be calling Captain Kirk, Grandpa.

Although he became one of my many blessings, I feared I had become his curse. Unfortunately, my past conjured up dark memories from his own past. Long buried memories from his days as an Army Chaplain in Vietnam.

DESTNY’S BIBLE STUDY NOTES AND QUOTES

A person may not be able to tell the exact time or place, or trace all the chain of circumstances in the process of conversion. But this does not prove them unconverted.

Like the wind, which is invisible, yet the effects of which are plainly seen and felt, is the Spirit of God in its work upon the human heart.

While we must not at all trust to ourselves or our good works, our lives will reveal whether the grace of God is dwelling in us. A change will be seen in the character, the habits, the pursuits.

A selfish heart may perform generous actions. By what means, then, shall we determine whose side we are on? Who has the heart? With whom are our thoughts? Of whom do we love to converse? Who has our warmest thoughts and best energies? If we are Christ’s, our thoughts are with Him, and our sweetest thoughts are of Him. All we have and is consecrated to Him.

There is no evidence of repentance unless it works reformation.

The loveliness of the character of Christ should be seen in His followers. It was His delight to do the will of God. Love to God, zeal for His glory, was the controlling power in our Savior’s life. Love beautified and ennobled all His actions. Love is of God.

If our hearts are renewed in the likeness of God, if the divine love is implanted in the soul, will not the law of God be carried out in the life? And if the law is written in the heart, will it not shape the life? Obedience—the service and allegiance of love—is the true sign of discipleship.

“This is the love of God that we keep His commandments.” (1 John 5:3)

“He that says I know Him, and keeps not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” (1 John 2:4)

We do not earn salvation by our obedience; for salvation is the free gift of God, to be received by faith. However, obedience will be the fruit of true faith.

If we abide in Christ, if the love of God dwells in us, our feeling, our thoughts, our purposes, our actions, will be in harmony with the will of God as expressed in the precepts of His holy law.

The so called faith in Christ which professes to release men from the obligation of obedience to God, is not faith, but presumption. “By grace are you saved through faith.” (Ephesians 2:8) But “Faith, if it has not works, is dead.” (James 2:17)

We have no righteousness of our own with which to meet the claims of the law of God. But Christ has made a way of escape for us. He lived on earth amid trials and temptations such as we have to meet. He lived a sinless life. He died for us, and now He offers to take our sins and give us His righteousness. If you give yourself to Him, and accept Him as your Savior, then sinful as your life might have been, for His sake, you are accounted righteous. Christ’s character stands in the place of your character, and you are accepted before God just as if you had not sinned.

More than this, Christ changes the heart. He abides in your heart by faith. You are to maintain this connection with Christ by faith and continual surrender of your will to Him; and so long as you do this, He will work in you to will and to do according to His good pleasure.

We have nothing in ourselves of which to boast. We have no ground for self-exaltation. Our only ground of hope is in the righteousness of Christ imputed to us.

If we should be overcome by the enemy, we are not cast off. We are not rejected and forsaken of God! No, Christ is at the right hand of God, who makes intersession for us.

The closer you come to Jesus, the more faulty you will appear in your own eyes.

He that has begun a good work in you will carry it forward to the day of Jesus Christ. Pray more fervently; believe more fully.