A SAINT IN SIN CITY

SAUL SALLIE

CHAPTER 7

MAY THE LORD GIVE YOU UNDERSTANDING IN ALL THINGS (2 Timothy 2:7)

The next afternoon, after I had walked away from Marcella, I had the worst pitching performance of my short professional baseball career or even my amateur pitching career. I don’t ever remember being yanked from a game in the first inning before. But this happened for the first time on a beautiful Sunday. Weather wise that is. A day that up to that point I considered the Sabbath.

However, after my discourse with Marcella over the Biblical Sabbath of creation vs. the Sunday sabbath created by man, I stayed up late into the night with my Bible and concordance, looking up every text that had to do with the Sabbath. I concluded that Marcella was right. But what did I do with what I now intellectually believed, while at the same time my heart was troubled.

Sunday had always been my favorite day of the week. Unlike most teenagers, I loved going to church with my mother. And how would my devout mother react in regard to the actual Sabbath of the Bible? She took the Sabbath serious. She did most of her grocery shopping at Fareway because they closed on Sundays. Her favorite restaurant was Chick-fil-A because they were closed on Sunday. She loved to knit and sew, and bought all of her supplies at Hobby Lobby, a store closed on Sundays. She frowned at me playing baseball on Sundays.

I was beginning to see what Marcella had declared about seeking truth is like finding hidden treasure. There has been so much truth concealed in time and history. Even the most devout people get lazy and let the clergy tell them what to think.

We need to search things out for ourselves like the noble Bereans. (See Acts 17:11) Comparing spiritual things with spiritual, guided by the Holy Spirit. (See 1 Corinthians 2:13) The study of the Holy Bible is God’s best way to communicate with us. (See 2 Timothy 3:16) Let me get off the soap box, onto the pitcher’s mound, and on with the story of this fateful day.

So as I walked onto the baseball diamond, before a crowd of a couple thousand, my mind was not on the game. I was wondering what to do with the information I discovered from my own study that concurred with Marcella’s sentiments. I was also tired from lack of sleep. I couldn’t shut my mind off from the things I pondered.

Up to that point, Marcella had not missed a home game. I had given her two season ticket passes, so she could watch every home game with a person of her choice. But she wasn’t there that day. I was both relieved and disappointed, as strange as that may sound. This also added to my mental distractions. When I looked toward her seats, one was vacant and the other was occupied by Don Barrow.

Don was a member of Marcella’s church, and a former baseball player, who played up through the high school level. It was kind of funny. He and I talked mostly about baseball when I visited Marcella’s church. At the baseball park, we talked about life and God.

That horrible first inning, I allowed two runs to score, and still had loaded bases with only one out. When the Skipper came out to the mound, he extended a hand for me to give him the ball. After I handed it off, he patted me on the behind and said in a friendly voice, “It’s not your day, kid, you’ll get em next time.”

I walked to the dug out with a hanging head. There was a smattering of claps, mingled with a few boos. I stole a glance at Don. He was clapping, and wearing a sympathetic smile. When the game was over, we sought each other out.

“Tough break,” he told me, running a hand through his thin white hair.

“Yeah, but at least we won,” I said with a shrug. Then I added sarcastically, “No thanks to me.”

“Well, it is a team sport,” he said. “When one or more struggles, a good team picks them up.”

“Yeah, I guess, but pitching is a little like an individual sport in the middle of a team sport.”

“I see your point. But you also have the catcher and the defense behind you. Sort of like faith and fellowship. Your individual walk with God is the most important. But fellowship with like believers is the team. Personal, daily prayer, and devotion is spiritual food and exercise. But a meal with others often makes food more enjoyable. Interaction with others is the game if you please.”

What he told me was encouraging, but my mind was on overload sorting out life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I simply nodded, then asked the one thing I needed to know in that particular moment, “Why didn’t Marcella come?”

Don looked at his feet, slid his hands in the pockets of his khaki shorts, and then looked at me. “The short answer is she feels she needs to give you space.”

“What’s the long answer?”

“It’s probably too complicated to put a timetable on.”

“Why?” was all I could manage, as I tried unsuccessfully not to scowl.

“For one thing, it seems you’ve been confronted with some profound spiritual truths,” he replied, and then paused for me to process.

I was already aware of his statement. “What’s another?”

“My wife noticed you leave yesterday with a less than pleasant demeanor. She went down to the creek and had a talk with Marcella.” Don paused, and looked at me with caution in his eyes.

“And?”

“It seems that you two are falling in love with each other, but you’re troubled by her past.”

He threw me a curveball. True, Marcella’s having been a sex slave troubled me, but for her sake.  I didn’t hold it against her. Holding in anger, I told him as much. “I don’t blame her even a little bit.”

“I know you don’t hold it against her, Son,” Don said sympathetically. “But you wouldn’t be human if you weren’t bothered by it. If you didn’t have feelings akin to jealousy.”

I realized I breathing hard. He was right. I hated the fact that other men had had their way with this sweet young woman I loved. And not just men, but vile animals that abuse minors, and treat human beings as objects for their perverted lusts.

“Her past is past,” I said quietly. “She’s a new creation, behold all things are new.”

Don put a sympathetic hand on my upper arm. His eyes were watery, and I had to look away or my own tears were sure to come. “Have you ever felt like Marcella has tried to push you away, while at the same time, letting you in?”

“Oh, yeah,” I replied with a non-humored chuckle.

“I know yours and my romantic situations are vastly different,” he told me. “Yet in a way, they are very similar.”

I stared at him wide eyed as I envisioned his old fashioned, grandmotherly wife. Dumbfounded, I asked, “Bonnie was a prostitute?”

Now he looked at me wide eyed, and then laughed. “No, no she wasn’t.”

“Well, how could your situation be similar to mine then?”

“Do you know how old Bonnie is?” he asked. I didn’t want to guess his wife’s age. What if I was off in the wrong direction? But Don persisted. “Come on, give me a number. I promise I won’t be offended.”

“Seventy,” I shrugged.

“She’s seventy-five. Now guess my age.”

“Seventy-two.”

“I’m fifty-eight,” he said frowning at me.

“Wow, sorry.”

Then he grinned. “I know, I know, my thinning hair along with the color don’t exactly make me look youthful.”

“So how is that similar to Marcella and me?” I inquired. “I’m only a year older than Marcella.”

“Let me explain,” Don said. “I was seventeen when Bonnie and I first met. I was a part time delivery boy at the company we worked at. She was a thirty-five year old married woman. Over the next year and a half, we got to know each other pretty well as friends.

Over that time, the crush I had on her only strengthened with every time I saw her. She was so beautifully wholesome looking, yet sexy in a subtle way. She usually wore skirts the fell just below the knees. But when she sat at her desk, they would hike up to just above the knee. When they had a split on the side, well, you can probably guess.

“She was the person I turned my delivery invoices in to. We would sometimes linger, talking, and I would steal glances at her legs. I got a good paying job as a machinist at one of the places I delivered to. About the same time, I heard she was getting divorced. One of the reasons for her marital problems was her husband’s infertility.

“It was right at Christmas time, and Bonnie and I were at a party. She was dressed as a sexy elf. Short skirt, low cut top, I had never seen her like that before. We were only professed Christians at the time, rather than practicing. So we drank quite a bit of spiked punched, and flirted. One thing led to another, we went back to her place, and I lost my virginity.

“I don’t know how deeply I was in love right then, but I was head over heels in lust. I wanted to keep seeing her, but because of our age difference, she wouldn’t give me the time of day. A couple weeks after our Christmas party encounter, I moved on.

“But three or four months later, she contacted me, and informed me that our encounter had conceived our first child. After that, we began a secret romance, and really got to know each other. And this is where we are similar, that being our helpless feelings about our ladies pasts.”

“I still don’t get where they are similar though,” I said.

“I don’t know, maybe they’re not,” he replied. “But hear me out and we’ll see.”

“Sure,” I responded, anxious to see where he was going with this.

“Obviously I knew she had been married,” he continued. “But the jealousy was in the details. The most profound aspect I struggled with, occurred with a simple comment she made several months before our first child was even born. She commented how bizarre it was that she had been intimate with her husband over a thousand times and never became pregnant. Yet she conceived with me the very first time.”

“Wouldn’t that fact, I don’t know, make you feel proud or something?” I tried.

“Did you get the part about intimate with another man over a thousand times? Just to be clear, and maybe this is TMI, but Bonnie is the only woman I, um, have gone all the way with. I can count on one hand the number of girls I dated. But nothing really happened with those brief relationships.”

“I see,” I replied. “So what you’re saying is when you and Bonnie got together, she was experienced and you were inexperienced. And young as Marcella is, she has been experienced, although not by choice, and I’m inexperienced.”

“Right, something like that,” Don said. “But my point in all this is patience. When you’re new to a relationship, it can bring insecurities, which lead to jealousies. But I want to leave you with this point. With every passing year, Bonnie’s previous relationship became more and more irrelevant. It hasn’t bothered me in years now. After four kids and decades of marriage, she even says it doesn’t seem like she was ever married to someone before me. And they were married fifteen years.”

I appreciated Don’s advice. One of my distractions was in fact coping with Marcella’s past. I didn’t know if I could do it even though I considered her, not only completely innocent, but a victim. Yet I sometimes selfishly obsessed about creepy guys touching her, defiling her. I didn’t understand my mixed feelings. Because spiritually, I saw her as a virgin that was as pure as the wind driven snow.

In all honesty, a part of me viewed Marcella’s and my religious differences as an easy out. So what drove me to study out the matter almost all night long? Especially when I knew I had to pitch the next day. It’s because I loved her, and wanted her in my life, even though another part of me wanted to run.

It’s funny that Don didn’t give me a pep talk about baseball. He also didn’t try to sell me on the Sabbath issue. God works in mysterious ways, and He also works through His servants. How else did the Barrow’s know what was going on with us? With me in particular.

When I was done conversing with Don, I wasted no time getting together with Marcella. The first thing I told her, after apologizing for my attitude the previous day, was, “You were right.”

“About what?” she asked with wide, innocent eyes. Man was she a wholesome beauty.

“About the Sabbath.”

“No I’m not.”

“You’re not?” I asked dumbfounded.

“The Bible was right,” she giggled.

I pulled her in for a tight hug, as we both laughed. I didn’t even care about the worst game of my life. After all, we won. So did I.