The Do Over - Part 2 - The Cost of a Gift

The Cost of a Gift

“Are you so foolish? After beginning by the Spirit, are you now trying to finish God’s work by means of the flesh?”  Galatians 3:3

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She awoke with a start.  It was still dark in the room. She leaned over and felt Tony’s side of the bed. He was gone. But the smell of coffee lingering in the air made her think he still might be here. 

What woke her up so abruptly? What was this uneasy feeling she had in her gut? What about that strange dream?  Or was it a dream?  Angels, lights, the horrible things that she did, it was all a blur. 

In a flash, fear jump-started her brain. The fogginess parted in a heart beat as she remembered how she left things with Tony. “Please God don’t let me mess things up this morning, like I did yesterday.” Dressing quickly, she hurried to the kitchen to make sure she didn’t miss him.  She had no idea what she was going to say, but she was sure it was going to start with some humble pie.

When she entered the kitchen she looked at Tony’s muscular back, which was obvious underneath his white collared work shirt. He hadn’t seen her come in yet as he was busy finishing up his breakfast at the stove. Tony was a great cook and liked to do it. He was also a morning person and could get up extra early to make himself a solid meal before going off for a hard day’s work. Chrissy on the other hand  . . .

 “Well,” she thought, “I am the complete opposite. If I get to drink a cup of coffee without spilling it before rushing out the door late, I am doing good.”

She was almost afraid to let him know that she had gotten up, the peaceful morning would soon be disrupted by emotional hurt and turmoil.  Her little sigh to herself startled him and he turned around.

“Good morning Gorgeous, you’re up early,” he smiled at her with a wide good morning smile. 

“Ummm.  . . Good morning to you too,” Chrissy replied carefully. Was he playing nice this morning to trap her later on?  It wasn’t like him to be devious in his revenge, but that was all that made sense to her at this moment. “Did you sleep, OK?”

“Yeah, I was so tired last night, I guess I forgot to eat dinner.  Slept like a log, didn’t even hear you come to bed last night.”

“I know . . . I know . . .  I am soooo sorry about last night.  I should have fixed you something to eat as soon as you got home.  I know you work so hard. I am just . . . so . . . sorry.” Chrissy fumbled with her words and hung her head.

Tony reached over and tilted her head up with a strong hand and looked at her with love in his eyes, “What are you sorry for honey? I am the one who went to bed without even really talking to you.”

Chrissy was now completely befuddled, “I mean I’ve been treating you so poorly lately, and I am so sorry about that.” 

Now it was Tony’s turn to look startled but with a little smirk added in, “Are you actually saying that you are sorry for asking me to complete all your ‘honey do’ chores?  I admit, they have been piling up.”

Tony continued, “But I know, I know you love those flower beds and I promised to get them plowed for you. Even though it rained yesterday, it was brief and the ground should be in good shape for me to plow it tonight.  Would that work for you?”

“I . . . don’t understand. . . . You would still be willing to do that for me . . . after everything I did yesterday? After,” she hesitated, but the elephant in the room had to get out in the open, “. . . after spending all that money out of our fun-time jar.” Chrissy felt like she was going to fall apart again and start crying.

“What?!” Tony twirled around to regard their special jar on the counter.

Both of them looked straight at it. The jar was full of money; it looked like it could be used soon for some special adventure for the two of them.  Tony smiled. Chrissy was dumb-founded.

“Oh, man! Chrissy, you had me going there for a moment. You really should take up acting.” Tony shook his head laughing, “as if you could do such a thing! . . .  Look you, your beauty and charm are distracting me from getting ready for work. I promise we will find time to use that money for us soon.” And with that he gave her a quick kiss on her forehead and headed to the garage to pack his truck for the day's activities.

Chrissy stared at their “fun-time” jar and then she stared at the door leading to the garage.  What just happened? Did she just get a “genie’s request” answered? Did last night really happen? Did she get a “do-over?”  Impossible . . . but there sat the jar in all its glory, untouched, unscathed by the events of yesterday.

Did yesterday even happen? Chrissy checked her phone for the date. Yes apparently yesterday was her day off and she now had to get ready for work herself.  But she had to check out one more thing.

Chrissy wrapped her light jacket around her, there was a bit of chill in the air this morning after yesterday’s front had come through. She walked to the end of her tree-lined gravel driveway.

Yep, her neighbor's mailbox looked untouched. But she knew she had hit it. She could still hear the crunch, scrape sound in her mind, when her car had backed into it yesterday. That memory really happened, didn’t it? She slowly walked back to her car parked outside the single bay garage. She examined the rear bumper, the front bumper, even slouching down to look at the undercarriage.  The garage door opened and Tony backed up his work truck and stopped.

“Can’t get enough of me this morning, eh?” He grinned at her. Then he noticed what she was doing, “Is something wrong with your car?” Tony got out of the truck to look at her car.

“Noooo, ummm, just thought I might have hit something yesterday.  But . . I  . . guess I didn’t.”

“OK,” Tony shook his head, “enough of your puzzles. I’m going to be late for work.”  He grabbed her by the waist, spun her around and bent down and kissed her fully on her mouth. “There, a proper kiss goodbye! Now I really have to get going.” With that he got in his truck and left Chrissy speechless as he headed back down the driveway.

Wow! Did she really get away scott free? Now no one would know how bad she had acted. She wouldn’t have to pay for her neighbor’s mailbox, or hear them complain about her driving again. Tony would still love her. And whatever she hit with her car, didn’t get hurt yesterday. Her car didn’t show any signs of it either.  It had been completely erased, somehow. Wow!

As she walked back into the kitchen and saw their “fun-time” jar, a slight twinge of guilt swelled up as she remembered Tony’s remarks this morning, “As if you could do such a thing.” He didn’t know what she was capable of, he still thought she was his perfect little wife.

Why? Why would God intervene so specifically and dramatically in her life?  The angel, if that was even real, had said something about God wanting her to do a job. But what job? What could she possibly do for Him? And if she didn’t do it, and do it right, would He reverse all of this? Would He hold this over her spiritual head? What scary thing might He ask of her? Would she have to hold up signs about the end of the world and have people make fun of her? What would Tony think? Was this just a momentary reprieve and her “real life,” where everyone was mad at her, would come back to haunt her. Panic started rising.  What was she supposed to do?

Well, for starters, try to make it to work on time, came the thought. Her shift didn’t start for another hour and a half, but she didn’t want to dawdle this time. 

She arrived at Sundry Community Hospital fifteen minutes before her shift. Well, there you go God, I got myself here on time. Does this make you happy? As Chrissy parked her car and went to punch in, she wondered, what really makes “God happy?” 

Surely this work at the hospital would be something that God would be proud of. Ministering and serving wasn’t that the “call of God” people talked about answering?

She had been a Certified Nursing Assistant at this hospital for a while now. The hospital had a program to become an RN that she started last year.  The hospital would pay for part of the tuition and give opportunities to do her “intern work.”  She really loved the fast pace and the help that she could give to her patients and so wanted to be able to do more for them. 

Her courses were mostly night classes and a few on-line classes from the local university. Right now she was on a break having made an “A” in her anatomy class a couple of weeks back.  She was so proud of her hard work and found it interesting.  Her next class, “Chemistry” was looming on the horizon and she wasn’t sure she would be able to keep her grades up to the same standard.  Tony had encouraged her that she was bright enough and could do it.  He was such a good supportive husband. Why hadn’t she realized that much earlier? Then she wouldn’t be in this mess.

She had just transferred to the “long-term” care wing, which gave her better hours, and only occasionally had her working the 12 hour weekend shifts. One of which was this Saturday. She liked long-term care, as many of her patients were the same and she got to know them personally.

She headed into her job with the determination, “I am going to make God proud of me today. I am going to be the best assistant I can.”

However, instead of being more focused, she found herself extremely distracted, having to really force herself to look through her orders for each patient.  She found herself double checking every vital she took and making sure she recorded it correctly. By the end of the day, she was exhausted.

On the plus side, she got in a new patient that seemed really kind, almost jolly. Not something that one sees often for patients being admitted to the “long-term” ward. Her name fit her style, “Rosy.”

By the time Chrissy got through her registration information, she felt like she knew everything there was to know about this sweet woman’s life.  

“Chrissy, dear. I got that right, right?”

“Yes Miss Rosy,” Chrissy smiled.

“Can I let you in on a secret?” Rosy beckoned Chrissy to come closer.  Chrissy obliged.

“I love ice cream.  Now, I know it says I am a diabetic on that silly computer screen of yours, but I’m not really.”

“Oh, is that so?” Chrissy almost laughed, it wasn’t the first time she had heard this speech from other patients.

“Yes, my sugar stays low when I am taking my meds right.  And I am sure you guys are going to be doing a great job keeping me on the right amount.  Soooo maybe every once in a while you could sneak me in one of those ice cream cups I know they have in that little kitchen area down the hall.”

“Well, Miss Rosy, I will do my best.  I’ll just have to check it out with the head nurse.”

“Oh, fooey, that tough looking sargeant you call a head nurse? I’ve seen her type. She won’t budge an inch.” Rosy scowled a bit, but then brightened up her beautiful face, “That’s alright, honey, you do what you have to do.  I do not want you getting into any trouble.”  She patted Chrissy’s arm. 

“You know something Chrissy?”

“What’s that Miss Rosy?”

“I think God put us together for a reason. He’s always working out something, you know. You seem like such a sweet child but maybe you don’t know how much God loves you. I feel like He wants me here to make sure I tell you that.” Rosy’s face appeared to beam from her extra wide smile, even the slight gap in her front teeth seemed to enhance the joyous spirit of the moment.

“What . . . do you mean. . . do you talk to God?” Chrissy’s eyes widened and her hands started trembling as she stuffed them into her uniform pockets.

“Why, all the time, child!” Came the immediate reply. “I do not think I could get through one moment of my life without talking to Him.”

“Does He tell you things? Like what people did or . . . might do?” Chrissy held her breath.

Now it was Rosy’s turn to look at her with interest, “Noooo. Sometimes He gives me a ‘sense’ about what someone might need to hear.” She cocked her head and looked at her with a softening gleam, “Don’t worry your head about me, dear. God knows how to keep secrets.  . . . Do you ever read the Bible?”

“Ummm . . .well I have a Bible at home . . . and I guess I have read it a couple of times.” Chrissy stammered out quietly.

“Well, that’s a great start!” Rosy looked like she was a proud parent of a kindergartner that had just learned how to write the alphabet. “Do you know about King David?”

“Yeah, he was the kid that killed that giant . . . Goliath . . .  with a sling shot . . . and . . . and then he became King of Israel” Chrissy was trying to remember her old Sunday School stories and was glad she could recollect some of them.

“Very good! But do you know he also had a secret? That he did something really, really bad?”

“Can you tell me about it?” this was ringing a bell in Chrissy’s mind, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on how all this went together.

“Well, the short of it is that he actually murdered a guy named Uriah, after he had stolen his wife and gotten that guy’s wife pregnant!”

“Wow, that is horrible! I guess I haven’t done anything that bad.” Chrissy was beginning to feel a bit better being able to compare her “sins” to that of King David of the Bible.

“Oh, that’s not the point, deary.”

“It’s not?”

“No!” Rosy was trying to think how to say this, “Did you know that King David’s story is told twice in the Bible?”

“Ummm, no.”

“Well it is. In the books of II Samuel and I Chronicles, almost the exact same story of what King David did during his reign shows up.  In one book, however, it details his sin, while the other declares his works without any mention of any of his wrong deeds.  Do you know why?”

“I’m guessing you're going to tell me?” Chrissy smiled.

“You betcha. The first book details the wrongs, so we, as the readers could learn how David, and God, handled that sin. Because we all sin, and we all need to know how to handle it when we mess up. The second book tells how God looks at David after He forgave David of his sin.” Rosy smiled a deep wise smile as she said, “God looks at him as though he never sinned at all. God gave him a ‘Do-over’.”

Chrissy went silent, until her pager startled her and demanded that she attend another patient’s needs. “Can I ask you more about this at another time?”

“Of course! I would love to share with you, anytime.”

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That night Chrissy was beat tired as she headed home. Thoughts from the day, and from her experience, (was that just 24 hours ago ?), kept racing around and around. She wanted to just stop for a pizza, or something quick to eat, but the guilt started welling up in her as she got closer to home. No matter how tired she was, she just had to fix Tony a nice dinner.  She had to make up for her behavior yesterday, even if he didn’t know it. She had to show God that she was worth the effort in fixing things for her.  And most of all, she didn’t want Tony to ever know how hurtful she could really be.

As she pulled into the driveway, however, Chrissy had another surprise for her. Tony had gotten home early and was cooking chicken on the grill, with his special sauce that he kept a guarded secret.  He looked up at her and smiled, “Hi gorgeous, you were acting so weird this morning, and I got off early . . . so I thought I would make dinner.”

“Tony . . . oh man . . . thank you! I don’t know what to say. You have no idea what this means to me. But I don’t deserve this.”

“Deserve?? This isn’t a consolation prize, Chrissy. I am doing this just because I love you.  Well . . . and that I had a taste for this chicken, too.  You know, no one makes this like I do.”’ With that Tony grinned and turned his attention back to the grill. Whistling a little tune, happy with himself.

Chrissy felt like she should be happy, she should be thankful, she should be jumping up and down with joy.  But instead she felt guilt, upon guilt. She just had to fix this somehow. She had to figure out how to deserve all of this special treatment that “God” and her husband was giving her.

When she went into work the next day, she found that one of the other nursing assistants was off sick, so she was extra busy.  In fact, throughout the rest of the week, she didn’t even get a chance to chat with Rosy, outside of some cheery “hellos.”  She did feel like Rosy was watching her, almost with that same kind and concerned look that the “angel” had, at least what she remembered.  The “event” was still so fresh and weird that she couldn’t bring herself to even tell anyone about it yet.

She came home each night tired, more tired than usual.  Maybe she was coming down with something? But deep inside she knew it was that guilt building each day as she reaped the benefits of God’s intervention, without her doing anything to deserve it.

Then came her noon to midnight shift on Saturday, with the benefit of Sunday off.  She knew she had to get to church. If she was going to figure out what God was after, that was where to go, right?

It had been awhile, but the friendly, open-spaced, lightly colored church just 10 miles away, was what she called her home church. Even if she only attended a couple of times a year.  She checked the website, just to make sure she knew what time the services were at.  Sunday School at 9 and Church at 10 am.  Ok, better attend both to make sure this would work.

When Sunday morning came and her alarm went off, Chrissy sleepily pushed the snooze button, and wrapped the pillow over her head.  The sun was starting to creep into the bedroom, but she was not ready to face today. 

Tony blinked at the clock and said, “What are you doing getting up this early on your day off?  The day we both have off together, the first in a while . . .”

Leaning on his side looking at her Tony grinned, already wide awake, “Oh I know, you just can’t wait to get to those flower beds. I did finally get them done last night. Or maybe,” he paused for effect, “you just can’t wait to spend more time with me.”

“Nooo . . . I need to go to church . . . just give me five more minutes.” came the unexpected groggy reply from behind the pillow.

“Church? Well, I suppose it would be a good idea to go sometime, but I figured you wouldn’t want to waste too much time on this special day.  Because, just maybe, I have an idea for a ‘fun-time’ jar adventure.”  She peered at him from under her pillow, “Oh why did he have to be such a morning person.” Chrissy chuckled to herself.

But the guilt and the pressure from the week were weighing on her, and she couldn’t be allowed to enjoy pleasure - not just yet.  Let’s get to church and see what this God wanted from her - and then maybe.

“No! I have got to go to church.”  And with that she pushed herself off the bed and headed to the shower, leaving a somewhat bewildered husband behind in the bedroom.

Despite her early arousal from bed, Chrissy found herself running late.  A cuss word, or two, may have escaped her lips, when she realized she wasn’t going to make it to the Sunday School hour. The guilt enlarged and she angrily thought, “OK, just the church service by itself will have to do.  God will just have to speak to me, somehow, during that time.”

Tony decided to join a very frustrated Chrissy to church, looking at her from time to time, shaking his head.  “I will never understand women in general, and definitely not Chrissy,” he thought, “I may love her, but I am never going to understand her.” 

He tried to dress the part, but nice jeans were going to have to be it for him. He was a bit relieved when he noticed that many of the other guys in church were wearing jeans as well.  There were several men that came to say hi.  Some he recognized from the church softball league last year. Perhaps, they were thinking that was why he was attending now, so he could play for them again this year. It was a moderate crowd in church and they found a pew where they could sit part way back and by the middle aisle, allowing them to leave easier. The music was better than he had remembered and the message gave him a good feeling, but couldn’t quite put his finger on what he was supposed to do about it.

Probably the best part for him was when he noticed about half-way through the sermon Chrissy was nodding off. He almost bust a gut trying to contain his laughter. And the more he tried to contain it, the harder it was for him, he just had to look away. Until he noticed the two ladies in the back eyeing him and his behavior. That helped him gulp the laughter down.

Instead of finding her dozing in church humorous, Chrissy was furious with herself. Tony couldn’t quite get it.  She kept saying, “That must have been when I missed it.” Then she muttered to herself, “God would send a message, just when I fell asleep. Just to punish me for sleeping.” Tony heard her talking and was confused.

“What are you talking about Chrissy?  Look, you’re tired. I get it. I am sure God gets it.”

“No you don’t understand,” wailed Chrissy. “He was supposed to tell me what to do to make things right. He was supposed to tell me how to get forgiven to make up for what I’ve done.”

“He? He who? God? You actually expected God Almighty to talk to you during church?” Tony was incredulous and then a worried look came over his face. “Are you OK, Chrissy? What is going on with you?  I’ve noticed you beating yourself up over every little detail this past week. You haven’t been yourself. And now Church, and this?  I’m getting concerned about you.”

Chrissy tried to give him a strained little smile, “I’m sorry, just forget it. I’m OK.  I just need to go spend time with my flowers.” Those last words put a real smile on her face, the first one that week. It felt refreshing. No “Fun-time” adventure. No church or God judging her. Just flowers and dirt, that is what Chrissy needed.

While digging around in that fresh soil later that afternoon, she still found herself confronted with those thoughts. Chrissy wracked her brain trying to get things to line up. What did God want with her? 

She had gone to church and got nothing out of the service. People at the church seemed nice enough, and appeared to be happy even.  But they didn’t have her burden.  She was frustrated, ready to swear, angry, exhausted, depressed.  Well if this is what God wanted from her, Chrissy was done. He could have his “day” back.  She would face whatever consequences she had to, she was at her wits end.

“I don’t really want to end it like this with you. . . . God!!!!  What do I do???” Chrissy was screaming internally.  

And then thought came, “Go talk to Rosy.” 

“Yeah, I’ll do that,” Chrissy thought. “She looks happy. And Rosy apparently hears from God.  Maybe I could tell her.” 

Then she hesitated, would Rosy even believe her?

 Well there was only one way to find out.