Chapter Twelve

Dinner was spent in the dining hall. The food wasn’t as bad as Sara expected, and she was hoping she could get the courage to ask Tyler and his Dad about the things she had learned in the Bible.

Breakfast was served twenty four hours a day, and Sarah was glad. She loved eggs and sausage. She piled them high on her plate and joined the Williams men at a nearby table.

Tyler looked her plate over as she sat down. “You keep eating like that and you’ll gain the ‘freshman fifteen’ for sure.” He laughed and made room for her chocolate milk.

“What’s that? I’ve never heard of it.” Sarah said.

“It’s fifteen pounds college freshman are said to gain because they’re away from home and eat whatever they want. Mostly I guess it’s due to pizza places in college towns giving students discounts. Eating late at night will do it too. But I wouldn’t worry too much if I were you.” He smiled. “You’re a runner, right? You’ll work it off in no time.”

Sarah had never thought about what she ate before. She used her money as sparingly as she could, so her diet wasn’t varied much. She hadn’t really ever eaten vegetables or fruit, but since it was offered here and part of her tuition she would make an effort.

“Well, I think with all the choices here, I could add a few new things to my diet. And you’re right, I’ll probably run this off soon. But not tonight, I’m tired.” She stifled a yawn. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Mr. Williams offered to pray for their food, then asked Sarah to elaborate on her statement. “What time did you actually go to sleep?” He asked.

“Well, I guess it was around two in the morning or so.” She said sheepishly.

Mr. Williams glanced at Tyler. They had prayed for Sarah last night that God would reveal Himself to her. He hoped God had been working in her heart, and that soon she would be ready to talk about it.

“Were you afraid? Was anything wrong with your room at all?” He asked.

“No, nothing like that.” Sarah put down her fork, and lowered her eyes before continuing. “I have never been in a hotel in all my life. I took a nice long bath, and then planned to watch some TV.” She looked sheepish at the admittance. “I haven’t seen any TV for at least six years. I was just curious as to what was on, that’s all.”

Mr. Williams felt disappointed but didn’t let it show. He was hoping she would say she started thinking about God and had spent the better part of the night wondering about His place in her life. Well, it would all come in God’s timing.

“The problem is,” Sarah continued as she cut her sausage, “I couldn’t find the remote. I felt so relaxed after my bath that I didn’t want to get up from the bed. So I dug around in the drawer of the night stand and instead of a remote I found a Bible.” She took a bite of sausage and wondered if she should continue.

Mr. Williams cut in. “Did you get a chance to read anything? Maybe you have some questions.”

“Well, I’ve heard a lot about Jesus from a woman at the library where I work, and then you mentioned him again this weekend. I just wanted to know more about him. So I looked in the index in the back of the Bible and saw a passage that interested me. I found it but,” she wiped her mouth with her napkin, “since I never start in the middle of a book, I turned back to the beginning and started there.” She smiled uncertainly.

Mr. Williams and Tyler looked at each other in disbelief. They had hoped God would start to draw Sarah to Himself, but they never imagined she would turn it into a full blown course of study.

“I took notes and I do have some questions.” Sarah looked from Tyler’s face to his Dad’s. “That is, if that’s alright with you. If you don’t have time, or don’t want to...”

Tyler cut her off. “No, we definitely want to. We were just surprised is all. Now, let’s hear your thoughts. I’m really interested in what you have to say.”

Sarah straightened the paper she had brought from the hotel. She hastily looked over her notes. She had too many questions. She decided to ask only the ones that most concerned her.

“Well, I was reading in John, and on page 1117 Jesus has a conversation with a man named Nicodemus. Do you know what Jesus means about being born of water and of Spirit?”

Mr. Williams cleared his throat. Clearly, Sarah was a scholastic person. She had made notes with page references and had specific questions. “That passage of scripture, uh, the Bible, is a very good one for explaining Christ’s purpose on earth. It compares your physical, or water, birth with your spiritual birth, the birth that happens when you decide to become a child of God.”

Sarah was confused and took a sip of her chocolate milk to giver her mind a chance to think. She still didn’t understand. Would they think she was stupid? Should she ask more questions or just let it go? She decided to risk one more. “I was wondering, what did Nicodemus decide?”

Mr. Williams looked puzzled for a moment. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.” He said.

Sarah looked at Mr. Williams. Maybe it was better to leave the subject. She didn’t really like being the focus of conversation. Both the men were looking intently at her, and she suddenly felt very exposed.

“Maybe you could just explain a little bit?” Mr. Williams asked kindly.

She took a deep breath and answered. “It’s just that the conversation ends with Jesus talking, and we never hear what Nicodemus decided. I was wondering if the Bible tells the rest of the story anywhere else.” Sarah turned her eyes to her plate.

It bothered Sarah that the Bible didn’t tell her everything. Like in the story with the woman taken in adultery, what did Jesus write in the sand? How did Jesus get those horrible men to walk away without having a physical fight? Sarah knew men that mistreated women were not so easily put off.

“The Bible doesn’t always fill in the blanks.” Mr. Williams began. “Sometimes we just need to trust God that He accomplished His purpose whether we understand it all or not.”

Sarah understood it all. It wasn’t a complicated story. What she didn’t know is why there were so many unanswered questions. She felt compelled to ask one more thing. “Didn’t God think it was important to tell people what Nicodemus decided?”

“That’s a very complicated question.” Mr. Williams said. He put down his fork and drew his napkin from his lap before placing it on his plate. “There are different schools of thought on the subject, and I honestly can’t say that I know what happened. I wasn’t there, and it isn’t mentioned in the Bible again.”

He looked at Sarah and smiled kindly again. “I think sometimes God leaves the blanks unfilled because He wants us to think for ourselves. He doesn’t want us to just follow what someone else has done, but base our decisions on the truth of His Word.”

Mr. Williams paused to form his next thought. “Try to think of it like this. If the Bible said that Nicodemus believed that Jesus was the Messiah and had accepted His words, would that influence you to do the same? Or if he decided not to believe, would that have influenced you not to?”

Sarah sat quiet, thinking. She could see his point. Other people’s choices did have the tendency to influence her, whether she realized it or not. Maybe God didn’t share what Nicodemus decided because He wanted people to believe in Jesus on His own merit, not just because someone else did.

“I think I understand now. Thank you.” Sarah rose slowly from her seat. “I’m going to take a look at the dessert case. Some of those cakes look pretty good.”

She walked quietly away from the table and went to the dessert counter. Tyler and his Dad looked at each other, both surprised at the conversation. Sarah asked some good questions, but did she even know what the Gospel was all about?

*****************

As she looked over the tempting choices in the dessert case, Sarah thought about the recent conversation. She shouldn’t decide to believe in Jesus because she liked Mrs. Lepley, or even because the Williams were nice people and she wanted to be like them, to care about people the way they did. She wasn’t sure what she believed about Jesus. If He had truly existed, then He was amazing.

The things He had done for other people, the healing, the comforting, the assurance that they weren’t alone. She longed for those things for herself. She wanted to believe that God loved her, that Jesus had really been compassionate and caring, but how could she know for sure that the Bible was true?

Sarah returned to the table with a piece of apple pie smothered with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce. She followed their surprised gazes to her bowl. “I know I said the cakes looked good, but pie and ice cream won. Did you see they have like sixteen flavors of ice cream? There’s a whole table of toppings too.”

That was all the encouragement the men needed. They both excused themselves and made a beeline for the dessert case. Moments later they each returned with their own concoctions.

“I plan to enjoy every bite of this.” Mr. Williams said of his chocolate cake drowning in chocolate and marshmallow sauce. “Tyler, you just don’t tell your Mother how poorly I’ve eaten this weekend. She might never let me go away without her again!”

They laughed, and Tyler promised not to tell. Then he spoke to Sarah. “You know, Dad and I were planning to check out a church in the area and were wondering if you’d like to join us. We’ll be leaving campus shortly after nine tomorrow. Wanna come?”

Sarah let the creamy caramel coat her tongue, and swallowed before answering. “Yes,” she said. “I think I would like that very much.”

Maybe tomorrow she would find out the answers to her questions. She’d never been to church before, and the thought excited her. She smiled to herself. Even if it turned out to be dull and weird, at least she’d get to wear one of her new dresses.