Lent Week 1: The Prayer of Footsteps

Hey everyone! This blog belongs to the “Lent Series” that’ll run until Easter. In this series of fictional short stories, I’ll be revisiting characters from the Advent series (which you can find HERE) who are folks from various walks of life—from college grads to business executives to those in recovery. These stories will engage with how these characters can be good friends and neighbors to people in their lives who are suffering. What happens when friends are turned into suffering people? Enjoy!

The Prayer of Footsteps

Luke sighed and looked over his shoulder. The clock on the mantle read 6:47pm. Outside, it was nearly full dark, the sky slipping from blue to black.

“Everything alright, love?” Layla asked. He looked over at his wife; today her black hair was bound at the nape of her neck, her face warm in the living room light.

“Yes,” he responded, running his hands through his hair. He needed a haircut. “Or not, sort of.” He looked around the living room where the rest of his Bible study group sat, some on cushions on the floor, others on the couch, overstuffed chairs, or the piano bench.

“What’s up?” Ben, the leader, asked. At seventy, he still wore his wedding ring though his wife had died five years previous.

“I don’t mean to distract from the conversation,” Luke said. He tapped his foot on the floor and Layla put her hand on his leg. He stilled. “There’s a man in my building,” he continued. “His name’s Harold, and he works at the front desk. I go into work, he’s there. If I’m leaving work on time, he’s there. We’ve become friends, sort of, over the years. I give him cookies at Christmas and he gives me kombucha. He’s always got a smile on and he asks after Layla and the kids.”

He paused, twisting his wedding ring. Everyone waited for him. “His wife died. Harold’s. I only found out through talking to the maintenance manager. I knew he’d been down but…three months ago, she died in a car accident. And I don’t know how to help him.”

Silence sat heavy in the living room, and even though over the years Luke had come to learn that he could bring the hard parts of life to this group, he still felt uncomfortable. Like he was asking too much, or needing too much. Every time he was vulnerable, he thought this is it. This is when they say it’s too much. But no one said that. Instead, Ava leaned over the piano bench a put a hand on his shoulder. “That’s hard,” she said. When she said it, he believed her, because even though she was young, barely graduated from college, she’d lost her own mother quite young. Everyone nodded, and Ben clasped his hands together, considering.

“Ava’s right,” he said. “It’s very hard when someone we love is hurting. We feel useless, and powerless.”

“I feel stupid,” Luke replied. “Like there’s something I should do, but I don’t know what it is.”

“That may be true,” the group leader acknowledged, “but is what you’re feeling mostly stupidity? Or is it sorrow?”

The second one, Luke thought. But he didn’t respond. Layla squeezed his leg, and in that moment he loved her so much it hurt. Like his heart was confused: pain for Harold’s loss, love for his wife, and grief for every broken thing in the world, all at once. How was he expected to bear it? It didn’t make sense—a good man like Harold, who loved his wife and family and did right by everyone, hurting like this. What was he supposed to do?

“Luke,” Ben said, pushing his glasses up his nose, “ask the Holy Spirit for the words to say to Harold. Or no words, if that’s the answer. Grief is a tricky, tricky thing, but the best thing you can do for him is try, and if the time is right, show him the love of God.”

“You’re right,” he mumbled, but his heart was still heavy. Everyone came around him, laying their hands on him and Layla, and Ben began to pray.

“Lord God, Yahweh, you are God over all, life and death…”

— — — — —

It was raining outside. It felt like it always raining outside during the spring. Luke stood in his building’s lobby, watching the end-of-work crowd push through the lobby, their black umbrellas furling out as they walked through the doors. Unbidden, a line from a poem Layla loved came to mind. The apparition of these faces in the crowd: Petals on a wet, black bough. He’d never been a man for reading; he worked in insurance and never did well in English class. But this poem had followed him into the lobby, and love for his wife squeezed his chest.

Harold sat behind the desk, across the lobby. He wore a black cable-knit sweater, his thin hair carefully combed over his scalp. Luke hesitated by the elevators. What was he going to say?

His phone buzzed in his pocket. A text from Layla. The kids and I are ordering pizza tonight, it read. Stay out as long as you need. Praying for you and Harold. Luke slipped his phone back into his pocket and let out a long breath. He hurt for Harold, but Harold was the one who was in the midst of his loss. He could say something. As he walked across the wet lobby, his dress shoes squeaking, he prayed in a quick, wordless way he never did. It sounded like noise and it felt like desperation, each step another piece of the lament in his soul.

He put his briefcase on the marble counter. “Hey, Harold.”

The older man looked up, each wrinkle carved deeply in his face. He looked like he’d aged a decade in mere months. “Hey,” he replied. No joke followed, no question, no asking after his kids. He went back to staring blanky at his computer.

Luke’s heart broke all over again. Jesus, help.

“I don’t know if you get off soon,” he said, each word placed carefully after the other, “but I was heading to that sports bar down the street. They’ve got good wings and the NBA semi-finals.” Oh, Jesus. “If you wanted to talk basketball, and nothing else.”

Harold looked back up. He moved his mouse to the side. Luke had never seen the man move so slowly. But finally, he spoke. “I get off at 5:30,” he said. “That sounds nice.”

Thank you. Luke patted his briefcase and gestured over to a bench by the window. “Then I’ll be waiting over there for you,” he replied. As he sat down, the raining pouring onto the city street in a flood, a feeling washed over his whole body. Not happiness, really, because there was still sadness, and lament, and grief for his friend. The feeling was something like peace mixed with pain, a feeling that kept extending its hands outward, and outward.

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