“Actually, you’d be doing me a favor,” he said. “I want to move one of my other guests. He’s used to having this cabin, but I accidentally gave him the wrong one and he needs to be in this one for personal reasons. I’ll move you to cabin five.”
Oh. That explained the kid’s nervousness. Bob hadn’t missed the way he was almost dancing, shuffling his feet so much. “In that case, we’ll be happy to switch.” Romeo’s face lost some of its stiffness. But, important things came first. “Would you like some breakfast, son? We have plenty and it sounds like something is alive inside of you.”
At the table, Stella prompted Romeo to tell them a few stories about his smokejumping career. Seemed the kid—no, man—was a hero. Not that he’d say as much, but Bob could read between the lines of the stories he told.
“Sounds like you’re a guy who likes adventure.” Bob took a drink of his coffee, studying the man.
“It was a job, not a calling.” Romeo looked him in the eye.
And yeah, Bob knew that sentiment too. In fact, lately his church work had seemed more like a job than a calling.
Romeo offered to wash the dishes while they gathered their clothes.
The three of them made quick work of packing their things. Romeo helped Stella carry her suitcase. Bob carried Marilyn’s items, and she hefted a bag of groceries from the fridge. Their new cabin was similar to the first, except this one had two bedrooms. With doors.
As the girls settled their things into the bedrooms, Bob walked over to the bookshelf. What luck. They had puzzles here too. He selected one and set it out at the table.
A few minutes later, he already had several edge pieces fitted together. He heard the cabin door open and close but didn’t turn to look.
He felt rather than saw Marilyn sit next to him. Must have been Stella who left, then. She reached across him and tucked a piece into place.
He began thinking about his church, and his own restlessness kicked in. He imagined the words he would say to Marilyn. Imagined opening up his mouth and confessing his doubts about his abilities.
Marilyn cleared her throat, and he looked up at her. She opened her mouth to speak. “Bob…”
Suddenly, the air seemed to empty from the room, and with the look in her eyes, his chest tightened.
Nope. He wasn’t ready to talk to her.
He set down the puzzle piece he held, damp with perspiration he hadn’t noticed before. “Now that we have the car back, I think I’ll run into town to try that coffee shop we stopped at on our way here. Coffee Moose or whatever?”
“Oh,” Marilyn said quietly.
“I know you’ll probably want a nap, so I thought I’d get out of your hair for a while.”
“That’s…thoughtful. Maybe I will lie down for a rest.”
And she must have been tired, because she headed straight for the bedroom, her back straight, shoulders high.
“I love you,” he said, but the door had already swung shut.
Light snowflakes peppered his windshield on the drive down to Deep Haven. A quick flick of the wipers whisked them away. His mind twisted with thoughts not so easily brushed off.
This break from ministry duties was a welcome one, but it also highlighted the fact that he simply did not want to go back to it. How could he tell Marilyn that he didn’t want to be a pastor anymore? Or, well, maybe that wasn’t quite it. He just didn’t know if he fit the position anymore. He wasn’t old enough to retire yet—what would he even do with himself? He wasn’t skilled in anything else. The pulpit was all he’d known.
The conversation he’d had with LeRoy Olson those months ago came back to mind.
I think you could be uniquely gifted to help us out, LeRoy had responded to Bob’s “Why me?” Think of it as a sponsored vacation. You and Marilyn always wanted to travel, right?
True. They’d never found the time or money to travel like they’d always dreamed, but Bob couldn’t imagine asking Marilyn to uproot their lives for a year abroad. Taking a week or two to jaunt around a country was a whole lot different than moving their entire lives to someplace they’d never been before.
Plus, it felt a little too close to just running away. Shouldn’t he stay and try to figure out where this ambivalence—okay, maybe more like burnout—toward the ministry was coming from?
Some days he wondered if he was just fading away.
The trouble was, fading away sounded perfect to him.
He thought of last week’s sermon, mortified once again by the way he had stumbled through it. And the one a few weeks before that, when he couldn’t remember the words to the Lord’s Prayer. And the week before, when the order of service had eluded him. Thank goodness Mary Ann, the church organist, had put an extra bulletin in the pulpit. He’d referenced it frequently.
Initially he’d been concerned about a medical problem, but he knew that it was more than that. It was a sort of indifference to the whole thing. An indifference he’d never felt before.
His breath came quicker, and he felt sweat pop out on his forehead. He pried a hand off the steering wheel and flipped on the car’s air, letting a cool blast calm his racing heart.
Spotting a small gas station, he pulled into the parking lot and shifted into park.
Maybe it was time to admit he needed help.
He grabbed his cell phone from the center console in the dash and punched in LeRoy’s number. It wouldn’t hurt to hear the man’s job offer again.
“Bob! It’s good to hear from you!”
Bob’s throat tightened at his friend’s warm tone. “It’s good to talk to you too.” He gripped the steering wheel in front of him. “Have you found anyone for that position at Planting Hope yet?”
“I’m glad you called. No. We haven’t found anyone yet. Any chance you’re reconsidering?”
Suddenly Bob couldn’t hold back any longer. The words he’d thought about telling Marilyn were spilling out of him. “I don’t think I can cut it as a pastor anymore.” He outlined all the mistakes he’d been making in the pulpit, his general indifference to people and their problems.
An indifference he was now realizing was just burnout in a mask.
Outside, the sky roiled with storm clouds. Bob flipped the car’s heater back on. “I just want to give it all up, but then what will I do? This job is all I know.”
He listened to the thrum of the engine for a moment, waiting for LeRoy’s judgment. His condemnation.
“Sounds pretty normal to me.”
Wait. What?
His friend’s concern resonated over the line. “All pastors have rough patches. Every single one. Pastors are people too, you know.” He gave a slight chuckle. “I think what you’re going through is not unusual. I’m glad you’re at least admitting it.”
Bob blew out a long breath. “So you don’t think I’m crazy?”
“Not crazy. Human.” The sound of pages flipping came across the line. “I know you don’t need a Bible bullet just now, but something you said reminded me of these verses in Psalm 94. ‘If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence. When I thought, “My foot slips,” Your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up. When the cares of my heart are many, Your consolations cheer my soul.’” LeRoy paused. When he spoke again, his words were arrows. “You need the Lord’s consolation right now. When was the last time someone told you that God loves you?”